The Songkick feature Tourbox enables you to display tour dates right in your Spotify account. This is a very popular feature indeed.
However, the corona pandemic forces all tour dates to cancel. Many musicians turned their attention to live-streaming. This way they can communicate with their fans and still play music.
Surely the most important thing for a musician. Well, besides writing great music, of course. It is logical to assume that many tried to add the live stream just like a traditional tour date to Songkick. And therefore the Tourbox feature for Spotify.
Here’s the kicker: Songkick requires a real concert venue for being able to add the tour date.
Of course, when you do a live stream your ‘concert venue’ is YouTube live, Instagram Live or Twitch, for example.
What is the Songkick Tourbox integration for Spotify originally there for?
Originally the Songkick Tourbox feature was created in order to distribute tour dates to various streaming platforms like Spotify or SoundCloud. However, also Facebook is getting it’s tour date data from Songkick.
This is crazy, Songkick is actually not a part of Spotify. In fact, Songkick is an independent company that works together with Spotify.
Why? The behaviour of people online has seen a huge shift. Folks that surf the web don’t like to leave a platform once they’re on it. For example, if you’re more the YouTube type of gal you wouldn’t necessarily switch over to IGTV to watch more video over there.
Likewise, if you are listening to music on Spotify you probably won’t quickly go over to Tidal to listen more tracks there.
People online are rather lazy, they don’t like switching around to much. Another important factor is that most people actually use those platforms on their mobile phones.
Once you are logged into Spotify, for example, most of the times you actually don’t log out anymore but just keep running the app.
Showing tour dates directly in Spotify gives the fan all the information they need without leaving the app!
Important to realise, by using the Songkick integration for Spotify you’re displaying the tour date informations right where people can see it.
What is more, they also can listen to your music straight away! That way you can kill to birds with one stone.
Songkick came out with an update in order to help musicians stuck in the corona pandemic
Want to know the best part? Songkick changed the rules with a recent update. Now, you can actually add your live stream dates!
This is brilliant, you can again make the most out of this feature for Spotify. Even if you can’t play live dated right now.
Making sure your live stream is being marketed to your fullest possibilities can give you the cut. This is crazy, every day thousands of musicians all over the world try to reach listeners with a live stream. However, if the digital noise just gets too loud, people might not recognise you.
Using the new update on the Songkick Tourbox feature can give you extra space to market your live stream.
How to can add a live stream to the Songkick Tourbox feature?
Songkick has created an extra site where you can fill in all necessary information.
Firstly they ask for your name and email address. Then, you’ll need to state your role with respect to the musician. Are you the manager, label employee or the musician herself?
Next, you need to type in the exact date and time of the live stream. Followed by the timezone your streaming from and the title of the event.
It could be a good idea to treat this like any ordinary concert. That means, do a proper flyer or poster and advertise it over Facebook events and more.
Also, run special event features over Patreon in order to give something extra to your supporters here.
Of course, you also need to state the exact URL where fans can reach the live stream. As well as the URL of the headlining artist. That means that you can have participating musicians or bands as long as you have one headliner.
Now, you only need to submit. And wait! It can take a couple of days for the data to show up on the Spotify profile.
We endeavour to list live stream submissions within 48 hours between Monday and Friday on your artist page. Once your live stream is up on your Songkick page, it should show on your Spotify page within 24-48 hours.
*source: Songkick
Make sure to add the dates in advance so they show up in time for your fans to recognise them.
The new update can really help you promote your live stream!
This is crazy, in nowadays internet environment, cutting through the noise can be a challenge. If you feel that you don’t have a big enough name to pull off an entire live stream set yourself you can collaborate with other musicians.
That way you could actually plan a little digital festival. As long as you make sure to really treat the live stream as a normal tour date.
Create a nice flyer or poster and make sure you collect photo footage for sharing over social media later. Likewise, make sure your tech is up for the challenge. Nobody likes a pixeled vision because the internet connection is bad.
With the new Songkick update it’s clear that even big player in streaming are trying to help musicians to master this tricky times!