How To Craft The Best Apple Music Artist Profile
Tossing your completed music up on SoundCloud or Bandcamp is all well and good, but for many artists, it’s worth distributing it through platforms like Apple Music as well. In this piece we look at why you should have your material on Apple Music, and how to claim and cultivate your artist profile on the platform.
Guest post by Alex Lavoie of Landr
Putting your tracks online is always an exciting moment.
You’ve worked super hard on seeing your project through to the end and now it’s time to share it with the world.
Now that you have a finished product, how are you going to attract eyeballs and ears?
Throwing your tracks up on SoundCloud and Bandcamp is a good place to start, but it’s worth it to distribute your music on streaming platforms like Apple Music.
Apple Music can connect your tracks with new listeners, and it can also get you paid.
Apple Music can connect your tracks with new listeners, and it can also get you paid.
But, to get the most out of streaming platforms you need to have a plan to promote your music.
That’s why creating the best Apple Music for Artist profile that you possibly can is so important.
In this article, we’ll dive into the specific steps you need to follow to claim your Apple Music for Artists profile.
More importantly, we’ll look at some tactics you can use to promote your tracks.
Why should you put your tracks on Apple Music?
There’s a lot of reasons why you should put your tracks on Apple Music.
Having the opportunity to earn streaming revenue might be a motivator.
But, a big benefit is the platform’s ability to get your tracks in front of new audiences.
On Apple Music your music can find new listeners through several different paths:
- Searches for your artist name, tracks, albums, or lyrics
- Algorithm-based recommendations
- Curated playlists and the browse section
- Social recommendations (what your friends are listening to)
There’s really no shortage of ways for new fans to find your tracks on Apple Music!
But don’t upload your tracks to Apple Music and expect them to magically land in some playlist.
Often you need to have some kind of music promotion plan behind your release to get it on a playlist.
Often you need to have some kind of music promotion plan behind your release to get it on a playlist.
And even if your song ends up in a high traffic playlist, you still need to capture your listener’s attention.
There are plenty of ways to promote your track on and offline, but the best way to do that within the Apple Music platform is to claim your Apple Music for Artists profile.
How to claim your Apple Music for Artists Profile
Alright, have I convinced you that it’s important to have a plan in place for your Apple music tracks?
Now it’s time to claim your profile.
To claim your Apple Music for Artists profile just follow these 7 steps:
- Head to the Apple Music for Artists page
- Once you’re there click the sign up button at the bottom of the page.
- From there you’ll have to enter or create an Apple ID
- Click request access and search for your artist page or copy and paste your artist page into the search
- Choose your role in relation to the band
- Fill in the application fields with as much detail as you can, since this will make it easier to verify your relationship to the project
- Wait around one week to receive your verification
Good work! You’re on your way to becoming a digital music marketing guru!
Once you get access to your profile you’ll be able to do a few different things:
- Choose a custom profile picture
- See detailed statistics
- See how many times your music was Shazamed
Let’s dive into how these tools can be used to improve your reach on Apple Music.
Pick a profile picture that represents you
While Apple Music doesn’t offer as many customization options as Spotify for Artists, it at least allows you to pick a custom profile picture.
Since it’s the only visual part of your profile make sure to put some thought and effort into your artist picture.
You may want to the visuals you used in your electronic press kit or you might want to take on a unique aesthetic just for this platform.
Just make sure you use a profile picture that clearly shows yourself and artistically represents your music.
Understand your reach with detailed statistics
Apple Music might not give you many customization features, but it does provide a lot of incredibly useful data insights.
When you access your Apple Music for Artists profile you get several dashboards:
- Overall stream performance
- Important milestones
- Detailed trends for each song
- Most Shazamed songs
- Average daily listeners
- Playlist performance and discovery
- Geographical heat map
If numbers and graphs aren’t your thing don’t be intimidated, these dashboards are simple enough to check once in a while.
There’s quite a few insights you can get from your Apple Music dashboards.
There’s quite a few insights you can get from your Apple Music dashboards.
For example, if you are planning a tour you might want to see where your tracks get streamed the most. Chances are you have some fans who want to see you in those places!
What do Shazams mean?
If you don’t already know, Shazam is an app that can listen to a track and find its name, album, and artist.
It’s really useful for finding out what song the DJ is playing.
Keeping count of Shazams for your tracks can give you feedback about how often your music gets played in public places and whether your tracks spark curiosity in listeners.
Keeping count of Shazams for your tracks can give you feedback about how often your music gets played in public places and whether your tracks spark curiosity in listeners.
If a track gets Shazamed more often than others, something about it is catchy enough that people decide they absolutely need to get your track’s name when they hear it.
What are playlists saying about your listeners?
Many people love streaming services because they make excellent playlists that help the average listener find new music.
So, monitoring how your music is performing in playlists is valuable because it gives hints about what kinds of people listen to your music, and what tracks appeal best to a specific niche.
For example, if your tracks are getting streams from a Yoga and Mediation playlist, it means that your music appeals to mindful, yoga-practicing individuals.
Similarly, if your tracks are getting played on Apple Music’s Me+Bae, your music appeals to young couples.
Understanding what demographic you appeal to helps with planning tours, developing a live show, and writing future releases.
An Apple a Day
Look, I know you just want to focus on writing music and creating your sound.
That’s why you started making music in the first place.
Don’t waste your energy. Releasing your tracks into the world is a big step, so put some time and thought into how your album or single launch will look like.
Yes, streaming platforms have had their past controversies.
But no matter what, you won’t grow your audience or collect any royalties if your music isn’t getting played.
To build up momentum for the big release you need to put together a solid music promotion plan and claiming your Apple Music for Artists profile will help with that.
Alex Lavoie works as a Marketing Strategist at LANDR by day and moonlights as a drummer for folk-rock outfit The Painters.
