While physical media and mp3 sales are still a valid revenue stream for independent music artists, streaming has become the best — and easiest — way to get heard. Over 100 million music fans subscribe to services such as Spotify and Apple Music while hundreds of millions of others around the planet listen for free. That’s a huge audience to take advantage of, but it’s also easy to get lost in the shuffle.
Many artists have noticed that if they have thousands of streams as soon as they drop a new track on Spotify or the like, they get a little more attention. But getting those thousands of streams right off the bat is not always going to happen organically, so artists may be tempted to buy a few just to get things started. Bad idea.
While digital bots, click farms, and other cash-for-stream services may be initially enticing, the consequences can be dire. SoundCloud, Spotify, and other services take fake streams very seriously. If an artist is caught trying to game the system through automated, deceptive, fraudulent or other invalid means, they can risk having their entire catalog wiped off of the service, losing millions of potential fans in the process.
We here at theDIYteam want to make sure that doesn’t happen to any of the artists we work with. That is why we ask that if you are thinking about signing up with a marketing/promotion service that promises streams, you contact us first so that we can inform our distribution network and get their OK before moving forward. We do not want to put your music or our other artists at risk because of deceitful marketing practices.
Remember that while there are plenty of valid services aimed at marketing and promoting independent artists, ones that promise a specific number of streams are to be avoided, and if it sounds too good to be true, it’s not worth the risk.