Simple Music Contracts
If you’ve already been trying to promote your music online, then you know how difficult it can be make your music stand out against all the other artists attempting to accomplish the same thing that you are. If you are just starting to think about how you will market your music among the clutter of artists on the internet, then you will encounter these difficulties soon enough.
Obviously, there’s no online marketing plan that will assure that your music will get to the ears you want it to reach. The unfortunate truth is that there are plenty of artists out there that have great material that just never get heard by the right people that could make those great songs into hits.
There are, however, a few things you can do to help your chances. Here are three ways to successfully promote your music online.
Ok sure, this seems obvious – and it is. But just creating an artist page and throwing together a bio is not going to entice more fans to listen to your music. No, you need to be just as involved in your social media as you want your fans to be.
One way to help boost your social media saturation is to be sure to lead fans to all you social media sites. Tweet about your new song you posted to SoundCloud, use Facebook to post a link to your new video on YouTube. The more places your fans can interact with you and your music, the more fans will eventually create.
And, perhaps most importantly, be sure to create a dialog with your fans. Respond to comments and do everything you can to make sure your fans know they are appreciated.
Kickstarter is a great and growing tool for artists of all types that has been featured before in this blog. Many musicians, from those just starting out to well known artists, use the site to raise money to fund their artistic endeavors. But the great thing about the service is you can use it to connect with your fans, as well.
If you are asking for money from your friends and fans to help fund your next album or tour, offer something back for their trouble. Give anyone who gives a certain amount toward paying for studio time a free, signed album. Offer a “Dinner with the Band” special to anyone who gives to help fund a tour. Not only will help you achieve your artistic goals, you’ll also be gaining close connections with fans.
As odd as it may sound, one of the most important ways to make yourself more successful online is to make yourself known offline. Many artists to day seem to forget that not everything can be done from home behind a computer screen – there’s still an art to pounding the pavement.
Part of the goal of meeting and making fans in the real world is to send them back online. Make sure they know about your social networks and then you add not just them as a fan, but everyone they go on to tell because you made a personal connection. After all, there’s no way to get closer to fans than by actually being out and talking to them.
The web is constantly shifting, as are the sites that are most advantageous to bands. If I were writing this blog a few years ago I might have just filled the page by writing the word MySpace over and over again. That is no longer the case (though you should ignore MySpace fans either, of course). The point is you must keep up with the changing trends of the internet to remain successful in online promotion.
What all of the above comes down to is that you’ve got to work extremely hard to make your social media presence stand out from the rest. No matter which sites you are using or how the internet is changing, success will always be dependent on how hard you work to show the world how good you are. And that’s whether you are on the internet or not.
