Promoting a Band, How would you do it?!

Ok, I've been toying with this idea for a while now, firstly, a little about myself. I'm a working musician first and IM'er second. I live in the UK and studied music performance/business/history etc for 3 years at A level.

Now, I have friends that have "Made it" in originals bands today and I have friends that did it 20 years ago. Needless to say, the industry has changed since the internet and social networking has been around.

Another thing i've noticed is that bands are run like businesses now more than ever and with the home recording technology of today, Record companies are almost useless if you have the know how, funding and a good business model to do it alone.

Now i'm almost at a stage with my originals band where we have a finished product and are ready to promote ourselves in every way possible and I'm looking to go blackhat and whitehat with it.

I'm thinking initially..

Record a good EP and get it up on itunes.

Boost myspace traffic/friends with friend adder pro + Decaptcha.

Use my own software to gain thousands of twitter followers by following the followers of similar bands/artists.

Use the facebook group "invite by email" on my 150k UK mailing list.

Also, mail them to go and check out the band, and maybe add a new optin for people to receive news/gig updates.

Now I know this will get a lot of interest as the band is quite contemporary (funk/soul/R&B) and very radio friendly.

Now as a backup, I have Senuke and Xrumer, I'm thinking that these tools may do more harm than good if I'm not careful but they could be vital.

The aim of this is to generate enough buzz about the band to make a regional/national tour worth doing, and hopefully get some itunes downloads to pay for merchandise to sell on the tour.

Is there anything I'm missing? Would you do anything differently? how exactly would you use xrumer/senuke to promote a band?

Thanks, look forward to replies

Hire a manager

we're going to look for management when we have a following so we're taken a bit more seriously and look more marketable.

I dont have experience, But I thought that was what the manager was supposed to do. get you gigs so you can get your music out.

what kind of money you got? promote or join a battle of the bands for prize money. They always go well around here.

You have a good plan already from what I see. you can use senuke and xrummer to rank reviews of your songs/performances

Check My Thread Out Below . . . And Good Luck

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/member-downloads/59282-get-web-marketing-music-business.html

Cheers! - "Wiz"

aah awesome mate, ill give it a read

and RE Jekyll, managers are supposed to do that but most managers wont have the software I have and probably wont agree with it, we need a manager to organise the band more than anything so we can focus on writing/performing. The battle of the band idea for funding is a good idea and one we have tried, we did the first heat and got put straight through to the final but we had to pull out of it due to an injured drummer :rant:

any more input on this?

dannygoodman said:

any more input on this?

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Promote through...

Myspace - Social Site
Skyrock - Social Music Site
Ilike - Social Music Site
Purevolume - Social Music Site
Imeem - Social Music Site
Mog - Social Music Site
Nonelouder - Heavy Metal Social Site
Ourstage - Social Music Site

I worked long hard years in the music scene (mainly studio), and to be honest I would say "Forget it".
As long as you are not looking like a superstar with a superbody and singing since you were 6 your chance to win is so small that I would suggest you to do something else. Sorry.

DrJekyll said:

Hire a manager

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I aggree Get a manager i used to be one for a band.
Its all about getting the word out finding gigs playing anywhere you can.
We well the band used to play anywhere just for beer lol.
The band actaully played clubs bars anyopen mics nights.
Get on the radio most bands have a local playlist they play like once a week.
Get interveiwed on the radio. Sell shirts at all your gigs. Be Sexy get the girls.
Without the girls the guys wont follow.

Good luck, but the sheer ammount of bands on Myspace that try to add me as a friend, i only log into my personal account probably less than once a month, and i have like 50+ friend requests from wanna be bands, first thing i do is flag them up as spam.

The whole Myspace promotion era has been and gone, if people want to hear your music they will come to you, if you badger them, they will prolly get pissed off.

I cant comment on the other promotion places but it seems these days everybody is in a band and wants insant over night success. Im not saying thats the case with you, dont get me wrong.

Seems to me like theres more "next big thing!" bands then spammers now.

Best of luck to you, but id still say the best place for exposure and fans is to actually go play lots and lots of local gigs, talk to promoters of the smaller venus, get your name down on their lists as bands to fill in when others drop out, then start supporting larger bands at bigger venus. You get what i mean.

If your around the UK/Yorkshire area i can put you in touch with some Moon Ska Europe promoters, they manage the smaller to medium sized venues around the Leeds area.

used to work with one client that has his own band and has a myspace for it. There are many bands in myspace, so i'm guessing its a good place to promote. Don't forget to have some music for people to listen to.

embed youtube video to all music forums i nthe world with xrumer

upload your music at radiovenom.org

Just remember if you do hire a manager, make sure he doesn't charge you! You should only pay a percentage on sales of records or gigs (depending on what he is doing for you)

three effective plans

Be young and female and cute like Lilly Allen and be very active on MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic) and friend everyone.

Be extremely talented like Andy McKee and put your videos on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsD6uEZsIsU

Be extremely funny like Jon Lajoie and put your videos on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PsnxDQvQpw

beyond that youre dreamin

music is a tough biz, - none of my musician friends make money - and many have CDs with lots of promotion and weekly gigs - suggest you get really good at MMO

Yeah man It is very difficult to make money in the industry now, you do need a full business model to hand to the labels.

Going back to your original question the best bet is to get involved with the bands more than anything. Do that through emails rather than social networking. Noone uses Myspace anymore really, or it's very rare that they do.

If you need myspace designs, cd artwork etc we cover all that just PM me.

soundcloud dot com
thats how i got signed

eskimo said:

soundcloud dot com
thats how i got signed

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What label you with man? Send us over some stuff and we can review it.

YouTube. Get some videos of the band with babes in skimpy costumes dancing to the music. Skin will get the view count up and some of the guys who are there for the dancing girls will get into the music as well.