Once you’ve written, recorded, and produced your release or album, the next logistical step is to release your music to the public.
But to give it the best start in life, you need to get your release strategy right. Having a robust release schedule will allow you to prepare for the promotional aspect of your release.
In this article, we are going to look at the benefits of a throughout release strategy schedule and how you can utilise social media to further promote your release. If you’d like some immediate advice, get in touch on 0116 253 0203.
What is a release schedule?
At its core, a release schedule is the strategic plan that outlines the complete launch of new music or an album, from the pre-release promotions to the post-release marketing plan.
The anatomy of a release schedule
So let’s take a closer look at what a release schedule could look like,
Release day: typically, artists will release new music on a Friday, which is because it has become the industry standard with record labels and independent artists. This is also reflected in digital streaming platforms.
Platforms such as Spotify update their new music playlists on Fridays. Not only this, but data has suggested that releasing music on a Friday gives your music a better chance of making it into these playlists.
Pre-release promotions: As the name suggests this will take place before your music is released and can take many forms and media, including releasing small pieces of video or audio snippets, new release pre-save campaigns (allowing your audience to have your tracks saved to their libraries automatically on the release date), content creation, this could be in the form of cover artworks, social media visualizers for music videos.
This allows your audience to get a better idea of what the vibe of your new album or single is. Finally, you can undertake PR and playlist pitching, this is where you and your team will start reaching out to media outlets and DSPs, and influencers to further promote your upcoming releases.
Launch day: What are you doing on launch day to promote your release? Put together a plan of action for the day, detailing how you are going to tell your listeners about your release, and what you’re doing with the press to get more eyes on your music.
Post-release: Just because your music is now out in the world doesn’t mean your release schedule is done and finished. During the post-release period, you should consider continuing to promote your music; this could be through interviews, social media posts, and live performances.
These will help keep momentum up for your music. At this stage, you should look at your streaming data; this will help you to evaluate how audiences are engaging with your music and will help direct future campaigns.
Benefits of a robust release schedule
Now that we’ve spoken about what a release strategy is, and what the key elements are, it’s time to dive into how they will benefit you as an independent artist or band.
Builds anticipation
The key aspect of giving a new release the best chance of being successful is the anticipation of the release and the excitement it causes within the fans.
Getting your listeners excited about your new music helps to ensure you’ve got listeners from day one. How you build the excitement is ultimately up to you, but you need to ensure you don’t overdo it, as it can lead to audience fatigue.
But some of the methods you can use are sharing previews of music videos or stills from photoshoots or audio snippets, take Taylor Swift for example, in the lead up to The Life of a Showgirl she didn’t release any snippet of the music or music video previews, and instead leaned heavily on the physical albums themselves by sharing the track list and the associated images of the “showgirl”.
Even though the audience hadn’t heard a note, it gave a clear impression of what to expect from the album and the kind of sounds and aesthetics her listeners had to look forward to.
Alternatively, the band, Bring Me the Horizon, on the lead up to Post Human: Nex Gen, completely cleared their social media profiles and started posting visuals of E.V.E. (who features and carries the narrative of their live performances) and snippets of them performing live from a month before the album’s release. Their strategy focused on listeners sharing the performances across social media.
They also included a section on their tour where they played snippets from the new album and encouraged the audience to participate in the recording of one of the tracks. This helped to get listeners excited because the snippets heard were completely different from the previous music the band had released.
Whereas these were done on larger scales, they can be translated to different artists on different scales. You could, for example, you could share snippets of your music on social platforms and ask your audience to duet with your video or add their own verses.
You can also create countdown clocks on campaigns, which will help drive and build anticipation. Spotify allows artists to create countdown pages that include a pre-save link and a preview of the tracklist. But countdown pages aren’t limited to just DSPs; you can utilize them across social media, in particular on Instagram stories.
Maximises exposure and opportunities
As you’ve put together a robust release strategy, you’ve allowed yourself the time to plan and take on promotional activities, which, without the schedule, you may not have been able to. By taking on promotional activities, you will be able to increase your music exposure.
To make sure you’re getting the maximum amount of eyes on your music, start closer to home and have a look at your music stats, or if you don’t have any music out yet, do a little competitor research and identify when your audience is going to be the most receptive or active when listening to your music.
For example, if you’re putting together a bright, upbeat track, it may work better in the summer rather than in the winter. If this is the case, you could pitch your songs as songs of the summer. To help maximize your exposure, you can collaborate with influencers; this could take a pronged approach and benefit you in the pre-release and post-release elements.
For pre-release, you could give your music to music reviewers in return for an honest review of your album or single. You could also put together a release party and invite influencers who best suit your audience to help push your music to a wider audience.
Increased chance of charting
A thorough release strategy can help increase your music’s chance of charting and boost your initial streaming numbers. This is because you are creating and scheduling regular content that engages with your listeners, adding to the buzz of your new release.
Your content doesn’t always have to be ‘promotional’, you could post videos or images of the behind-the-scenes of creating particular tracks, dance videos (if you’ve released a dance track), special editions of the single or album, or any exclusive merch.
This will give your listeners a variety of content which won’t just be ‘salesy’ posts. Take Ashnikko, for example. Smoochies isn’t due to be released until October 17th (2025), but a lot of her Instagram grid and stores aren’t limited to just pushing pre-sales; it’s a mix of content, from music visualisers, mages from the album, and real-world photos (on the street, in taxis, shops, etc). But each image or video has been carefully curated to promote the album subtly without overwhelming her audience, and ultimately fatiguing them.
Increase chances for playlist placements.
With a release strategy, you are able to schedule when you want to undertake playlist pitching. Particularly if you’ve created a buzz around your tracks, they are more likely to be picked up by playlist curators at the major digital streaming platforms.
If you’d like to put your songs for playlist pitching, get in touch with our Artist and Label services team today here.
Adapt, grow, and evolve.
At the end of your release, you’re able to step back and look at the campaign as a whole. Take a look at the data you’ve collected from streaming platforms, social media posts, and look at how each element of your release strategy resonates with your audience.
You can use this data to help inform you on how you can improve your next release. You should also consider looking at the data throughout the ongoing campaign; this will allow you to adapt and evolve your release strategy to better resonate with your audience.
Start your music distribution and release strategy with Horus Music!
At Horus Music, our team of distribution and artist, and label services experts are on hand to help you become the next big thing! Make a free account here to get started! alternatively you can call us on 0116 253 0203.