Everything A Site Requires To Premiere A Song Or Video

Pitching songs to bloggers and other gatekeepers is hard enough on its own, and unfortunately its the just the first step. If you really want to make a splash with your latest release, it's important that you go by the following steps.

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Guest post by James Shotwell of Haulix

Successfully pitching song premieres is only the beginning. If you want your next release to make an impact you need to follow these steps.

Song premieres are a dime a dozen in the world of music blogs. Even the most sought-after music publications share multiple premieres a week, and most, if not all, go mostly unnoticed by the world at large. That is most often due to a lack of originality on the part of the site, as well as a lack of support from the artist/team behind the track before the premiere. Far too many artists send a link and a thank you message without giving the site or its writer anything substantial to work with when creating the article that supports the premiere, but today we’re going to help you make a change.

To have a song or video premiere make an impact on oversaturated music fans with short attention spans you will need more than the media you’re planning to release. Great premieres require great articles, and you can achieve that by providing sites with everything they need to tell not only the story of the thing you’re premiering, but the story of your career as well.

Before your next premiere, make sure you have these materials ready to share:

• Song or Video Embed (obviously)
• Artist bio (and album bio, when available)
• Multiple high-quality photos
• A quote about the thing you’re premiering and what it means to you or the story behind its creation.
• Production information about the thing you’re premiering. For songs, that means writing credits, studio information, producer credits, the release it hails from and its street date. For videos, the director and production company they hail from, as well as when and where it was filmed.
• Information related to everything else you’re currently promoting. If the song or video is part of a bigger album push, offer information about that record. If you have a tour, share the tour dates.
• Imagery to promote anything else you may be promoting (album, tour, etc.).
• An interview opportunity. Even if it’s for five minutes, offering the site hosting your premiere the chance to discuss the release with you can lead to great information being shared that you wouldn’t otherwise think to include.
• A list of relevant social links (Spotify, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). Be sure to express your preferred social network, if one exists.

When it comes to premiere, you often get out of them something equal to the work put into their creation. If you do the bare minimum you cannot expect to reap huge returns. Music is your passion, and you want people to understand that as clearly and as quickly as possible. Most will only look at a headline for your premiere for a second or less. Make the most of that limited time by doing whatever you can to ensure the content around your premiere is as high-quality as the thing you’re releasing.

James Shotwell is the Director of Customer Engagement at Haulix and host of the company's podcast, Inside Music. He is also a public speaker known for promoting careers in the entertainment industry, as well as an entertainment journalist with over a decade of experience. His bylines include Rolling Stone, Alternative Press, Substream Magazine, Nu Sound, and Under The Gun Review, among other popular outlets.