Promo cards: turning your song into a story video

A 30-second vertical clip with your cover, your name and a moving waveform is the cheapest promo you can make for a song. The tool is the easy part. What decides whether anyone stops scrolling is which 30 seconds you pick, how the clip looks next to your cover and when you post it.

What a promo card is

In the CULT portal, an approved song can be turned into a promo card: a 30-second vertical story video. It shows the cover, the song title, the artist name, a background colour you choose, a moving waveform and the line "Distributed by CULT". You pick which 30 seconds of the song to use, then download an MP4 and post it to Instagram, TikTok or WhatsApp.

Everything below applies to any short clip you make for a song, whatever tool you use. The card just removes the editing work.

Pick the best 30 seconds

Most people decide in the first two seconds whether to keep watching, so the opening of your clip matters more than the rest.

• Start on the hook. Use the chorus, the line people will remember, or the moment the beat drops. An intro that builds for twenty seconds will lose most viewers before it gets anywhere.
• Cut at a clean point. Begin at the start of a phrase or on a beat, never in the middle of a word. End after a finished line, not halfway through a note.
• Don't try to show everything. A clip is an invitation. It should make someone want the other three minutes.
• Test it on a phone speaker. Most people will hear it through a phone, not studio monitors, and many will watch with the sound off for the first moment. The moving waveform helps because the clip still looks alive.

If you entered a preview start second when you submitted the song, that moment is a good first candidate, because you already decided that this is where the song grabs people. You can still pick a different part for the story if another section works better in 30 seconds.

Choose a background colour that belongs to the cover

Take the colour from the artwork, not from a palette you like in general. A cover with a strong orange sun suits a deep orange or a darker brown. A black and white cover suits a flat near-black or a single accent from the typography. When the clip's colour comes from the cover, people recognise the song when they later see the artwork in a store.

A few things to check:

• The title and the artist name must be readable at a glance, on a phone, with the brightness turned down.
• Avoid colours very close to the waveform colour. Contrast is what makes the movement visible.
• Use the same colour logic for every card from the same release, so a series of posts looks like one campaign.

When to post it

One post is not a campaign. A simple rhythm works for most independent releases:

1. The day before: a card with a different part of the song and a line like "tomorrow".
2. Release day: the strongest 30 seconds, with the link added, and a message saying the song is out.
3. Two to three days later: another section of the song, so people who saw the first clip don't see the same thing again.
4. Once a week for a month: a lyric, a thank-you, a behind-the-scenes line, each with a different 30 seconds.

Post when your listeners are active. Instagram's own insights show you the hours your followers are online, and they're usually better than a guess. And post only when the song is live: a story that says "out now" with a link that doesn't work costs you the first impression.

On Instagram, add the link sticker to the song. On WhatsApp, don't only post a status: send the clip directly to ten friends and ask them to share it. A personal message is often worth more than a public post.

Mistakes that waste a good clip

• using the intro because it's "where the song starts"
• adding a long caption on top of a clip that already has text
• tagging nobody; credit the producer, the featured artist and the video person so they can reshare
• posting the same clip every day
• forgetting to listen to the final MP4 before posting

Quick checklist

1. The song is approved and live on the platforms you point to.
2. The 30 seconds start on the hook, at a clean point.
3. The background colour comes from the cover and the text is readable.
4. You have a plan for at least three posts over the first weeks.
5. You've listened to the exported MP4 on a phone.