so there’s been a round of marketers messaging me on Instagram. Nothing out of the ordinary for independent artists, right? This guy has been messaging me and at first they started out as text base messages then he just straight up started sending voice notes. He sent me this breakdown and is always the first thing that sets off a red flag. Other than being someone messaging me on Instagram is the fact that for $100 I can get in the ballpark of 10,000 streams. The pricing scales upward as you would expect. My question to the community is, are scammers evolving by sending voice notes because I low-key feel like either it’s just a more intimate way of trying to finesse, that or someone’s using AI to change the voice to sound like a white guy. Anyone else encounter tactics like this recently?

@Sean Taylor @Jacorey Barkley looking for advice advice. I’m not seeing the engagement I would expect since I started the 90 day blueprint, and I think something is up with my Instagram account. I read an article about “dead IG accounts” it states… “Having a dead account happens when you have poor engagement, lower than the average engagement rate which is 1-3%. This number consists of all forms of engagement – likes, shares, and comments. For example, this means if you have 1,000 followers, you’re getting less than 10 counts of engagement on your posts regularly.“ This makes me think I may need to delete and rebuild because this is pretty much what I’m seeing. A few of my recent posts have 0 likes and very little views. As if Instagram is not showing my posts to ANY of my followers. It’s weird. I’m trying to make the best decision. The article also states… “There’s a lot of reasons that a dead Instagram can happen. One reason is that you bought fake followers and they’re not engaging with your content... If you bought fake followers, what’s the point of continuing with an audience that’s not real or engaged with you. You could find real people who want to interact with your content. I truly think you’re better off starting a new account than trying to revive your dead Instagram account full of fake followers.” I didn’t buy fake followers, but in June 2022, I tried working with this one guy named Shiekh Fye. He has a company called iStayFamous and represents Dorrough Music (“ice cream paint job”) and Lil Flip. Dude scammed me for a $1000, before I realized he wasn’t the real deal. I remember he put a bunch of followers on my page instantly, claiming it would help catapult me to attracting more of a following. I don’t even know how to get fake followers. I don’t understand how that works and never wanted fake followers, but I think that may have something to do with my engagement issue today. Please advise

On for a bit. Whats on your mind?

Are there any artists here having an upcoming release soon? I'm looking for one person to hop on a call with. Preferably releasing this month and have already uploaded the song to your distributor

Have y'all seen this? My only response is direct to consumer sells. Here’s the million dollar question… Would music fans want to shop for music directly from the artist when the ability to gather music from major platforms is seamless? @Jacorey Barkley @Sean Taylor would love y’all input 💯 https://pitchfork.com/news/spotify-plots-change-to-royalties-structure-with-a-minimum-streams-per-song-requirement-for-payout/