What is Vanzig Studios Music Promotion?
Vanzig Studios is a free music promotion site focusing on the punk, rock & metal genres, but open to any music we dig. We are a small boutique music promotion collective focused on giving artists, labels & music industry professionals a platform to promote their expertise & creative projects.
We are extremely interested in how musicians and music industry professionals are navigating the current music business landscape. We want up and coming musicians as well as established artists to be able to open up dialogue to help disseminate information & inspire each other to reach their ultimate potential.
Please feel free to contact us if you are interested in collaborating.
How Does Vanzig Studios Promote?
Vanzig Studios music promotion currently utilizes various social media outlets such as Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. YouTube will be added the near future. In addition, Vanzig Studios hosts a podcast using Anchor , which distributes to all major podcast platforms. Vanzig Studios also maintains a website music blog, which houses all content found on all platforms.
“One of our go to ways to promote & fine tune our chops while on tour with Midnight Mob was to play acoustic at open mics on off nights. We rewrote all of our music in different tunings & voicings to make a killer acoustic impression. Invaluable songwriting practice!”
-Mickey Squeeze
How Does Vanzig Studios Use Social Media?
Social Media is a dark hand that always finds your shoulder to convince you to come back to the party where it’s warm and the booze is cold. After much discussion and research we decided to focus on specific platforms for maximum music promotion.
Time is at a premium these days and we decided to thoroughly review the most popular social media features and made decisions on how to efficiently leverage certain platforms. We decided on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest in addition, to our podcast & website music blog which leverages google SEO.
As social media progresses and rolls out new features Vanzig Studios will evolve but as of now in 2022 our music promotion recipe is the following. The website will host all content. Since Twitter is such a fast paced platform it will be geared towards singles more or less as they are released with very much a wild west style approach. Positive as well as negative reviews will be shared. Twitter will also be used as a notification platform alerting those in the Twitter space of new music promotion content.
Pinterest will be attempted since the culture on Pinterest is research by clicking links to ultimately decide whether to purchase or continue to follow something. The average Pinterest user is interested in going off platform if the content peaks their interest. The Pinterest platform will only post content we speak positively of since the average Pinterest user shy’s away from negative content, but each pin will be linked back to the website.
YouTube is a massive search engine with endless potential. The majority of our videos will most likely be tutorials for artists & entrepreneurs, but I would like to do band merchandise reviews, gear reviews as well as sit down in person conversations with artists. I would also really like to do some live acoustic performances out of our studio or out of the back of the Vanzig.
Podcasts hardcore came onto my radar in 2017. Midnight Mob has done podcast interviews prior to 2017, but we never really understood what a podcast music promotion was. Even though our knowledge was limited I actually attempted to launch a Midnight Mob podcast back in 2014 and went as far as recording an intro with my bandmates. My idea was to release episodes when we were touring, working in the studio, talk about new gear, talk about stuff we learned etc…., but I never took the next step.
I wanted to do music promotion for us and other bands we were sharing the stage with. In 2017 I revisited my initial idea with original Midnight Mob rhythm guitarist, Spydyr, but Spydyr was feeling it and bounced after recording a number of unreleased episodes.
In 2018 I started publishing episodes with Carly from a slightly different angle because we weren’t touring and not putting out new material. So the focus was purely placed on other bands and artists. At the time I was finding so much music through Spotify and ReverbNation as a curator. I wanted to use the podcast as a means promoting all of the music I didn’t know existed.
Everything took a massive backseat when I had my twin boys, Sebastian & Julian, June 2019. I tried doing both but ultimately for my sanity I chose to focus on my double dragons and my own health. Furthering the podcast took a further hit thanks to covid mania, divorce and selling my house.
My home life escalated into insanity raising 1 year olds, working from home and going through a massive unexpected home renovation, which required partially living out of a hotel, boxes and maxing out credit cards. This period was from July 2020 – February 2021. During this period I also lost the ReverbNation curation gig because everyone was cutting back spending and all of the music festivals were shut down.
So basically from the end of 2019 through the first quarter of 2021 the focus was placed on writing with Misfit Saints. Vanzig Studios and artist music promotion sat in the background. Throughout this period there were many times I considered closing up shop, but instead I kept at it with what little fire was left. There was just enough in me to keep it alive.
What brought Vanzig Studios back to life was the first phone call interview/conversation, which happened to be with Amie Jo Bishop. I have been wanting to do interview/conversations, but never pulled the trigger. I did a bunch of research on how to record a phone call and tested platforms out but never took the plunge.
The call with Amie went really well and that gave me the balls to do more. I got another confidence booster with my first international phone call. This call was with self made punk rock icon & founder of Voodoo Rhythm Records, Reverend Beat-Man and the call came with a 7 hour time zone difference to account for.
Not only did the phone call technically go really well, but I felt a lot of similarities with Beat-Man and his story encouraged me to keep pushing on pursuing the music promotion unicorn. Also these initial phone calls gave me that organic camaraderie vibe you get when touring and talking to everyone. It is why I love touring and it is what I wanted to promote with this music promotion podcast. Beat-Man also shedded some light on Bandcamp, which is a platform that I used but definitely not to its potential.
During the end of 2021 into 2022 I had scheduled out and performed multiple phone call interviews. In February I posted the call with Nick Lee, guitarist of Moon Tooth. Shortly after this posting I had long talk with Carly regarding how bands should be setup on the internet. This conversation was recorded to be released as an episode but I had an epiphany that contradicted everything I said in the conversation, which led me to completely revamp Vanzig Studios and our approach to music promotion.
The podcast was initially hosted on Podbean for an annual fee, but in 2021 I switched over to Anchor to take advantage of free podcast hosting and access to the Spotify to include licensed music in episodes. I tested releasing episodes only on Spotify since it is a music podcast and assumed the audience would be on Spotify. I couldn’t have been more wrong with this assumption and listens plummeted, which sucks for our growth and exposure for those we talk too.
During April 2022 I began completely revamping the website with focus on SEO and began pulling down Anchor episodes to be re released on all platforms. Also going through this overhaul it became very clear I have to use multiple platforms for maximum music promotion. The podcast going forward will be 99% conversation/interview content with artists, other music professionals and those where music really changed the course of their life. Previously Carly and I did episodes reviewing albums and bands but I am going to leave that to the written blog.
There are so many ideas brewing over here to be covered by the Vanzig Studios music promotion umbrella and there is nothing worse than forgetting an idea you wanted to revisit at a later time. I have tried so many different apps in order to organize my thoughts, tasks and focus . It is impossible to finish anything if there isn’t a schedule holding you accountable.
I recently stumbled across the Notion App and I have no idea how I never discovered this. Notion is the ultimate, digital notebook, digital filing cabinet and digital office tool. Basically take everything in an office and organize it digitally in this simple free clean app. You can organize text, audio & video and basically every format known to man on mobile and desktop.
I think it’s time this Summer 2022 to finally rip the band-aid off half healed and just go for it. Little by little I will be tending to old content and posting new content.