One of the most difficult things for artists to do is find legitimate, results-based services and companies to work with in the promotion of their music. Sometimes the presentation is strong and there are enough partnerships to create the impression of validity, but it’s a challenge to find an outside perspective or neutral review. For those of you considering using Reviewshine to promote your music, this is an outside, unbiased review.
I’m an a very choosy publicist, and I don’t work with demo level artists. I work with “music with depth” only, and all artists are at a professional level. I’ve tested Reviewshine.com 3 times over the past 2 years, all with strong artists. Outside of Reviewshine, I’ve garnered over 150 press pieces and CD reviews for these artists. Within Reviewshine, not a single one. In fact, not even a response. This is a common issue with automated services such as Beatwire and Reviewshine.
Let’s look at the details and potential issues. Reviewshine is an automated system that delivers music submissions to a list of music blogs, 77 in total, mainly in the Americana, Country and Folk genres. They charge $59 to send your music to these blogs. Many of the blogs recommend you use Reviewshine. Now, as you go through their list, you’ll find that over 10 of those publications are defunct/have not posted in months and should probably be removed from the public list. Not much chance they’ll be covering you if they haven’t blogged since April of last year.
But how is the engagement for an automated service like this? Out of the 77 publications, on my latest test, going by an artist who was sent their way in early December, a total of 5 publications opened the submission and took a look. This number probably won’t go up by more than one or two now that a month has gone by, meaning that less than 10 percent of publications (6.5 percent to be exact in this case) are even paying attention to Reviewshine’s submission process/considering their artists. And this is only the amount who are OPENING the messages. In my case, none have covered. The rest are going unopened/unconsidered.
So far, in my campaign with this particular artist, I’ve generated over 25 press pieces/reviews and she’s been receiving critical acclaim. She has label backing, star guests, a quality music video, and touring plans for 2014.
In my eyes, they need to talk to their bloggers and find out how they can achieve a higher engagement rate, because it’s unacceptable to have an open rate this low in any case. Much like other automated submission services, the bloggers quite obviously do not check what’s being sent to them by Reviewshine, and that’s a fact.
My personal opinion is that I’d recommend artists and companies focus their promotion efforts elsewhere rather than spending the money on Reviewshine. They need to improve their service before it becomes a viable option for anyone. This post was done merely to spread the word to those who otherwise may get roped in.
Happy promoting, everyone!
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