How To Carry Out An Effective Apple Music & iTunes Promotion (UPDATED IN 2024)

The Internet has completely changed the way we conduct business. With one single move, you could go viral and completely surpass the targets you set out for yourself.

Drake’s album Scorpion, for instance, received over 170 million streams on Apple Music within the first 24 hours of being uploaded. We live in an age of high digital literacy, and digital platforms are a huge force to reckon with in every kind of business. The music business is no different. One of those digital forces every artist should leverage is streaming platforms.

With streaming platforms such as Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music boasting tens of millions of subscribers, you see why every successful artist is on these streaming platforms. There is money to be made here.

That’s the simple reason. Streaming platforms are huge earners in today’s music industry. One of the best streaming platforms to be on is Apple Music.

Apple Music subscriber count in 2024 has changed significantly. This year, the platform already reached 112 million subscribers, up from 50 million subscribers in 2019. 

This goes to tell you as an artist, that this is one of the streaming platforms that should be on top of the list for you. Still, how can you use the potential of this service? Keep reading to find out what you need to do to take advantage of the platform.

Buy Apple Music Plays

Understanding the difference between Apple Music and iTunes

At times, the difference between these two can be confusing, especially to beginners who want to enlist Apple services for their music promotion and distribution. Apple Music and iTunes are owned by the same company. Here is a breakdown.

Apple Music is a streaming service where users can find their favorite tracks, listen to and save them, and also access radio stations. Subscribers pay for unlimited access to the music catalog that is available to them. Also, there is an additional app called Apple Podcasts where users can access their favorite shows.

Currently, Apple Music offers a catalog with 70 million songs and is considered one of the most popular music streaming services. Streaming does not give the subscriber ownership of the song. Still, you can listen to Apple Music offline. If you purchase music via iTunes, it's saved in your library and becomes available in Apple Music. Such a sequence may confuse new listeners, but that's how it works with Apple products. iTunes is an online music store where fans buy songs. Unlike Apple Music, where users pay a monthly subscription fee to access the catalog of songs, iTunes is where you pay for every single track.

Apple Music is a streaming platform, while iTunes allows users to download songs. Apple Music has dozens of useful features, which you can find in this video.

You could ask, “I’m already on iTunes, so is it really necessary for me to be on Apple Music?” Absolutely. With Apple Music’s fast-paced growth rate, it is clear that music listeners are opting for music streams to download.

Reasons to Use Apple Music

With a variety of music streaming platforms in the market, it can be hard to decide which one to settle on if you want to use just one. What do you stand to gain if you settle on Apple Music? 

Here are a few reasons you should use Apple Music.

• Raw data/analytics
  

Apple Music for Artists makes it simple to monitor your music performance on the platform because it offers regularly updated data on your plays, radio spins, song purchases, and album purchases on your Apple Music for Artists dashboard.

With this information, you can intimately understand your audience. There is information on their location, ages, gender, and other characteristics. Such data gives you a clear picture of your audience demographics.

• Higher rates

Apple Music offers higher royalty payments compared to other players in the market. This platform offers higher rates than its close opponent, Spotify. This should be one of the reasons you sign up for this platform.

Learn How to Collect Royalties from Apple Music with the Guide from Artist Push.

• Audience size

Apple Music currently boasts of about 90 million active users 60 million of which are premium subscribers and those on free trials. With these kinds of numbers, you know beforehand the potential audience size at your disposal that you could cover.

Apple Music Promotion Tools

This streaming platform has a few music promotion tools that you can leverage to grow your audience. 

• Apple Music and iTunes services for artists

Having examined the differences and the reasons you should use Apple Music, let us now explore the services available for you as an artist on Apple Music and iTunes.

• Apple Music for Artists

Apple Music for artists is a platform developed by Apple to make it convenient for artists to track their progress across both Apple Music and iTunes.

The Apple Music for Artists dashboard displays information on radio spins, plays, songs, and album purchases. This makes it very simple for the artist to monitor the performance of their music because they have the necessary analytics. 

• Apple Music toolbox

Apple Music provides artists with an Apple Music toolbox that has a few tools that help them accomplish some tasks with ease, like creating links to their music that they can share on their Social media platforms and making it easy for their fans to access their music.

Another thing that you can do using the Apple Music toolbox is make widgets using the widget builder. You can also make some banner art using the banner builder. Still, using built-in tools may not be enough. In this case, consider using iTunes promotion. It's a location-oriented package that helps you effectively share your music across the selected area (USA, UK, etc.)

How to Grow Your Presence on Apple Music

• Create music playlists
  

Whereas it may take just one song to break you out as an artist, Apple Music boasts about 50 million tracks in its music catalog. While that is a good thing for users, it means that your music may not have a huge chance of being picked or placed in playlists. Apple Music is not like Spotify or any other streaming platform because it doesn't have third-party curators involved in the process. Their public playlists are made by the Apple editorial teams or other companies that work with Apple Music.

Competition to be on those playlists is stiff unless you personally know these Apple Music curators. As an artist, you have to do all that is in your power to tip the odds in your favor.

• Get your music on the platform
  

Getting listed may be all that is on your mind, but getting on those playlists wouldn’t happen if your music is not released. There has to be something to list. The first step, therefore, is to upload and release your music on the platform.

• Verify your profile
  

For authenticity reasons, the next step after you have gotten your music on the platform is to get verified. There are very many inauthentic people out there ready to claim what is yours for themselves. So, as much as it is a requirement by Apple Music that you get a verification badge, it’s a good thing for you. Go to iTunes Connect and claim your artist profile. It takes a few days to a week to get verified. Be patient.

• Build a following on Apple Music
  

It's time to get to work after uploading your music on the platform and getting verified. You need to have a substantial following to draw the Apple music curators to your page. Similar to Spotify promotion, you need to increase your follower count after investing in organic promotion because it’s the only way to keep growing.

Start with those who you know, your friends and family. Ask them to support your music on Apple Music. Use your social media platforms, too. You need a personal account on all major platforms (Instagram, TikTok, and maybe Facebook). Another way to promote your music on Apple Music is by supporting and following other musicians at your level. Pay compliments to their music and help them promote their music by giving them a shout-out or mention on your social media platforms. They will likely return the favor, and extending your follower count is a good option.

• Cooperate with a music promoter

As it was mentioned earlier, when it comes to playlists, there are no third party curators. You would have to have a close relationship with the Apple Music curators to get your music listed in the playlists.

Using a music promoter with close links to Apple significantly reduces the hustle. To do this, visit here and get started. You can get an Apple Music promo that suits you best.

• Keep uploading consistently

The more songs or albums you have on the platform, the more chances you have at being on the playlists. Don’t just stop at the first one. Don’t give your fans a chance to forget you. Keep your music profile alive by releasing music regularly.

However, when trying to stay alive, be careful not to compromise on the quality of your music. It is very tempting to put out substandard content to remain relevant.

To avoid this, craft a release schedule and adhere to it. Ensure you thoroughly check your music's quality before uploading to the Apple Music app.

• Cooperate with playlist curators
  

Reaching out to Apple music curators can greatly increase your chances of being listed in the playlists. Send emails to them and make sure it’s a good one. Don’t just send out a line asking them to list your song. Put some serious thought into it. Introduce yourself and build up a relationship with them.

Stop living in the past! Push your music on the best playlist!

• Promote your music via blogs
  

As a starting artist, blogs are a good place to start. You can always reach out to smaller blogs looking for content to post. The best thing about blogs is that there is a variety out there, and you can always find those that blog about your music style. Share your story with these blogs. They are a great way to reach out to new audiences, which you can convert to fans.

• Hire a publisher
  

If you have some coins to spare, you can hire a publicist. A good publicist knows their way around the press and radio DJs. They will help you plan and execute your promotional campaigns effectively.

Still, you should be very attentive at this point and ensure you get a legitimate publicist. Some individuals are waiting to trick beginners and leave them with zero funds, so months of Apple Music investments will be gone for nothing. Don't let that happen.

Contact other artists and get referrals if you are unsure about the people you meet. Build connections and ask for a publicist who may accept your offer. You will split the revenue, but your overall engagement will rise significantly, increasing the income and creating a better presence.

• Collaborations with other musicians

Music collaborations are another great way to establish yourself as a new artist. The right collaboration can promote your music and draw the playlist curators' attention to your page.

When choosing an artist to collaborate with, it's best to pick out an artist with the same genre of music as yours. By collaborating, you mutually expose each other to your respective fan bases and help each other increase your audience coverage. When picking out an artist to collaborate with, search for those who are familiar with your music taste.

How to Create an Apple Music Playlist

Making a playlist on iTunes is an integral part of your music promotion and can help you sell to up to hundreds of new users you couldn’t reach without creating a playlist. The iTunes publish option allows you to publish playlists that customers get to rate. A playlist with the highest ratings appears on the pages of the albums where the songs were drawn from.

There is a + sign in the bottom left corner of your iTunes window. Click on it. After this, go to your album in the iTunes store and select some of your songs. You don’t need so many of them—just one or two will be okay. You don’t want the playlist to be a copy of your album. Now, go through the iTunes store and drag more songs from different artists. Finally, review the playlist and publish it.

Take Advantage of Your Apple Music Playlist

When creating a playlist on Apple Music, there are a few things to consider to get the most out of that playlist.

Here are some crucial advantages of the Apple Music playlist.

• Choose songs from artists whose music styles are similar to yours. This will give the playlist some element of harmony.

• Include the songs within your level of popularity. Super famous songs get featured in lots and lots of playlists, and there is a very slim chance that such artists will feature you in their playlists.

With songs in your level of popularity, artists you feature might create playlists featuring you in return.

• Pick songs that can be easily downloaded as singles. This increases the chance of customers buying the entire playlist.

• Don’t overload the playlist. The temptation to include several of your songs is great, but don't over-commit.

You want to make the playlist as diverse as you can while keeping it within your niche.

• Use new releases. The probability that someone has not yet heard a newly released song is high. A new song has not yet been featured in many playlists, which makes new releases ideal in this case.

• Make as many playlists as possible. This is one of those scenarios in which more is good. Make as many playlists as you can featuring as many artists as possible to maximize your iTunes sales.

Here, you can find the top hits of Spotify in 2024 so far.

iTunes Promotion: Push Your Track on the Top 100 Chart

When it comes to being featured on the iTunes top 100 signs, you know there are a huge number of artists who have their eye on the list at any one time. Let that not discourage you.

Here are a few things you can do to increase your chances.

• Carefully strategize your release
  

You must strategize your music release to ensure that you release your music at a time that is most impactful for your music. The trick to doing this is releasing your music 5 to 6 weeks after uploading it on iTunes. This gives you the time to promote your music, increase pre-release sales and orders, and monitor and analyze the market. Also, to note, iTunes selects the artists to be featured in this list weeks before the placement.

• Use iTunes promotion services
  

Promoting your music on iTunes may be challenging, so you might consider getting assistance with that. Use these iTunes promotion services to maximize your sales.

• Quality recordings
  

You may not have a recording label, but let this not compromise the quality of your music. You might have the most amazing song, but if you get the recording wrong, people will not listen to it as they should.

• Create a buzz around your music
  

Plan and execute a promotional campaign for music. People may not buy your music not because it is not good enough but because they don’t know it exists. Use social media platforms and any other tool at your disposal to drum up support for your music. Get noisy, tell your story, and make sure people know what you are up to.

• Consider the competition
  

When it comes to releasing your music, try to pick a time when major artists and record labels are not releasing their music. This will reduce the shadow effect. It is not a guarantee that you will get this figured out, and realistically speaking, there will not be such an ideal time, but it is worth trying.

• Albums over singles
  

It is worth noting that as far as the Top 100 list is concerned, iTunes prioritizes albums over singles. This does not mean that singles are not equally as important.

Final Thoughts

When Apple Music and iTunes are some of the biggest platforms to be an artist in this digital era. That being said, it’s one of those things you have to do right if you are going to succeed.

Today, one song could make you viral or deal with zero impact, leaving you unrecognizable for a long time. It may not have happened for you yet, but not every artist got their big breaks when they were teenagers like Justin Biber.

Others, like Sia, took time to make their presence felt. You need to keep putting in the work and exploit every avenue at your disposal. With platforms like Apple Music, you don’t even have to have a recording label.