Offering exclusive content is an effective strategy to stand out to the media and their audiences. It also helps build your reputation by partnering with referral sites. There are several ways to take this approach, depending on your news and goals.

In this article, we share three concrete methods to offer exclusivity to media outlets.

1. Why exclusivity?

For the media outlet, exclusivity represents a good opportunity to attract the attention of their readers and a new audience. By having content that is not available anywhere else, the media outlet immediately stands out and gives readers a good reason to come and visit their website and other channels.

When managed rigorously, exclusivity turns into a win-win relationship for the artist and the media outlet. On the one hand, the artist enjoys extensive visibility, allowing them to reach a wider audience. On the other hand, the media outlet enriches its audience while expanding its content and attractiveness. 

2. Three ways to offer exclusivity to media outlets

2.1 Previews

Previews ares one of the best ways to deliver exclusive content. The principle: a media outlet shares your song or video clip a few days before its release. This means that the content will be available exclusively there, before being distributed on your channels and on streaming platforms.

To offer this type of partnership, it is important to target media outlets that appreciate your music, have a developed audience, and talk about your musical style. You can use the platform Groover to identify relevant targets that offer preview features.

Thanks to this exclusivity, you can benefit from a highlight on different media channels: websites, newsletters, social networks, YouTube channels… For this device to be a win-win, remember to clarify conditions such as:

• The duration of the exclusivity: how long is the content available? Generally, this duration varies between 1 week and a few days before release.
• The form of exclusivity: there can be different forms of preview: broadcast on the YouTube channel or SoundCloud account of the media outlet, an article that contains the song or music video, etc. Check what the media outlet can offer you and the size of its audience on those channels.
• Means of distribution: what promotional channels does the media offer you? Since you are offering an exclusive, it is legitimate to get a higher profile than other content.

Consider providing the journalist with information about your release (media kit, press release, visuals) to facilitate collaboration and ensure that they have access to everything necessary to create content around this exclusivity.

2.2 Interviews

As an artist, interviews are a great way to share your vision and connect with your audience through storytelling. You can explain the story around your project: how you started, your creation process, anecdotes… all elements that help humanize your project and make you stand out.

Collaborating with media outlets for interviews has several advantages: 

• Use their expertise to highlight your approach and ask you relevant questions to build a universe around your project. 
• Take advantage of their approach to highlight you in their own way, for example by shooting a video or podcast, creating visuals or offering an interview from an original angle.
• Be presented to their audience with in-depth content about your project. By appearing on a media outlet, you will be introduced to their audience and reach new potential fans.

An interview is a good opportunity to introduce yourself and gives you more space than social media content. To find media to offer an interview to, prioritize those with whom you already have a connection. To do this, you can use the following methods: 

• Social networks: Look first at the media that follows and responds to your posts. You can also find others, such as those that talk about artists in your genre.
• Online articles: If the media has already talked about you in articles, there is a good chance that they are interested in interviewing you. You can find these articles through a Google search or mentions of your accounts on social networks.
• Feedback on your titles: whether the media have talked about you or not, it is possible that they have given you feedback on your releases. The reporter may not have been able to talk about your title for a variety of reasons, but may be interested in an interview. Use the feedback received by message and via the Groover platform to identify them.

2.3 Contests

Who doesn’t love receiving gifts? Contests are extremely popular, especially on Instagram: they generate, on average, 3.5x more likes and 64x more comments than a traditional publication.

A contest makes it possible to generate visibility and has a significant viral effect. Most of the time, the requirements to participate include sharing on social networks, subscribing to the account, and mentioning friends in comments, which helps expose your content to a larger audience.

You could organize a contest yourself, but collaborating with a media outlet allows you to be visible to its audience and to rely on its experience for organization.

Before you get started, think about the prizes you are ready to give out, based on your news and the resources you have available. You don’t necessarily have to dedicate a large budget to it. Prize ideas include: 

• Signed Vinyl
• Concert tickets
• Merch (t-shirts, accessories, etc.)
• Live performance for the winner
• Meeting with you at a concert, recording session, or studio rehearsal
• Exclusive content: a preview video, access to a private community, demos of unfinished tracks…

There are a lot of possibilities, and you can be creative. If you don’t have physical products, bet on the human aspect with meetings to create links with your audience. You can also create content around these meetings (video, photo) for your social networks. 

When collaborating with a media outlet for a contest, remember to define the framework: in particular, describe the prize accurately, and ensure that the conditions of participation and draw are clear before the launch.

3. Best practices for negotiating exclusivity

As we have seen, focusing on exclusivity is a great way to boost your visibility, build relationships with media outlets, and reach their audiences. To get started, pay close attention to these points: 

• Think about your goal: Before you start, think about the result you would like to achieve: Is it to gain followers on social networks? Strengthening Relationships with Influential Media? To develop storytelling around your project? Answering these questions will allow you to choose the right exclusivity format.
• Define the duration of the exclusivity: It is essential to specify how long the content will remain exclusive on the media, without being broadcast elsewhere. 
• Agree on promotional resources: When you offer an exclusive, ask the media outlet what means of promotion it will put in place. This may include social networks, the site’s home page, the newsletter, etc. Also inform the media about the channels you will use to promote its content. Before starting, it is best to summarize everything in writing to avoid confusion.
• Being responsive: Setting up an exclusivity can take time: email exchanges, discussion of conditions, creation of content, visuals, etc. Ideally, start offering the exclusivity about a month before the start of your promotional campaign. Be reactive in your answers to secure exclusivity and move forward on collaboration.

By following these good practices, you can establish fruitful partnerships with the media and anticipate the topics to be covered in your exchanges with them.

Previews, interviews and contests are 3 ways to offer media exclusivity to boost your visibility while offering engaging content. If you want to test this approach for your next release, you can use the Groover music promotion platform to find media to contact.

– Translated by Kole Wright –

—

Send your music to media for guaranteed listens and feedback!

L’article How to Offer Exclusivity to Media Outlets est apparu en premier sur Groover Blog.

You may have noticed this recently, but sometimes a journalist or media outlet will offer to share your track, whether it’s in an article, a Spotify playlist or on their social networks. The days and weeks go by and you don’t hear from them and their promise… So you start to think that it’s never going to happen. However, maybe your track is already online on that blog you’ve been coveting without you even knowing it! To keep on top of things, there are some good practices to adopt.

Groover Dashboard

Indeed, when contact with a media is successful, a big step is taken- but you still have work to do! Here are a few tips to make sure you don’t miss any media benefits:

1. Don’t break contact once the media has confirmed that your song has been shared

It is important to understand that today all medias are flooded with e-mails and project proposals. If Groover facilitates the connection of artists with the media and other music industry professionals, you will still need to build an exchange with them in order to optimize and make your promotional campaigns profitable. So when a media outlet confirms that your track has been shared, don’t hesitate to reply by thanking them and asking them, if necessary, for some additional information (date of sharing, context if not specified, place of sharing…) Finally, make sure that the media has everything they need to do the sharing, from news about your project, to Youtube/Soundcloud/Spotify links, social networking links, future gig dates and so on.

See as well: HOW TO MANAGE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS AS MUSICIANS AND STAND OUT

Groover Profile

2. Regularly monitor the internet

In music promotion and media relations circles, we call ‘internet monitoring’ the act of regularly looking online for press coverage of a project. This is one of the press officer’s number 1 missions. If you are an aficionado of internet research, you may know the following tips.

To keep a good watch, it is important to use your Internet browser correctly. Also, a simple search with the name of your song or project will not be enough. Especially if they are called ‘Lemon’, ‘Puppy’ or ‘Cellular’. Browsers therefore offer advanced searches, depending on the language of the media (English, French?) as well as the date of publication of the article (less than 24 hours, less than a week, less than a month). Don’t hesitate to play with these tools and adjust your searches accordingly! Whether the title of your song or the name of your project includes one or several words, don’t hesitate to add quotation marks to your search. This will allow all the terms to be taken into account in the search.

Don’t hesitate to launch several searches in a row: one with the name of your project, one with the title of your piece, but also a search with all these keywords, in French, in English, etc. Finally, it is important to understand that in internet searches, not all sites are under the same banner and some may not automatically appear in the first pages. And even if it may seem tedious, don’t hesitate to explore all the pages of your search.

You can also go straight to the website, social networks, Youtube channel or Spotify playlist of the media in question and use the search engines on those pages! For example, you can easily search for Facebook publications by using the search engine and selecting the ‘Publications’ tab. Not only will you get to know the music media better, but you’ll also be able to better understand how they work and the different formats of articles that exist.

3. Recontact the medias (within reason)

If the promised date of sharing has passed, or several weeks have passed since they announced they would share your song, you can of course contact the media again while remaining polite, friendly and not too insistent. Once again, the media probably receives a lot of emails and engages with many artists to share their tracks and talk about their projects.

So you have to understand and accept that sometimes sharing can take a little time. But above all, avoid sending several emails per week to the same media. This will have the effect of antagonizing them and may jeopardize the sharing of your song! Don’t forget that today most online music journalists do this voluntarily and on their own time.

4. Compile your media coverage in a single document

Gathering all the publications that talk about your song/project into the same document is a very important step for the future! Collect all the URLs of the articles and take screenshots of the Spotify playlists, Youtube channels, articles, etc. that feature your song, then add them all to an Excel or Word file, for example. This will give you a ready-made communication tool to present your project to labels, touring companies and other potential future partners!

To get articles and playlist additions to share on your social networks, right this way 🚀

L’article A guide to internet monitoring and media relations follow-up for your music est apparu en premier sur Groover Blog.