{"id":1515,"date":"2021-03-12T15:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T14:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.haumeamagazine.com\/?p=1515"},"modified":"2022-03-21T16:28:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T15:28:49","slug":"submithub-groover-humanhuman-musosoup-a-guide-on-how-to-promote-your-music-by-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haumeamagazine.com\/en\/submithub-groover-humanhuman-musosoup-a-guide-on-how-to-promote-your-music-by-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"SubmitHub, Groover, HumanHuman, MusoSoup : a guide on how to promote your music by yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the wide world of music promotion, there are a lot of platforms to send your music through. SubmitHub, HumanHuman, Groover… they all allow artists to get in touch with music influencers for a small amount of money, and thus hope to obtain from them a playlist share, a radio placement, or a blog article to then attract a new audience or make their current one grow. They are reaching\u00a0more and more artists and new platforms emerge as well ; a<\/strong>mong these platforms, there is MusoSoup : an English platform that works a little bit differently from the three others mentioned above.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In order for you, as an artist, manager, publisher or label manager, to better understand what these platforms are, how they differ from one another and which ones to use to promote your music effectively, we have written this guide for you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Table of content :<\/strong><\/h4>\n
    \n
  1. Overview : what are the main platforms to self-promote your music on ?<\/a><\/span>\n
      \n
    1. SubmitHub<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
    2. Groover<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
    3. HumanHuman<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
    4. MusoSoup : an English platform that works differently from SubmitHub, HumanHuman and Groover.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
    5. But then, what do I choose ? SubmitHub, HumanHuman, Groover or MusoSoup ?<\/span><\/a>\n
        \n
      1. Press coverage : articles or playlist shares ?<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/li>\n
      2. Audience : is it local or international ?<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/li>\n
      3. Budget : how much can you spend on promotion ?<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/li>\n
      4. Planning : are you in a rush ? or are you taking your time instead ?<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n
        \n

        <\/a>Overview : what are the main platforms to self-promote your music on ?<\/h2>\n

        In order for you to better understand how to promote your music by yourself, here is an overview of three of the leading platforms that connect artists with music influencers.<\/p>\n

        \"SubmitHub<\/p>\n

        <\/a>SubmitHub<\/h3>\n

        SubmitHub is the undisputed leader of all the “self-promoting” platforms out there. It is certainly the one that brings together the most curators around the world, and it allows artists to get in touch with various influencers, ranging from independent Spotify playlists to magazines or radio stations. It has nearly 2,000 active curators on its platform, which can all be contacted by paying small amounts of money, an amount that varies from curator to curator depending on their popularity – the more popular they are, the more expensive they are.<\/p>\n

        Promotion campaigns are short on this platform : they only last 48 hours. The curators will send you a feedback during this short amount of time, and earn 50 cents each time they write a feedback, whether it is positive or negative. The main goal of this platform is that your feedback or coverage request does not remain unanswered. It is indeed easy for your support request to get lost in the dozens, if not hundreds of emails that are sent every day to these curators!<\/p>\n

        By setting up a campaign on SubmitHub, as on most platforms, you buy credits. Each influencer costs between 1 and 3 credits ; the price of a credit varies, because the more you buy at once, the less it costs you. Here is a little explanation below, taken from SubmitHub’s help section.<\/p>\n

        \n

        Credits are used to send your song to a blog. There are two types: standard and premium.<\/em><\/p>\n

        When you use a premium credit, your submission filters to the top of each outlet’s dashboard. The outlet that you send to then has to: <\/em>
        \n1) respond within 48 hours (96 hours for labels); <\/em>
        \n2) listen to at least 20 seconds; <\/em>
        \n3) approve the song, or provide a minimum of 10 words explaining why it wasn’t a good fit (for curators) or score the 3 elements selected (for influencers). If they don’t satisfy these requirements, you get your credit back to be used again. There’s also an option for “90 seconds of listening instead of feedback.”<\/em><\/p>\n

        Premium credits tend to have a higher approval rate because blogs are encouraged to spend time with the song, rather than making a split-second decision.<\/em><\/p>\n

        With standard credits, there are no such requirements: a blog can choose to provide feedback if they wish, but may instead make a quick decision and move onto the next song.<\/em><\/p>\n

        – source :\u00a0SubmitHub’s help section<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        As mentioned above, a free credit option exists on SubmitHub, a rather unpopular one, which is called “standard credits”. When signing up, you earn two standards credits every four hours, and you must use them when acquired if you want to get two new ones ; this is an unpopular option because not only does it take time to earn enough credits to run a campaign, but curators are more inclined to respond to premium solicitations, as most of them are on SubmitHub to earn some money to support their blog, magazine, radio or playlist.<\/p>\n

        You can buy between 5 and 100 credits at once on SubmitHub. 5 credits cost $6, 10 credits cost $10, and 100 credits cost $80. As the price of an influencer can vary drastically, it is recommended to buy between 70 and 100 credits to get significant media coverage.<\/p>\n

        \"Groover<\/p>\n

        <\/a>Groover<\/h3>\n

        Groover is more or less similar to SubmitHub ; it is the French version of the leading platform. While most of the curators on this platform are French, it is reaching international curators at lightning speed, welcoming new influencers from Italy, England, Canada, Brazil and more every day. If you are a French artist, you can easily reach local media and curators of playlists as well as some foreign media \/ curators through Groover.<\/p>\n

        The campaigns on this platform last 7 days and each influencer (with the exception of twenty of them, such as Electro Pos\u00e9 or Beware Magazine) can be contacted for only \u20ac2. Each feedback that has been provided allows the influencer to ear \u20ac1, whether the feedback is negative or positive. If no feedback is sent within those 7 days, artists get their 2\u20ac back and can thus contact someone else on the platform without spending more money.<\/p>\n

        Among the curators that have signed up on Groover, we there is a significant amount of “mentors”, labels, managers, publishing companies that are ready to help emerging artists who contact them for professional support. This way, while running your promotion campaign, you can contact a label you think is suitable to guide you creatively.<\/p>\n

        To get to know better what Groover is about, we recommend you to read Dorian Perron’s interview, who is the co-founder of Groover.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

        \"HumanHuman<\/p>\n

        <\/a>HumanHuman<\/h3>\n

        HumanHuman is certainly the lesser-known of the three platforms. However, it allows independent artists to reach curators from various countries ! Mainly based in the Uk and in the USA, HumanHuman gathers international curators that are all accessible for a slightly larger budget than Groover and SubmitHub. Indeed, each curator sets their own feedback price, ranging from 1 to 10\u20ac tops. Each artist then manually selects the curators they wish to contact, and launch their campaign after making this selection. If the curator that has been contacted has not provided feedback, 70% of the price initially paid goes back to the artist \u2013 the remaining 30% is kept by HumanHuman in order to run the platform correctly.<\/p>\n

        \"HumanHuman<\/p>\n

        \u2013 here’s how the influencers are displayed on HumanHuman. By clicking the “select” button, the curator is added\u00a0to your campaign order list.<\/i><\/p>\n

        Just like Groover, on HumanHuman, most curators are able to give professional advice to guide you through your music journey. So, in addition to asking for feedback and for covering your release, you are allowed 5 questions per curator ! Do you want advice on the mix of your music ? On your marketing campaign ? You can ask curators like Sidekick Music these questions, for example, and get feedback from professionals while asking for press coverage.<\/p>\n

        \n

        <\/a>MusoSoup : an English platform that works differently from SubmitHub, HumanHuman and even Groover.<\/h2>\n

        What is MusoSoup ?<\/h3>\n

        MusoSoup was created in March 2020. This fairly new English sharing platform works differently from Groover, SubmitHub and HumanHuman. Although it also allows you to reach several hundred curators in a few clicks… you do not select who you contact. In reality, you contact all of the influencers that have singed \u00a0for a fixed amount of \u00a320, or around $30, and the curators come to you if they are interested in your music !<\/p>\n

        \"MusoSoup<\/p>\n

        On the curator’s side, it looks like this. You access the artists’ submissions in a sort of music library that includes all the tracks that have been accepted on the platform \u2013 the admin team first listens to the song or album that the artist has submitted on MusoSoup before sending it, making every campaign on MusoSoup risk-free \u2013 that way, you don’t get very amateur artistic projects in your music suggestions. You can decide to listen to all the suggestions presented to you at your own pace, or you can apply filters (for example: electro pop, synth pop and indie pop if this is your editorial line) and listen only to those that fit your interests.<\/p>\n

        In order for each curator to have the time to listen to the various artistic campaigns that fall into their preferences filter, the campaigns on the platform last 45 days. That way, as an artist, you run your promotional campaign over time, and you give curators time to come back to you at their own pace, and when their publishing schedule allows it.<\/p>\n

        Curators, when they start a listening session, simply click on “save this submission” or on “i’m not interested”. Any saved suggestion can then be viewed at will… and especially at any time, even after the campaign has expired. This gives curators all the time they need to get back to the artists and really think about what kind of media coverage they want to offer the selected artist.<\/p>\n

        What can I get from a MusoSoup campaign ?<\/h3>\n

        Unlike SubmitHub, Groover and HumanHuman, MusoSoup is only a platform open to the media, whether you are a magazine, blog, radio or a YouTube channel for example. The MusoSoup curators are mainly British, Canadian and American ; MusoSoup is an ideal platform for English-speaking artists, or artists wishing to distribute their music beyond the borders of their country.<\/p>\n

        There are several options available to artists who wish to campaign on MusoSoup. The first one is to choose whether they just want to get “free shares”, which are usually Twitter mentions, Facebook shares, and Spotify playlist adds. In return, the curator can ask you to follow their playlist or their Facebook page, and they make sure to do the same on they side. MusoSoup is all about win-win deals both for artists and curators.<\/p>\n

        However, sometimes, a curator will make an “offer”. These offers correspond to various types of media coverage, ranging from a full review, a 10-question interview, or a feature in a global article including, for example, the “top 10” tracks of the week. It is also possible that the curator offers you to sponsor your post on social networks, through an Instagram advertisement that benefits you and them, so that way, by giving you visibility, they get some too !<\/p>\n

        These various media coverage formulas are generally offered (but not always) at the cost of a low financial compensation. If the costs rarely go beyond what HumanHuman can ask you to contact an influencer, if a lot of people (or not) come back to you and offer to pay them in return for an article, you have the choice :<\/p>\n