The following is an excerpt from my ebook “Indie Music Release Checklist.” Download the entire Indie Music Release Checklist ebook for free by clicking here and signing up for my email list.
PreSave Campaign?
When using Distrokid for your digital distributor, during the upload process you’ll be given the option to enable a PreSave period before your release date. If someone PreSaves your song or project, their email will be collected for you in Distrokid, they will automatically follow your Spotify, the music will be automatically saved to their library on release and they’ll be notified of the release. Sounds pretty great, right? Well, there are some disadvantages that may make you want to forgo the whole process.
While exciting at first, PreSave Campaigns have become ubiquitous and annoying to social media goers. You should probably still offer the link for your hardcore fans to offer extra support but making a big promo push behind it will likely turn casual listeners off. Also, people that do PreSave are now given the option of whether they’d like to share their email and follow now so it doesn’t net as many new followers as it did in the past. The risk of being annoying potentially isn’t worth the reward anymore.
Hyperfollow
Each uploaded release on Distrokid generates a Hyperfollow page, a custom landing page that has links to all the platforms your release is available on. If you opted in for PreOrders/PreSaves on your release upload, your Hyperfollow page will function as a hub for those and will switch to direct links to the release after it goes live. Hyperfollow is an awesome resource, creating one universal link you can share to fans and potential listeners no matter what platform they listen on. To access your Hyperfollow page, go to your Distrokid homepage of releases, click on a release, scroll down to the Hyperfollow gray heading and click visit. In the top right corner you’ll see a “Customize” button.
The page defaults with too many options to my eye, you probably want to limit the number of links shown. I make sure that Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, and Amazon display in that order followed by Bandcamp if you uploaded there as well. Any more than that is too cluttered. Be sure to add your social media links to the bottom. There’s a field to embed a YouTube video if you have a solid piece of video content to accompany the album links. I recommend disabling the audio preview. I don’t have evidence to back this up, but it’s my suspicion that being able to hear a 30 second snippet will leave some people satisfied that they heard it without having to click through and actually stream it.
Download the entire Indie Music Release Checklist ebook for free by clicking here and signing up for my email list.
Drew Mantia
Feel Good Music Recordings
3146264270
feelgoodmusicrecordings@gmail.com