We worked really hard to build this platform, and it was all at the suggestions and advice of the artists who worked with us since the initial IYR Artists launch.
When we first announced IYR Artists was on its way, we had no idea the amount of emails and messages across social media that we’d be receiving within the first 24 hours. Then, we launched. The first 48 hours after launch? Our inboxes were overflowing with questions and submissions. We really didn’t expect the amazing amount of responses and inquiries we received. The initial platform we’d built, which was compromised of a simple website with a submission (contact-style) form, just wasn’t going to cut it. So, earlier this month, we made the hard decision to temporarily halt submissions and go back to the drawing board.
It wasn’t easy building a whole automated platform and profile system for artists. Not at all. But we had to. The new IYR Artists and Artists Portal are absolutely amazing. It’s not just a contact form now, you sign up for an Artists/Agencies account (which you can only sign up for this type of account through the IYR Artists website), from there, you’re able to manage your profile, or multiple profiles. You’re also able to submit music, by album or by single.
Profiles need profile photos. For your profiles to be compliant with Open Graph and to be consistent in our Artists Directory, this meant images used as the “Featured Image” needed to be at least 1200x630px (and the aspect ratio had to be 40:21) – which lead to another challenge. Not all artists have Photoshop or decent photo editing software on their personal machine, and you don’t need complex software to make minor image changes like size and aspect ratio changes. So, we did what we had to do, wrote some more code, and added the IYR Image Editor to our suite of tools under the Artists Portal.
For new users, it’s as simple as three steps to create your account, make a profile & submit music!
So, you’ve submitted, and now what comes next? New profiles are added to the Artists Directory within minutes of submission. New music submitted gets added to our general rotation on itsyourradio within 30 to 45 minutes after submission. If you decide you want to change your profile? Simple, log in to the Artists Portal, and go to View/Manage Profiles. You’ll be able to change links, edit your bio, do any editing to your profile from there. Submitting new music? Deleting music you don’t want in rotation anymore? Same thing, log in to the Artists Portal, go to View/Manage Music, and from there you’ll be able to edit submissions, delete individual songs from rotation, delete whole albums from rotation…. with the new IYR Artists and the Artists Portal, you are in full control of your content on itsyourradio.
Users with existing profiles and submissions on the old system will need to create an account and resubmit everything through the Artists Portal. Old entries will be purged daily checked against the list to make sure new profiles have been made to take their place, and later in the week we will be purging all old profiles completely. We apologize for this inconvenience, but moving to the new system, this is what had to be done.
We’ve been teasing this launch on both Instagram and Twitter for the past few days, and the response has been amazing. The IYR Media Team is proud to be able to help independent artists everywhere, and we feel this new platform will help artists tremendously. We can’t wait to hear the music submitted to IYR Artists and check out all the new profiles. If you’re interested in checking out IYR Artists, please visit https://iyrartists.com.
The new #IYRArtists with the #ArtistsPortal and fully editable profiles? Yup, it’s coming. Soon. We are finishing up some of the backend beta testing, and then we go from there! This is honestly exciting for us & we can’t wait to give control of the profiles back to the artists! pic.twitter.com/8Ed1CiXvAC
— itsyourradio (@itsyourradio) May 14, 2020
The new & updated #IYRArtists with user editable profiles, automatic airplay submissions, the new IYR Image Editor (for preparing 40:21 images for your profile) & Artists Directory Search….. LAUNCHING SOON! #radiostation #indiemusic pic.twitter.com/MHrEjL2FRf
— itsyourradio (@itsyourradio) May 14, 2020