June 10, 2025 • 11 mins
Struggling to promote your music on social media without burning out? You’re not alone. In this episode, Marc Matthews introduces his 30-day music release promotion calendar for indie musicians, a practical tool designed to eliminate guesswork, boost engagement, and help you post purposefully.
You’ll learn what a social media content calendar for musicians is, how a content calendar can improve music promotion, and what tools can help musicians plan and schedule social media content. Marc breaks down how to schedule content types (like teasers, throwbacks, or studio clips), choose the right platforms, and, most importantly, track engagement metrics for your music posts.
Marc also shares lessons from my campaigns, how tracking content performance helped his “Half-Life” release outperform “4-Minute Warning” with fewer posts and how to analyse the performance of your music releases online to get better results every time.
This episode answers key questions like how to measure the success of your music marketing campaigns and how to track social media engagement for music releases, all while reducing burnout from social media as a music creator.
Tune in and grab your free download of the calendar. Let’s make your next release smarter, not harder.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Grab your FREE 30-Day Social Media Calendar
Ways to connect with Marc:
Radio-ready mixes start here - get the FREE weekly tips
Grab exclusive access to BONUS content
Book your FREE 20 Minute Discovery Call
Follow Marc's Socials:
Instagram | YouTube | Synth Music Mastering
Thanks for listening!!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marc Matthews (00:00):
Stick around, because I'm giving away the
exact 30-day content releasecalendar scheduler, if you will.
That I use for my releases andit's built specifically for
producers and artists like you.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast with your host,
mark Matthews.
Welcome to Inside the Mix, yourgo-to podcast for music
(00:21):
creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials and insightsto help you level up your music
and smash it in the musicindustry.
Let's dive in.
Hey folks, welcome to Insidethe Mix.
If you are the type of produceror artist that posts on social
(00:44):
media just a ticker box, thisepisode is for you.
Stick around, because I'mgiving away the exact 30-day
content release calendarscheduler, if you will.
That I use for my releases andit's built specifically for
producers and artists like you.
Now, I'm not a social mediaexpert by any stretch, but the
reason I built, or rathercreated, this content release
(01:06):
Canada is because I washaphazardly posting and I was
posting just because I felt itwhen it was all last minute and
I wasn't really getting anywherewith it.
I wasn't getting any engagementand it was just a bit shit, to
be honest, and it became more ofa pain in the ass.
So I thought you know what.
There's got to be a better way,and I love tracking things.
So I thought I'll create acontent calendar and I'll also
put a tracking element in thereas well, so I can see what's
(01:28):
working and what isn't, and thenI can take that forward into
future releases.
The idea was to reduceoverwhelm not that I really get
overwhelmed just because I'm apain in the ass and to have
everything planned in advance.
So I know exactly what I'mgoing to be doing and I was able
to then plan decent contentstuff that I think is going to
work and is going to land well,rather than just last minute
(01:49):
rubbish.
Before I describe the actual30-day release plan or scheduler
itself, click the link in theepisode description and download
your copy and remove thatguesswork.
The first thing you'll need todo when you have access to this
content calendar is go to fileand then save as google sheets
Please do not request permissionto access, please and then save
as google sheets.
Please do not requestpermission to access.
Please.
Go to save as google sheets andopen it in your google account,
(02:11):
and then you can edit it and dowhat you see fit.
So, going from left to right,we've got the day from 1 to 30.
Then we've got content typeteaser clip, studio tour,
throwback, post release eve,post release day, post
hyperlapse.
Some of these need to be doneon specific days, others you can
move around as you see fit.
(02:32):
Platform you've got a dropdownyou can select from Instagram,
youtube, tiktok, facebook or X.
If you hit edit, you can editit and add or remove them as you
see fit.
For example, I could remove Xbecause I never use use it, but
I'll just close that for thetime being and you can add
multiple as well.
Same with format.
So, under format, I've gotvideo picture or carousel,
because I use Instagramprimarily.
(02:54):
Again, you can edit that andthen a description of what the
content is.
So we've got some items such asa 15 second teaser behind the
scenes look at your studio setup, a run, a poll, for example.
Another behind the scenes here.
A day in the working, a day inthe life, working on this
project.
Tomorrow is the day for releaseeve.
(03:16):
It's here on the release dayhints at an upcoming project, a
time lapse or quick progressmontage, drop an an FAQ, share a
bonus surprise, announce aremix competition, whatever it
may be, and you can change theseas you see fit.
The idea here is we can trackwhat works well and what doesn't
, and then we can start usingthat in future releases.
(03:37):
Then you can select created,yes or no from the dropdown and
then you can say yes or no isposted.
So the idea is that we're batchrecording.
We can keep track of what'srecording, what isn't.
So then, moving to the right,this is where we're tracking.
So in column H, we've got plays.
In column I, we've got likes.
J, we've got comments.
K, we've got shares and Ls,we've got saves.
(03:58):
And the idea here is we aretracking the numbers so we can
see what content's working welland what isn't.
So we can sack off what isn'tworking.
And we'll have a look at anexample that I used, a tracking
example for my release.
Four-minute warning in a minute, or rather, I'll describe it to
you if you're listening to thisNow.
At the moment I haven'tdeveloped it for multiple
(04:19):
platforms, because if you'reusing Instagram, youtube and
you're posting on both, you'regoing to have to calculate the
views.
You're going to have to addthem together.
So what I do and I recommenddoing this is pick the platform
that's your primary one andtrack that, for example.
But what I have noticed iscertain posts do better on
different platforms.
For example, the productionposts that I put out do better
(04:41):
on YouTube Shorts than they doon Instagram.
And then pictures do better onInstagram than they do on
YouTube YouTube on YouTube, forexample, which kind of makes
sense.
It's not video, is it?
I do get some engagement onYouTube with pictures, but not
as much as Instagram.
We'll have a look at that in aminute so you can see.
It's all set up to track.
It's all customizable as well.
(05:01):
You can do what you want withit.
This is the first iteration ofit.
As I develop it, I'll probablyadd some more graphs and stuff
to it so I can start analyzingprogress over time and other
bits and pieces.
So I'll drop another video if Ido that, but at the moment, set
for 30 days.
It doesn't have to be 30 days.
You might only want to do 14 or15, rather, so you can just
(05:22):
delete some of these.
So let's dive into an exampleand this is my release for four
minute warning and in here I cansee that I have not created
content for everything that I'veplanned for the most part
leading up to it, I I did quitewell, three I didn't, but then
afterwards I dropped off a bit.
I won't lie, I had to drop offa bit and it's mainly video,
with some pictures and onecarousel, and it's all Instagram
(05:45):
and YouTube shorts.
But I can see from my tracking,for example, that my
collaborator post with TylerLyle from the Midnight so this
is podcast related was the mostviewed at 8,400.
And I had 73 likes and fourcomments.
(06:05):
Nine saves five shares.
So that says to me thatcollaborator posts.
I'm going to continue usingthose in future.
Videos.
Content calendars I'm not goingto have.
I don't know who I'm going tocollaborate with, but you can
see here that collaborator postsdo work well.
I say that.
But then I got another one here.
That's only 315.
So I guess it depends on whatthe content is in terms of what
(06:27):
lands.
But then looking at some morehere production, quick tip 401
views, not huge numbers, 10likes.
What have we got here?
So I've got 29 likes for onehere and that is a picture and
that's an ounce of countdown toa major release or event.
So 29 likes for that one thereand a picture again.
(06:48):
Share an old photo or video 22likes for that one.
So what I've realized lookingat the numbers here is that, in
terms of actual likes andcomments, I get more from
pictures than I do from videos,which might suggest that my
videos are either not thatengaging or not of the best
quality.
Maybe I need to up my game invideos, but the actual pictures
(07:10):
seem to be doing quite wellBehind the scenes.
Look at your studio.
Artwork is the best performingvideo, aside from the
collaborator one.
So that's just a look around mystudio in terms of what artwork
I have.
20 saves, 9 comments, not 20saves.
20 likes, 9 comments, 15 secondteaser, 25 likes.
(07:33):
Only 205 plays.
These numbers are quite low,but there's one here in
particular.
Now I totally sack this off.
I'm not doing this again.
Real-time q a.
So going live on instagram.
I've got 83 views on that.
So that's one thing I'm notgoing to take forward.
Another one I'm not going totake forward I've got a four
minute warning.
I used a snippet from the movieresident evil to promote
(07:56):
four-Minute Warning, 152 plays.
Probably not going to do thatgoing forward again.
In fact, we'll have a look atmy release calendar for
Half-Life and see what I didtake forward it's probably going
to be pictures collaborators.
And did I do a carousel?
The carousel did okay, oh, no,I didn't.
I didn't track the carousel.
(08:16):
Oh, I didn't track the carousel.
Oh, I didn't add the numbers infor that one.
I need to do that, but from mymemory it did quite well.
So let's have a look at my nextcontent calendar, which is for
Half-Life.
With Half-Life I actuallystarted using TikTok again and
I'm unsure whether I'm going tocontinue using it we'll see,
we'll see but I started using itagain and at the moment I
(08:36):
haven't really seen any benefit.
But I can see here, looking atmy canada, that I'm posting less
, and the reason I'm postingless is this goes way back to
the beginning of this episode,when I said I was haphazardly
posting and posting just becauseand I felt that's what I was
doing with four minute warningand separation separation, I
didn't even have a plan, butfour minute warning, I was just
(08:57):
haphazardly.
There was a plan, right, but Ifelt like I was just doing it
because I felt I had to.
So this time I was like youknow what, I'm going to post
less, but I'm going to try andmake it better.
So I can see here I've got morepictures, this one, so I've
learned from previous and I'mposting more pictures, and this
is in flux, so I haven't trackedeverything yet because I I give
them a few days to bed in tosee how they do, uh, but what we
(09:19):
got here a collab post didquite well.
Again, another collab post didquite well.
So, reasonably, these arenumbers for me.
I'm not a social media expert byany stretch and in terms of
engagement for the content Icreate, these numbers are quite
good.
Others will look at this and belike, but for me it's pretty
good.
And, to be fair, if you put 532people in the room, there's
quite a lot of people, and samewith 688.
(09:40):
Um, the.
What else have we got here?
Some videos.
Videos did quite well.
Um, I've got another picturehere that did really well 41
likes, two comments, though.
41 likes, but two comments.
Another picture, another teaser22.
I definitely get more likes forpictures than I do for videos,
which again, probably says Ineed to up my video game.
(10:00):
But again, I can see here I'mposting less, more pictures,
more carousels, and it seems tobe working well.
What I have noticed is if Ilook at the metrics on Instagram
, for example, I'm seeing I'mgetting more followers Again,
not huge numbers, but certainlymore new followers compared to
what I was before running thisparticular schedule.
(10:25):
So in my head I'm thinking okay,well, if I keep doing this and
iterating, using this contentcalendar every release, I'm
going to get that bit better andhopefully, with the compound
effect, I'll start to approach asweet spot where it really
starts working well.
So there we go, folks.
That is my 30-day social mediacontent release schedule,
calendar plan, whatever you wantto call it.
(10:46):
So if, like me, you like totrack things and track progress
over time, you also want tonegate overwhelm from social
media, you want to stophaphazardly posting and you want
to batch, record and plan yourreleases prior to them being
released and also post-releaseas well, then click the link in
the episode description and grabyour free copy of my 30-day
(11:08):
content release plan calendarschedule I haven't quite settled
on the name for it yet andstart tracking your content, see
what works well, take thatforward into your next release
and refine over time and, like Isaid just now, hopefully you'll
gradually reach that sweet spot.
And let me know, folks, whatwent well and also how could it
be improved.
What did you change?
(11:28):
Would you recommend I change infurther iterations of this
release calendar?
I'd love to know.
So shoot me a message onInstagram, at Inside the Mix
Podcast, or leave a comment onYouTube.
Until next time, stay inspired,keep being creative and don't
be afraid to experiment insidethe mix.
Stick around, because I'm giving away the
exact 30-day content releasecalendar scheduler, if you will.
That I use for my releases andit's built specifically for
producers and artists like you.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast with your host,
mark Matthews.
Welcome to Inside the Mix, yourgo-to podcast for music
(00:21):
creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials and insightsto help you level up your music
and smash it in the musicindustry.
Let's dive in.
Hey folks, welcome to Insidethe Mix.
If you are the type of produceror artist that posts on social
(00:44):
media just a ticker box, thisepisode is for you.
Stick around, because I'mgiving away the exact 30-day
content release calendarscheduler, if you will.
That I use for my releases andit's built specifically for
producers and artists like you.
Now, I'm not a social mediaexpert by any stretch, but the
reason I built, or rathercreated, this content release
(01:06):
Canada is because I washaphazardly posting and I was
posting just because I felt itwhen it was all last minute and
I wasn't really getting anywherewith it.
I wasn't getting any engagementand it was just a bit shit, to
be honest, and it became more ofa pain in the ass.
So I thought you know what.
There's got to be a better way,and I love tracking things.
So I thought I'll create acontent calendar and I'll also
put a tracking element in thereas well, so I can see what's
(01:28):
working and what isn't, and thenI can take that forward into
future releases.
The idea was to reduceoverwhelm not that I really get
overwhelmed just because I'm apain in the ass and to have
everything planned in advance.
So I know exactly what I'mgoing to be doing and I was able
to then plan decent contentstuff that I think is going to
work and is going to land well,rather than just last minute
(01:49):
rubbish.
Before I describe the actual30-day release plan or scheduler
itself, click the link in theepisode description and download
your copy and remove thatguesswork.
The first thing you'll need todo when you have access to this
content calendar is go to fileand then save as google sheets
Please do not request permissionto access, please and then save
as google sheets.
Please do not requestpermission to access.
Please.
Go to save as google sheets andopen it in your google account,
(02:11):
and then you can edit it and dowhat you see fit.
So, going from left to right,we've got the day from 1 to 30.
Then we've got content typeteaser clip, studio tour,
throwback, post release eve,post release day, post
hyperlapse.
Some of these need to be doneon specific days, others you can
move around as you see fit.
(02:32):
Platform you've got a dropdownyou can select from Instagram,
youtube, tiktok, facebook or X.
If you hit edit, you can editit and add or remove them as you
see fit.
For example, I could remove Xbecause I never use use it, but
I'll just close that for thetime being and you can add
multiple as well.
Same with format.
So, under format, I've gotvideo picture or carousel,
because I use Instagramprimarily.
(02:54):
Again, you can edit that andthen a description of what the
content is.
So we've got some items such asa 15 second teaser behind the
scenes look at your studio setup, a run, a poll, for example.
Another behind the scenes here.
A day in the working, a day inthe life, working on this
project.
Tomorrow is the day for releaseeve.
(03:16):
It's here on the release dayhints at an upcoming project, a
time lapse or quick progressmontage, drop an an FAQ, share a
bonus surprise, announce aremix competition, whatever it
may be, and you can change theseas you see fit.
The idea here is we can trackwhat works well and what doesn't
, and then we can start usingthat in future releases.
(03:37):
Then you can select created,yes or no from the dropdown and
then you can say yes or no isposted.
So the idea is that we're batchrecording.
We can keep track of what'srecording, what isn't.
So then, moving to the right,this is where we're tracking.
So in column H, we've got plays.
In column I, we've got likes.
J, we've got comments.
K, we've got shares and Ls,we've got saves.
(03:58):
And the idea here is we aretracking the numbers so we can
see what content's working welland what isn't.
So we can sack off what isn'tworking.
And we'll have a look at anexample that I used, a tracking
example for my release.
Four-minute warning in a minute, or rather, I'll describe it to
you if you're listening to thisNow.
At the moment I haven'tdeveloped it for multiple
(04:19):
platforms, because if you'reusing Instagram, youtube and
you're posting on both, you'regoing to have to calculate the
views.
You're going to have to addthem together.
So what I do and I recommenddoing this is pick the platform
that's your primary one andtrack that, for example.
But what I have noticed iscertain posts do better on
different platforms.
For example, the productionposts that I put out do better
(04:41):
on YouTube Shorts than they doon Instagram.
And then pictures do better onInstagram than they do on
YouTube YouTube on YouTube, forexample, which kind of makes
sense.
It's not video, is it?
I do get some engagement onYouTube with pictures, but not
as much as Instagram.
We'll have a look at that in aminute so you can see.
It's all set up to track.
It's all customizable as well.
(05:01):
You can do what you want withit.
This is the first iteration ofit.
As I develop it, I'll probablyadd some more graphs and stuff
to it so I can start analyzingprogress over time and other
bits and pieces.
So I'll drop another video if Ido that, but at the moment, set
for 30 days.
It doesn't have to be 30 days.
You might only want to do 14 or15, rather, so you can just
(05:22):
delete some of these.
So let's dive into an exampleand this is my release for four
minute warning and in here I cansee that I have not created
content for everything that I'veplanned for the most part
leading up to it, I I did quitewell, three I didn't, but then
afterwards I dropped off a bit.
I won't lie, I had to drop offa bit and it's mainly video,
with some pictures and onecarousel, and it's all Instagram
(05:45):
and YouTube shorts.
But I can see from my tracking,for example, that my
collaborator post with TylerLyle from the Midnight so this
is podcast related was the mostviewed at 8,400.
And I had 73 likes and fourcomments.
(06:05):
Nine saves five shares.
So that says to me thatcollaborator posts.
I'm going to continue usingthose in future.
Videos.
Content calendars I'm not goingto have.
I don't know who I'm going tocollaborate with, but you can
see here that collaborator postsdo work well.
I say that.
But then I got another one here.
That's only 315.
So I guess it depends on whatthe content is in terms of what
(06:27):
lands.
But then looking at some morehere production, quick tip 401
views, not huge numbers, 10likes.
What have we got here?
So I've got 29 likes for onehere and that is a picture and
that's an ounce of countdown toa major release or event.
So 29 likes for that one thereand a picture again.
(06:48):
Share an old photo or video 22likes for that one.
So what I've realized lookingat the numbers here is that, in
terms of actual likes andcomments, I get more from
pictures than I do from videos,which might suggest that my
videos are either not thatengaging or not of the best
quality.
Maybe I need to up my game invideos, but the actual pictures
(07:10):
seem to be doing quite wellBehind the scenes.
Look at your studio.
Artwork is the best performingvideo, aside from the
collaborator one.
So that's just a look around mystudio in terms of what artwork
I have.
20 saves, 9 comments, not 20saves.
20 likes, 9 comments, 15 secondteaser, 25 likes.
(07:33):
Only 205 plays.
These numbers are quite low,but there's one here in
particular.
Now I totally sack this off.
I'm not doing this again.
Real-time q a.
So going live on instagram.
I've got 83 views on that.
So that's one thing I'm notgoing to take forward.
Another one I'm not going totake forward I've got a four
minute warning.
I used a snippet from the movieresident evil to promote
(07:56):
four-Minute Warning, 152 plays.
Probably not going to do thatgoing forward again.
In fact, we'll have a look atmy release calendar for
Half-Life and see what I didtake forward it's probably going
to be pictures collaborators.
And did I do a carousel?
The carousel did okay, oh, no,I didn't.
I didn't track the carousel.
(08:16):
Oh, I didn't track the carousel.
Oh, I didn't add the numbers infor that one.
I need to do that, but from mymemory it did quite well.
So let's have a look at my nextcontent calendar, which is for
Half-Life.
With Half-Life I actuallystarted using TikTok again and
I'm unsure whether I'm going tocontinue using it we'll see,
we'll see but I started using itagain and at the moment I
(08:36):
haven't really seen any benefit.
But I can see here, looking atmy canada, that I'm posting less
, and the reason I'm postingless is this goes way back to
the beginning of this episode,when I said I was haphazardly
posting and posting just becauseand I felt that's what I was
doing with four minute warningand separation separation, I
didn't even have a plan, butfour minute warning, I was just
(08:57):
haphazardly.
There was a plan, right, but Ifelt like I was just doing it
because I felt I had to.
So this time I was like youknow what, I'm going to post
less, but I'm going to try andmake it better.
So I can see here I've got morepictures, this one, so I've
learned from previous and I'mposting more pictures, and this
is in flux, so I haven't trackedeverything yet because I I give
them a few days to bed in tosee how they do, uh, but what we
(09:19):
got here a collab post didquite well.
Again, another collab post didquite well.
So, reasonably, these arenumbers for me.
I'm not a social media expert byany stretch and in terms of
engagement for the content Icreate, these numbers are quite
good.
Others will look at this and belike, but for me it's pretty
good.
And, to be fair, if you put 532people in the room, there's
quite a lot of people, and samewith 688.
(09:40):
Um, the.
What else have we got here?
Some videos.
Videos did quite well.
Um, I've got another picturehere that did really well 41
likes, two comments, though.
41 likes, but two comments.
Another picture, another teaser22.
I definitely get more likes forpictures than I do for videos,
which again, probably says Ineed to up my video game.
(10:00):
But again, I can see here I'mposting less, more pictures,
more carousels, and it seems tobe working well.
What I have noticed is if Ilook at the metrics on Instagram
, for example, I'm seeing I'mgetting more followers Again,
not huge numbers, but certainlymore new followers compared to
what I was before running thisparticular schedule.
(10:25):
So in my head I'm thinking okay,well, if I keep doing this and
iterating, using this contentcalendar every release, I'm
going to get that bit better andhopefully, with the compound
effect, I'll start to approach asweet spot where it really
starts working well.
So there we go, folks.
That is my 30-day social mediacontent release schedule,
calendar plan, whatever you wantto call it.
(10:46):
So if, like me, you like totrack things and track progress
over time, you also want tonegate overwhelm from social
media, you want to stophaphazardly posting and you want
to batch, record and plan yourreleases prior to them being
released and also post-releaseas well, then click the link in
the episode description and grabyour free copy of my 30-day
(11:08):
content release plan calendarschedule I haven't quite settled
on the name for it yet andstart tracking your content, see
what works well, take thatforward into your next release
and refine over time and, like Isaid just now, hopefully you'll
gradually reach that sweet spot.
And let me know, folks, whatwent well and also how could it
be improved.
What did you change?
(11:28):
Would you recommend I change infurther iterations of this
release calendar?
I'd love to know.
So shoot me a message onInstagram, at Inside the Mix
Podcast, or leave a comment onYouTube.
Until next time, stay inspired,keep being creative and don't
be afraid to experiment insidethe mix.
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