Soft Launching Your Release

Credit: David LaChapelle

There's a growing trend of artists ‘soft launching’ upcoming music, and it's proved an effective way to help tracks develop their own fanbase and accompanying trends before they even hit DSPs.

We’ve spoken at length about the benefit of a strong teaser campaign - especially those that drive pre-saves. So you might be asking, ‘how does a soft launch differ from sharing a release teaser on platforms like Facebook or Instagram?’ Well, excellent question, reader of The Habit Weekly! When we’re referring to a release soft launch, we’re talking about those times when a song, or a section of a song is made available on platforms like Soundcloud, YouTube and even TikTok, before anywhere else, for the purposes of streaming or content creation.

Thanks to TikTok’s audio features, the platform holds a great deal of power when it comes to soft launching your release. When they have access to new music, in TikTok audio form, the platform’s users can help new songs establish a life of their own, in a world of their own, through trends, memes and more.

Doja Cat’s ‘Freak’ - which samples Paul Anka’s 1959 song, ‘Put Your Head on My Shoulder’ was uploaded exclusively to Soundcloud in 2018. In a year, it gained 4.2million plays and 152,000 likes. In May of 2020, the track was uploaded by a TikTok user, and the audio from their video went on to spawn various trends and challenges. The track’s viral status on TikTok helped contribute to the number of fans demanding that the track be released on other DSPs. Since its re-release on August 7th, 2021, ‘Freak’ has earned 111,467,000 plays on Spotify and received a limited run of vinyl, sold by Urban Outfitters.

Five years after the release of The Wombats’ song ‘Greek Tragedy’, a remix by Scandinavian producer Oliver Nelson picked up stacks of traction on TikTok last year. After the sound was uploaded and used by a TikTok user, a trend was developed where users showed off their makeup skills, alongside the lyric “You’re running late with half your make-up on”. By January 15th, ‘Greek Tragedy - Oliver Nelson TikTok Remix’ was released on Spotify, where it has 30 million streams and counting. Since then, Nelson has credited TikTok for opening new doors for his career.

While we can’t expect every track to be a viral hit before it hits DSPs, it is exciting to see the ways social media users engage with unreleased music. For some artists, it could be a great way to test the waters for their upcoming tunes, for others, it might be the key to their next big hit.

---

---

Related Articles

---