Sometimes songs by an unknown songwriter go viral, such as “Rich Men North of Richmond” about a working class man struggling to get by while rich enjoy their elite moneyed life. And now, another song is going viral: “I’m a Country Man in a Digital Age” which is about a man who wishes for a return to a simpler way of life where people were easy to meet and call. But now he feels the world is moving too fast, and there’s so much hatred and conflict.
He describes how the world is full of smart gadgets, such as phones and robots that can talk, and he worries about a future where AI’s all the rage, but it’s taking away the human touch.
The song has already gotten nearly 3000 views and over 100 likes in a few days without any promotion, just people sharing it with others.You can listen to it on Youtube at Changemakers Music.
After this song took off, I wondered what makes a song go viral and did some research to help anyone who has a song or idea for a song can create a viral hit.
Here are some suggestions I found online:
- Write something that everyone is talking about in the news or social media.
- Get your song recorded, mixed, and master so it sounds really good. If you can do it yourself, great. If not, find a professional singer, musician, or recording studio that can produce a great song.
- Look for artists who are creating music similar to yours and learn who are their fans, so you can appeal to that same audience.
- If you can, tell your story and what led you to write this song to individuals doing podcasts or creating other media contact.
- Reach out to influencers in the social media, such as on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms.
- Don’t be concerned about making money; focus on gaining popularity on various social media platofrms to create a fan base before you try making money from your song.
- Randomly reward your fans by connecting with them and randomy giving out rewards, such as with a personal email, a free digital copy, or set up a meet and greet with a few fans in the area.
- Collaborate with other artists, so you can share your songs with each other. Set up your social media account or website so it mentions whenever you collaborate with another artist.
- Use Instagram Live or TikTok so you can candidly connect with your followers, and since the video is live, you can talk back and forth to them in real time. You can also use this connection to promote any new songs or albums you have created.
- Promote any new songs about 10-14 days before you release it to excite your fans and followers about what’s coming next.
- If you can, get your song on a playlist by Spotify or other major label. For example, create an Spotify for Artists Account at https://artists.spotify.com, and direct your fans and followers to go there. That will help build traffic, since Spotify uses data that indicate the number of times your song is played or the number of people listening todecide what songs go into its playlist. So you need to be active on Spotify to get your song on the list, though you need to submit your song for consideration about a week before you release it.
- You can contact people who have playlists, and ask them to add your song to their list.
- Create a professional-looking video to accompany your song. To do this, start with your audio track and then add a nice background. Create a good video heading with the name of the song, and then include details with a lot of keywords relating to your song in the description box.
- If you want to post your song on TikTok, notice what’s trending there, and post songs that are high energy, daneable and fun there.
Post notices about your song on other platforms.
So these are all these things you can do to make your song or music go viral.
And then there’s the song that goes viral on its own after you just post it on YouTube, and leave it up to a few followers to share the song on their own. In that case, the subject of the song, the story it tells, especially if it reflects a popular theme in the news, can help it gain traction, and then the magic of the internet world will spread it everywhere.
That’s what happened with my song I’m a Country Man in a Digital Age, which tells a story of a man who yearns for the days when people could call and see each other face-to-face. And he longs for a simpler life, “away from the world’s daily hatred and strife.”
I recorded the lyrics with my longtime collaborator John Covert, the leader of the Crystal Image Band, who wrote the music, sang, and recorded the song on Song Trader. Meanwhile, I created a cover image for the video, plus contact inforation, and posted it on my two YouTube Channels – Changemakers Music, which only has videos of songs, and Changemakers Publishing, which has all kinds of other videos, such as for AI art, and trailers of a series of mostly documentary films I developed and produced. Then, the song began taking off on its own.
Ironically, I wrote the song with a little input in the beginning from AI, which is what the whole song is against. I asked AI to write a song about a man longing for life in a simpler time before AI, and after I got three versions of the song from AI, each with a chorus, three verses, and a bridge, I wove these ideas together to create the song, and then after some feedback to make a few changes from a collaborator, I finalized the lyrics, and my collaborator produced the recording.
Besides writing songs about many popular topics, such as finding love, breaking up, and inspirational gospel songs, I’ve become especially interested in songs that provide a commentary on what everyday life is like today and what might be changed. In turn that reflects the same kind of approach I have used in writing many of my books and films today.
For example, through Changemakers Productions and Changemakers Publishing, I have written a series of books on scams which have been turned into documentaries. One is The Big Con, about a book-to-film scam with invented studio executives to get victims to pay more and more which turned into Conned: A True Story, and I Was Scammed and Scam Story, about dozens of scams and how to avoid them, which were turned into the film Con Artists Unveilled. Both the books, published by American Leadership Books, and the films are available on Amazon and Amazon Prime.
The documentaries feature interviews with victims, scammers, investigators, and lawyers who are part of this true crime world.