The nature of music promotion is always evolving. With every new app and technology, there is a new avenue to take your music down in the hope of bumping into super fans and career-changing industry figures.
While some of the old school techniques apply, such as playing live in the hope of enamouring a label owner, some of the other methods are far more 2022, by establishing yourself in a Metaverse and digitally playing to a crowd.
The best way to promote your music boils down to the type of impression that you want to make in your respective scene. Firstly, it is important to ask what you want to get out of promoting your music. Do you want gigs on bigger stages? Do you want to be revered by respected bloggers and radio DJs? Do you want your music on a playlist with millions of followers? Hopefully, by this point, you’re starting to see the importance of creating a self-promo plan with goals and milestones. Once you’ve set those, you can start making it a reality. However, there are some aspects of self-promo that all artists should consider.
How to Promote Your Music
- Create a Promotion Strategy
For independent artists, the hard work has only just begun when the single or album has been mixed and mastered. Once the release is ready to get in the ears of your fans, give yourself the chance to increase the number of those fans before the release.
Everything you put out into the world artistically should be part of a marketing strategy. Ideally, you will want to keep up all of the momenta from previous campaigns by releasing new content regularly. You will also want to create a social media campaign and pre-release content before contacting blogs, radio stations, and A&R reps three weeks before the release.
- Social Media Marketing
In 2022, the average person spends 147 minutes every day on social media. Use that to your advantage by building a fanbase on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. Once you’re Facebook friends with a few contacts in your local or genre-specific scene, it will be infinitely easier to make more connections within your respective scene. Via social media, you can capture the attention of your targeted audience with your brand; you can also create connections and friendships with influencers and industry figures.
Not every platform will work for every artist, but it is worth joining them all as a process of trial and error. The ability to sync posts across multiple social media platforms makes this process almost effortless. You will also want to make sure that you post just enough to keep fresh in people’s minds and not enough to become irritating.
- Build a Mailing List & Create a Website
Even if all of your info is available on social media and you relay all of your news via Facebook, you will still need to build an official website and create a mailing list.
Mailing lists are far from a thing of the past. They are one of the best ways to promote new tours, releases and merch drops. Building a contact list can be hard work, but it can pay off in the long run. Always try to create an incentive for your fans to join your mailing list, such as early access to new releases.
- Consider Traditional Means
A few years ago, getting playlisted on a major influencer-owned playlist was one of the best ways for independent artists to market their music. Now, capitalism and corruption have wormed their way into that promo method. While some of the older promotional means have stood the test of time.
Not only does radio play help you rapidly expand your audience, but it can also pay well – especially if you get put in regular rotation on a popular station. You can either shoot for national or regional stations or look for indie online radio shows seeking fresh sounds from emerging artists. Blogs are also helpful music artist promotion services. As with the radio play, the benefits are two-fold; along with the exposure, once you’ve garnered some critical acclaim, you’re infinitely more likely to receive some more.
Last but not least, global pandemics aside, don’t shy away from playing live. Shows and festivals are some of the best ways to build your network with other bands, promoters, photographers, and journalists. The benefits of befriending other bands in your scene may not be immediately evident, but it always opens the door to the prospect of more future tours and fanbase-sharing.
No Comments