 What's up everybody, once again, it's Brandon Mann, Shawn, and I got a very special snippet for you guys from an upcoming interview with an artist by the name of Amir. And why this snippet is so special is because it answers the question that so many artists have asked me. One of the strategies we talk about often on this channel is how you can leverage cover songs. But it's not just a cover song strategy, it's how Amir used a combination of cover songs and original songs, a unique $5 a day Facebook strategy, and this troll kid to build a fan base of over 30,000 monthly listeners on Spotify is actually well above that I just can't remember the number. Check this out. So tell me more about, because one of the things that baffled me, I wouldn't say baffled, but what I loved because I didn't hear other artists talk about doing something like this and once again, just speak to consistency, was your $5 a day Facebook strategy. I did that in the early days. So I think when I spoke to you a year ago, I think that's when I was doing that. So I did that for about three months and I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to let it run. Like people like this song, I'm just going to just let it run and see what happens. And honestly, I kind of forgot about it and I just let it run in the background and then after three months, like I did build up when I looked back, I'm like, wow, it actually built me up a little bit of an audience and a fan base and people were checking as I was dropping those songs every Monday, my streams on Spotify were starting to slowly creep up. And then I dropped, I'll cover, sorry, a mashup I did of Tamiya song into you. Yeah, I remember that one. And I matched it with Russ's song, Wife You Up, and that one like really exploded, you know. Like that one just hit all the algorithms, it went crazy. And I think it's almost at half a million streams now on Spotify. Oh, that brings a question to my head. So that's essentially a remix cover. I've been asked before and this isn't really something I get into as far as some of the legality type things, but I've been asked when you put a cover on a platform like Spotify, what does that do for you? Like can you do that? Have you gotten any kind of strikes or anything like that? No, I haven't because, well, with DistroKid, the good thing is, and I would use DistroKid for any artist watching, they acquire the cover license for you, so you're covered. And keep in mind like there's two licenses, right? You have master recording and you have song and you have the copyright, which is the writing of the song. So I don't own the writing of the song, but I own my master, which is the version of the song that I created. So I'm allowed to use that and put it like I'm only getting master revenue. So Spotify also pays publishing royalties to the songwriters that wrote the song, right? So they would be getting the back-end royalties that way, which don't come to me because it's a cover. I didn't write the song, but I created that arrangement of it and I created that recording. So on both sides, like just a songwriter and everybody who's covering my song is like, I'm back. Oh, dude, there's tons of covers on Spotify, like there's artists who only have covers on Spotify. It says you just have to buy the license, right? You can do it through DistroKid and there's a company called Louder. You can do it through them. So Tunecore has their service too, where you can use it. I don't use Tunecore. The reason for me is not because they're not a good company, but because I release so much music that it was cost prohibited. Like I would have been paying what, $5,000 a year just to Tunecore and it just didn't make any sense. Gotcha. So just to hone in on that process a little bit when it comes to DistroKid and how they kind of obtain the rights for you. So you're saying once you submit a song, their algorithms pretty much picks up on the fact that it's a cover and they obtain it or do you submit and let them know that it's a cover? So when you choose the option, they ask you, DistroKid, is this a cover and then you click yes, it's a cover and then they ask you who the original songwriter is and sorry, who the original artist is and then they go and obtain the license for you. So I like that better because it's less work for me. Now I don't have to use a third party to go get a license. You can buy a license yourself. You can just go to louder.com and buy one and pay anything extra. They just handle the money. No, you do have to pay. So you have to pay, I think it's a dollar a month to have the cover license. So it can add up if you're going to keep it up there. It's not bad. It's 12 bucks a year. So for the service they're providing, like now you have peace of mind, right? You don't have to worry about getting a license and worrying about all that. I'd rather just pay the 12 bucks and not worry. For sure. Especially as an artist. I mean, primary. I'm already doing too much work, man. That's like one less thing for me to do, you know, need peace of mind as an artist. So yeah. All right. As you guys can see that consistency, first of all, foremost is what I want you guys to focus on. And when it comes to his $5 a day Facebook strategy, that's so much better than just doing one week, right? And just going really hard on some Facebook ads. He did $5 a day. That allows him to stay consistent. If you have to do $1 a day, it's something just worth trying out over time. Maybe you have to do $1 a day over 60 days or 90 days. Do whatever you can so you can at least collect the data over time within your budget. So you can get that information and learn how to make even more specific ads for yourself to utilize. But then of course a big part of his strategy, which is huge when it comes to the peace of mind that distro kid offered by making it so easy for him to leverage covers because we all know how to do YouTube covers, right? A lot of people can make that happen quickly. But when it comes to covers on Spotify, I always got a lot of questions about it and not necessarily know how to answer that question. And I didn't necessarily have time to figure it out or ask somebody. So not only is it dope that they make it super easy because a lot of artists need peace of mind. They don't have time to like focus on all this stuff when you're just trying to, you know, be an indie and grind your way up into a better situation. But it's also relatively inexpensive. If Amiri even mentioned that in his interview saying, you know, if he was using tunecore, it would have been cost prohibitive for his particular strategy. And with all that being said, a lot of people have been telling me for a minute, you're a brand man. You should do a podcast. You should do a podcast. And I'm strongly considering it in some form of fashion. And I decided that if it happens, it will definitely happen on distro kid. I actually already have an account and I'm filling my way through the system. And with all of the good things I've heard about it and knowing so many people who are using it, I felt comfortable to go ahead and get a discount code for you guys and offer it up to you all for 7% off your first year of membership with distro kid. Now, if you already have distro kid, great. Oh, well, I'm fine. I will actually love if you provide your commentary and experience with it in the description below. But if you're something you want to check out, then you can check it through the link in the description below to get that 7% off distro kid.com slash VIP slash brand, man. But other than that, as always, if you liked this video, go ahead and like and if you liked it, you might as well share it and if you're not subscribed, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe.