Musicians & Songwriters: What happens when your post goes ‘mini-viral’

Learn what happens when a piece of a musician or songwriter’s content goes viral – or in this case, mini-viral – and how to make the most of it now and in the future.

by Caleb J Murphy from Bandzoogle

I’m going to share what happens when a piece of your content goes viral, or in my case, mini-viral. I’ll talk about my experience and then share some lessons I learned that you can apply to your music career and promotion strategy.

What Is Mini-Viral?

Starting at the end of March 2023 and lasting for about six weeks, one of my Instagram Reels went mini-viral. As of this writing, it has over 173k views, over 18k likes, and nearly 90 comments. 

I say mini-viral because these numbers are small compared to some content that everyone agrees is viral – the videos with millions of views and likes. We’ve all seen artists go truly viral, forever having their music careers changed. They get a record deal, or they stay indie and keep all the money. 

And even though that didn’t happen to me, my mini-viral video still had a drastic impact on my career. Because my smaller numbers are not that small when you think about how many people saw and engaged with the post.

How This Mini-Viral Post Helped Me

Stats for the song featured in the video.

The video is kind of funny, which is why it went mini-viral. But the important thing is that my song was prominently featured. So it led to more awareness of me as a musician. 

Here are the good things that happened to my music career because of this exposure:

• The song got tens of thousands of streams in a matter of weeks
• I got about 1,000 new Instagram followers
• I got about 400 new Spotify followers in about two months
• The Spotify algorithm was triggered

I want to talk about that last point. All of this activity – the streams, saves, playlist adds, follows – helped trigger the Spotify algorithm. Spotify Radio not only pushed the song out, but it also started pushing out my other songs to people. And that led to more streams, saves, playlist adds, and follows. 

What I Learned From This Experience

With all that said, here are the big lessons I learned from this experience: 

1. Make Sure It’s Entertaining!

I’m going to make an obvious statement but then break it down: for a piece of content to do well, it has to be entertaining.

I see so many indie artists forgetting this fact. I sometimes lose sight of that truth too and I put out boring content!

If you’re going to post a performance video, you have to make it more interesting than just sitting in front of the camera playing your song. That is, unless your song is incredible and resonates with something in the zeitgeist that makes it take off.  

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It depends on your genre, so scroll through the top posts under hashtags related to the genre of music you make. Pay attention to what these videos have that yours do not. 

If you’re funny, write some jokes that naturally lead you into sharing your song. If you’re the artist who makes sad music, lean into it and pull on people’s heartstrings. 

You have to hook people with something unique that fits your vibe. Everyone is posting their music online. What will make you stand out?

2. Always Feature Your Music In The Video

If you’re trying to build a career from your music, you don’t want to go viral (or mini-viral) for something not related to your music. That’s attention for the wrong reasons, and it won’t lead to significant movement toward your music-related goals. So make sure your music is featured in your content. 

3. Keep Posting, Stay Consistent

You don’t know which piece of content will garner attention. There are so many factors, like the hook of the video, the section of the song you use in the video, what time you post the video, and so many others. 

Remember: music promotion for indie artists takes ongoing effort. Once you find something that works for you, just keep posting. Make share-worthy content, both as an artist, and as a creator. Stay consistent. At the very least, your music gets in front of new people with each post, even if it doesn’t go mini-viral.

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Caleb J. Murphy is a singer/songwriter whose music has been on NBC, ABC, and in hundreds of indie film projects. He also sends a twice-monthly email to indie musicians called 5 Things To Help You Keep Going.