How to Follow Electronic Music Influencers | TAP
Electronic music influencer and tastemaker outreach
By TAP Editorial Team
Quick answer
Follow electronic music tastemakers where they publish, not only where they post. Resident Advisor, Mixmag and Crack carry the editors. NTS, Rinse FM and Worldwide FM carry the show hosts. SoundCloud reposts and Bandcamp collections carry the curators, and Instagram carries the DJs. Follow twenty, read what they actually cover for a month, then pitch the two your record fits.
Electronic music has no single press desk to write to. The people who break records are scattered across four groups: magazine and blog editors, radio show hosts, playlist and label curators, and DJs who play out. Following them properly means going where each group publishes, watching what they cover for long enough to see a pattern, and only then writing to the handful whose recent work your record sits next to.
The four kinds of electronic tastemaker
Editors come first because their coverage is searchable and durable. Resident Advisor, Mixmag, Crack, DJ Mag, XLR8R and a long tail of subgenre blogs all run named writers with public bylines, and those bylines are the thing to follow rather than the publication account. Radio show hosts are second and are the fastest route to a real listen: NTS, Rinse FM, Worldwide FM, Sub FM, Threads and the BBC specialist shows each carry dozens of hosts with narrow, well defined taste. Curators are third, meaning the people running label compilations, Bandcamp collections, SoundCloud repost channels and the independent Spotify lists that sit outside the algorithmic ones. DJs are fourth, and the most competitive, because a play in a set is worth a lot and everybody is asking for one. Those four groups behave differently and want different things. An editor wants a story with a hook and a date. A show host wants a finished master that fits a slot. A curator wants a track that sits inside a mood they have already built. A DJ wants something that works in a room. If you treat all four as one list you will write one email and it will be wrong for at least three of them.
Tip: Write the four groups into four separate lists before you follow anybody. The list a name lands on decides what you eventually send it.
Where to follow each group
For editors, open the publication, find the last ten pieces in your subgenre, and note who wrote them. Follow those writers on Instagram and Bluesky, and subscribe to the publication's newsletter, which is usually where the editorial calendar shows itself first. For show hosts, follow the station rather than the individual to start with: NTS and Rinse both publish full schedules with episode archives, and two hours of an archived show tells you more about a host's taste than a month of their posts. For curators, SoundCloud is still the best signal in electronic music. Open five tracks that sound like yours, read who reposted them, and follow the accounts that show up more than once. Bandcamp works the same way through the collections of people who bought records near yours. For DJs, Resident Advisor's event listings show who is actually being booked at the venues that match your sound, which is a better filter than follower count. Add Boiler Room and The Lot Radio archives for the same reason. Two more sources are worth the effort because almost nobody uses them: the credits and comments under similar SoundCloud uploads, and the Discord or Telegram groups built around specific labels, where hosts and curators are often present and talking about records in the open.
Tip: Follow from a listening account you actually use, not a promo account. The recommendations that come back are the point.
What to record while you follow
Following without a record is just scrolling. Keep one simple sheet with a row per person: name, which of the four groups they belong to, where they publish, the last three records they covered or played, the tempo range those records sat in, and whether they say anywhere that they accept unsolicited music. Most hosts and curators do say, in a Linktree, a pinned post or a show description, and the ones who say no are saving you a wasted email. After three or four weeks the sheet starts doing the work. Patterns show up that follower counts never would: the writer who covers three UK garage releases a month and nothing else, the host whose second hour is consistently slower and stranger than the first, the curator who only ever adds records with vocals. That is the level of specificity a pitch needs, and it is the reason following comes before writing. A name with no notes next to it is not a contact, it is a guess.
Tip: Note the date you last checked each person. Taste moves, and a six month old note about a radio host is close to useless.
Turning a follow into a pitch that lands
Open with the specific thing you noticed. A first line reading "your 14 August NTS show closed on that Skee Mask edit, and this track is built from the same 140 shuffle" does more than any amount of biography, because it proves you listened. Then say what the record is in one sentence, give one link that plays without a download, and stop. Three sentences is the working maximum for a host or a DJ, and five for an editor who needs a story angle and a release date. Send Tuesday to Thursday morning UK time and leave it alone for three weeks. Attach nothing. Name the show, the column or the collection you are aiming at, because "I thought you might like this" gives the reader nothing to say yes to. If a record has already had support from someone in the same circle, say so plainly and name them, since that is the single most useful piece of evidence you can offer a curator who has never heard of you.
Tip: One link, not four. Every extra platform link measurably reduces the chance any of them gets opened.
Radio shows and podcasts
Specialist radio is where following pays back fastest, because the shows are hungry for new music in a way that print and playlists are not. The BBC Radio 1 specialist strand, Rinse, NTS, Worldwide FM and the regional community stations all run shows with a named producer or host whose email is usually findable, and a pitch that names the slot beats a pitch that asks for airplay in general. Say where in the show you think it sits and why. Podcasts and mix series work slightly differently. Regular listener numbers matter more than follower counts, and a supplied high quality file with a suggested placement is more useful than a link and a hope. If you can offer a short mix or a live take, video series like Boiler Room and the smaller YouTube channels built around single subgenres will take that over a press release every time. Never send unmastered material unless somebody has asked for it.
Tip: Archived episodes are public. Reference a specific one by date and you separate yourself from ninety percent of the inbox.
Promoters and the room
Club promoters are tastemakers with a different incentive, since they are filling a room rather than curating a canon. That makes them reachable, because a promoter who has seen you at three of their nights has a reason to listen. Research the venue's usual booking size and the artists they have put on in the last six months, then approach with something that fits the night rather than something you want to happen. Regional differences are real and worth respecting. London techno bookings lean on residency history, Berlin rewards live production, Amsterdam and Copenhagen are more open to experimental sets. If you are not at international booking level, the useful move is local: pick the two promoters running consistent nights in your city, go regularly, and offer assets they can actually use, meaning short video, artwork sized for their channels and audio snippets. Support from a promoter tends to travel sideways to the DJs on their line-ups.
Tip: Follow the promoter's account and the venue account separately. Line-up announcements often go out on only one of them.
After the first play
One play is not a relationship. When somebody covers or plays your record, reply with a real thank you inside a day, and make the follow up useful rather than needy: advance notice of the next record, stems if they produce, a heads up about another artist in your circle whose work fits their taste. Support tends to repeat when the person feels informed rather than farmed. Track what the support actually produced. Streams are the weakest signal available. What matters is whether a play led to a booking, whether other DJs started asking for the track, whether a writer picked it up afterwards, and where the listening spikes landed geographically, which Spotify for Artists and Apple Music for Artists will both tell you. A single play from the right host in Berlin can open a run of European dates that a large number of passive streams never will. Two or three names on your sheet will turn out to do most of that work, and those are the ones worth the effort next time.
Tip: Return the favour publicly. Sharing a host's own release or show does more for the next pitch than another follow up email.
Key takeaways
- Electronic tastemakers fall into four groups with different needs: editors want a story, radio hosts want a finished master that fits a slot, curators want a record that sits inside a mood, and DJs want something that works in a room.
- Follow people where they publish rather than where they post. Bylines on Resident Advisor and Mixmag, archived shows on NTS and Rinse, repost trails on SoundCloud and collection pages on Bandcamp all say more than a follower count.
- Keep one sheet with a row per person and the last three records they covered, then check it again before you write. A name with no notes beside it is a guess, not a contact.
- Open a pitch with the specific thing you noticed, dated where possible, then one sentence on the record and one link that plays without a download. Send Tuesday to Thursday morning and leave three weeks before any follow up.
- Short-form creators, independent curators and local promoters get almost no professional outreach, which makes them the best return on time for an artist who is not yet on international line-ups.
Pro tips
1. Build the follow list from a listening account rather than a promo account, so the recommendations that come back keep widening the pool for you.
2. Read the last ten pieces in your subgenre on any publication and note the writer, not the masthead. Editors move, and the byline is the thing that stays useful.
3. Use SoundCloud reposts as a discovery engine: open five tracks close to yours, follow every account that reposted more than one of them, and you have a curator list nobody sold you.
4. Record the date you last checked each contact. A radio host's taste six months ago is not evidence about what they will play this month.
5. Measure support by what followed it, meaning bookings, other DJs asking for the track and regional listening spikes, rather than by the stream count on the day.
Frequently asked questions
How do I follow electronic music influencers without drowning in noise?
Split them into four lists before you follow anybody: editors, radio hosts, curators and DJs. Follow around twenty in total, from an account you actually listen on, and give it a month before you decide who to keep. Editors are found through bylines, hosts through station schedules, curators through SoundCloud reposts and Bandcamp collections, and DJs through Resident Advisor listings for venues that match your sound.
Where do electronic tastemakers actually publish, as opposed to where they post?
Editors publish on Resident Advisor, Mixmag, Crack, DJ Mag, XLR8R and subgenre blogs, under named bylines. Radio hosts publish archived shows on NTS, Rinse FM, Worldwide FM and the BBC specialist strand. Curators publish through Bandcamp collections, SoundCloud reposts and independent playlists with contact details in the description. Social accounts are a supplement to those sources, not a replacement for them.
How long should I follow someone before I pitch them?
Three to four weeks is enough to see a pattern in what a host or curator is actually covering, and long enough to find a specific piece of their recent work to open with. For short-form creators the useful window is longer, closer to two months of real engagement, because the whole point of that group is that they respond to people they recognise rather than to press contacts.
What do I put in the first line of the pitch?
The specific thing you noticed, with a date if you have one. Naming the show, the column or the set you listened to proves the follow was real and gives the reader a reason to keep going. Follow it with one sentence describing the record, one link that plays without a download, and nothing else. Three sentences for a host or DJ, five for an editor who needs an angle and a date.
Are tastemakers outside the UK worth following for a UK release?
Yes, when the fit is right. One play from the right host in Berlin, Amsterdam or Montreal can open European dates that streaming numbers never would. Geography matters less than subgenre fit, and international hosts filter harder because they receive more, so only follow and pitch the ones whose recent shows sit close to your record.
From the field
Proof points
- Reply visibility blind spot: Stations rotate without replying to the pitch email (WARM monitoring vs email reply rate)
- Named contact reply rate vs studio@: 5x higher (Liberty Music PR campaign data, 2024-2026)
- Best UK send window for this genre: Tue/Wed 09:00-10:00 UK (Across 60+ campaigns)
- Specialist shows beat playlist pitches: Named producers respond, playlist-only emails get dropped (Liberty 2024-2026 across genres)
What actually happened
Indicative cadence (recent Liberty campaigns): Specialist-show pickup within 48 hours when the producer is named and the show is referenced specifically. Mainstream rotation follows 3-6 weeks later if the specialist signal holds. (2024-2026)
Generic music PR loses on dance because the routing is different. NTS, Worldwide FM, Rinse, Crack Magazine, these are not playlist destinations, they are curator inboxes. I learned the hard way that pitching a techno EP to Radio 1 daytime gets you nothing. Pitch the producer of Pearson Sound's show or Bradley Zero's NTS slot and you get a real listen.
Chris Schofield, Radio plugger, Liberty Music PR
Related resources
Further reading
- TAP Blog — In-depth guides, comparisons and advice for independent artists running their own promotion.
- UK Music — The voice of the UK music industry, representing labels, publishers, and collecting societies.
- Music Week — Industry news, charts, and analysis for music professionals.
- The Music Network — Global music business intelligence and networking.
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