6 things to do after you sign with Symphonic (or any other music distributor)

Randi Zimmerman of Symphonic shares a checklist that the indie music distributor has created for new clients that can serve as a roadmap for any artist using almost any distributor.

Guest post by Randi Zimmerman from the Symphonic Blog

When you put music out, you want it to be shared with as many listeners as possible. Not only that, you want them to care. When you sign up music distribution with Symphonic, we go to work to make sure your releases make the biggest impact possible. Want to make the most of your efforts? Here are 6 things you can do to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible.

Claim & Update Your Artist Profiles

Clear visuals and updated artist profiles are crucial in creating and maintaining your artist image. In the digital age, branding is everything. It’s important to keep all of your platforms up-to-date. To help you out, we wrote an entire article explaining how to claim and update your artist profiles on all the major platforms here.

Sign Up For Lyric Distribution

Symphonic has three methods and partnerships for lyrics distribution and submission; Apple Music, Musixmatch, and LyricFind. With these partnerships, we’re able to streamline and expedite the submission process for faster turnarounds and less hassle. // Learn more about these partners and how to get started here.

Make Sure You’re Collecting Publishing Royalties with Publishing Administration

In order to receive your songwriter/publisher royalties around the world (a royalty separate from the distribution royalties you already receive through Symphonic) you would need to sign up with over 100 societies and notify dozens of digital service providers. This would cost you thousands of dollars in sign up fees and require you to fill out paper registration forms for each entity (often in different languages) on your own.

With our service and partnership with Songtrust, you pay a one-time $100 signup fee, we will retain 15% of the royalties earned, but other than that, no additional fees will be charged. Your songs are electronically registered with all societies and partners worldwide within two weeks.

You as a songwriter/artist should spend your time creating, not pushing paper. Let us do the dirty work, so you can focus on what really matters: making great music. // Click here to learn more about Pub Admin with Symphonic.

Sign Up for YouTube’s Content ID

YouTube’s Content ID is a digital fingerprinting system that content creators (like record labels and artists) can use to easily identify and manage their copyrighted content on YouTube.

• If you’re a Symphonic client, all you have to do it upload your music to us and we’ll go ahead and upload it to YouTube’s Content ID system.
• When that happens, any song that is uploaded is compared against audio and video files that have been uploaded by many users all over the world.
• If a match is found, we will, by default, monetize that video that has been matched and claimed thus bringing you more royalties and ensuring that your works aren’t being illegally shared and monetized by others.

Whether or not your music qualifies for YouTube’s ContentID is up to many different factors. Not sure if your music qualifies? // Check out “Does Your Music Qualify for YouTube’s ContentID?” to find out.

Register with SoundExchange

SoundExchange has paid out more than $7 BILLION in royalties to date. They are the sole organization designated by the U.S. Congress to collect and distribute digital performance royalties for sound recordings.

They’re the ones who collect these digital performance rights from non-interactive music streaming on internet sources like SiriusXM and Pandora. If you don’t want to miss out on this money, Symphonic can collect SoundExchange royalties on behalf of sound recording owners and/or rightsholders.

• To deliver your catalog to SoundExchange with Symphonic, please create a request to opt-in. We’ll do the rest.

Submit Marketing Drivers

The underlying forces that compel you to buy or pay for certain products and services are called marketing drivers. As an artist, these are the key details you want to be shared with DSP’s like Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, YouTube, Soundcloud, Pandora, etc. to help you stand out.

With these unique details, our team can help your music catch the attention of the tastemakers in the industry. The more details that you can provide, the better chance you’ve got of catching the eyes and ears of the people who can get you playlisted, featured, and more.

• As a Symphonic client, you’ll need to fill out our Marketing Drivers Submissions form. In addition, you can learn more about marketing drivers and the submission process here.

In Conclusion…

With Symphonic, you can distribute your music to the largest network in the world with 200+ stores and streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and many more.

Interested in joining the SymFam? // Click here to apply for Symphonic.