For up-and-coming artists trying to build their audience from scratch, here are some common challenges they face:
Is there a quick fix for these self-promotion problems? Yes, and here's what it looks like:
That's pretty much everything you need to know briefly about self-promoting as a musician right smack dab in the middle of the brand-new Roaring Twenties. Oh wait! You wanna understand why exactly these points hold water? Then let's dive deeper into the details.
In 2025, social networks are used by 5.24 billion people—that's nearly 64% of Earth's population. If a new artist wants to find their initial fanbase, building it online via social media is essential. Are video platforms like YouTube and TikTok considered social networks? In this context, absolutely yes. Moreover, they've developed so many social features that, on one hand, they act sort of like "new TV," but look closer—they're full-fledged social networks in their own right.
By 2025, it became evident that the internet had overtaken traditional television in terms of audience size—by almost a quarter of a billion users. When asked, "Why do you use the internet?" respondents ranked watching videos, TV shows, and movies fourth among reasons (cited by 54.7% of participants, note that percentages aren't cumulative since multiple answers were allowed).
Social interaction has now become the primary reason for going online among internet users aged 16–34.
So, process these newly learned facts in your mind: social network audiences are massive, people desire human connections (and these individuals often fall into age groups most interested in music), and requests for watching videos and listening to music online rank highly in popularity.
Reflect on this: according to recent GlobalWebIndex (GWI) studies, adult internet users currently spend an average of 6 hours and 38 minutes online daily. A significant portion of this time is spent on YouTube, which also leads in monthly active user numbers.
Here’s the ranking of leading platforms based on the amount of time people spend on them:
However, TikTok does not make it into the top ten list when ranked purely by total user count.
You may have heard the popular opinion that Facebook is past its prime and is now a "boomer platform." That notion is wrong. Among the world's most visited websites, Facebook ranks third after search engine Google and YouTube. Meanwhile, Instagram, owned by the same company Meta, takes fourth place.
For instance, social media ads serve as the main source of brand awareness among internet users aged 16 to 34 years old.
Today, digital channels account for 72.7 percent of global advertising investments, whereas before the COVID-19 pandemic, back in 2018, brands allocated less than half of their advertising budgets to digital.
Given the above insights, it becomes clear which online platforms offer beginning artists quantitatively greater chances of getting noticed.
And thanks go to the detailed document titled Digital 2025: Global Overview Report, prepared by consulting firm Kepios in collaboration with We Are Social and Meltwater, drawing upon analysis of a nightmarishly large volume of data from various analytical services.
Additionally, YouTube boasts the largest worldwide audience for social media advertising: the platform's overall potential reach spans up to 2.53 billion people. Oh, and by the way, people spend nearly twice as much time watching videos published on YouTube compared to those posted on its closest competitor—TikTok.
Interestingly, as of February 2025, the top 10 most-watched videos in YouTube history consist entirely of children's nursery rhymes and adult music videos. Music rules supreme! (But take that literally only figuratively.)
To be fair, TikTok continues to grow rapidly and occasionally delivers staggering viewership figures for viral videos. However, among the platform's most popular hashtags throughout its history, #music ranks 38th, although it has accumulated an impressive 1.42 trillion views.
Returning to the complex question—"What content should a musical artist publish?"—every single analytics report worldwide agrees that mass audiences overwhelmingly favor video over text. Additionally, people gravitate toward "quick videos" formatted vertically for smartphones. Whether this preference stems from being nudged by social and video platforms or represents a natural phenomenon remains unclear. Ultimately, however, that's beside the point. What's crucial is understanding that, for now, short vertical videos dominate all other formats.
But what exactly should you film and publish? You'll find no solid research to firmly rely on here—neither scientific nor commercial. However, scattered fragments of data can be unearthed across the sites of consultancy firms and analytics agencies.
For example, Wavo—a global leader in data analytics and marketing—shares two pivotal insights:
This observation aligns with both marketers focused on the music business and cultural experts studying the digital era: celebrities who shine aloofly from afar, living isolated elite lifestyles, unavailable for communication, and presenting glamorous yet unrealistic images, are no longer as appealing to people as they once were.
Over the last couple of decades, social media has fostered a universal custom: broadcasting substantial parts of one's life online. This is something that social media users expect from others, themselves, and naturally, now they expect it from musicians too.
Don't think that people's interest revolves solely around what musicians eat, wear casually, play games, relationships, or pet ownership. They are genuinely curious about anything related to you—your feelings beyond music-related topics, your thoughts on diverse aspects of life, the struggles you encounter in your artistry or perhaps organizing your daily routine.
It seems that the public expects to receive from a musical artist a personal, sometimes intimate voice and perspective on matters. Furthermore, they want to feel—as illusory as it might be—that engaging with the artist in comments or, dare I say, direct messages is possible.
Many modern indie artists, especially beginners, indeed engage directly: responding to comments and occasionally in private messages. Over time, this practice creates around them a small but dedicated and cohesive community of so-called "superfans." That's definitely something worth striving for.
Humanity, imperfection, sincerity, spontaneity, humor, willingness to discuss failures and regrets—all these traits are expected from you. Yet, the audience can also appreciate seemingly mundane updates—without deep soul-baring or excessive privacy invasion. For example:
We’ve given examples of music-production-related topics that an abstract artist could cover in short videos. These would come across as livelier and more relatable than generic behind-the-scenes band footage. But what about non-music-related themes? Those are precisely what your existing and future followers anticipate. They want to know who you really are.
Each of us is unique in our own ways. Sometimes contradictory traits combine fascinatingly within us. Occasionally, we're deeply knowledgeable in narrow fields, possessing truly expert-level expertise. At the same time, we might be terrible cooks and passionately enjoy low-grade soap operas. Or maybe we believe music saves the world, yet advocate banning banjos and street performances by law.
You're free to share knowledge, achievements, failures, feelings, opinions, and preferences in any area of life on social media. After all, you're doing it on YOUR OWN profile, and anyone who doesn't like it can always follow Ed Sheeran—like another hundred billion people.
There is no foolproof, universally successful content plan for a musical artist. There are also no guaranteed methods to ensure virality for your posts. If certain marketers claim they've discovered the magic formula for creating irresistible headlines and video subjects, they're either unwittingly—or deliberately—misleading you. Those who achieved viral success for a few posts in their career usually commit what scientists call the "survivorship bias."
As the saying goes, whatever happened to the millions of other vertical videos with identical titles and topics?
Artists shouldn't chase virality in their content marketing efforts—it's unpredictable, regardless of what anyone claims, and measurable only retrospectively. Content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. It demands consistent posting over extended periods. Seeing initial results after a year is already good news! Better prepare yourself for spending 2-3 years growing your core audience.
Aim to release a new track roughly every 1–1½ months. Create short teasers both before and after the release, and produce visualizers for the whole song. Try shooting music videos for every third track, though this can be quite challenging. Let your videos embody a DIY spirit, ensuring each contains some hook—be it visual, scripted, costume-based, etc.
Post two short vertical videos per week: one on general human interest topics, the other on music-related ones. If you have material from behind-the-scenes sessions, share it. Publish snippets of home acoustic renditions of your songs. Discuss chord progressions in harmonies listeners found intriguing.
Feel capable of posting more frequently? Go ahead! Just avoid falling into burnout traps. Strong willpower is admirable, but forcing yourself to constantly generate and upload copious amounts of content risks quickly losing enthusiasm—or worse, developing a dislike for your mini-content marketing endeavor. Everything in moderation—clichéd advice, but effective nonetheless.
Self-promotion for aspiring artists amidst the saturated music market is difficult and lengthy. Still, your voice might rise above the chorus of others if you're persistent and imaginative. Above all, stop holding back—open your mouth and let the world hear you. Because if you don’t show yourself to the world, the world won’t notice you.
You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be present, consistent, and open to growth. So pick up your phone, share a piece of your world — and let your audience find you.