What is the best way to promote your music online as a musician?

What is the best way to promote your music online? I use facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, reverbnation and bandcamp. I'm looking for a way to gain more fans and reach people I haven't been able to in the past. Also, would it be a good idea to try to monetize these sites that deal with my music with ads and such?

Keep going with Youtube, you can't find better source for this case.

I'm surprised you don't use soundcould.

Use everything! YouTube, SoundCloud, your own site, set up a social community, etc. Create a demo or sample of your work that has a provocative hook (I mean controversy, not just a melodic hook) and try to spread it virally.

For example, on torrent sites, a popup window often shows up these days featuring "the Ex-Girlfriends" girl group performing in a sexy music video. The lead girl is apparently an adult film performer, and celebrity Danny Trejo makes a cameo appearance. Those provocative features make up for all the auto-tune. Find your own variation on these tactics, that you can afford on your budget.

awesome. good advice. i wonder how i would go about getting one of those popup windows. have to do some research. also, i do have a soundcloud just forgot to mention it.

Youtube -> Sound Cloud -> Myspace -> Facebook -> bla->bla ->bla
Moral: Put it everywhere you can and make sure that you mention the copyright information with it...

try BandCamp as well..they let you sell your stuff too. instant payments. i am happy with it

You should also try reverbnation. It basically allows musicians, producers, and venues to place content on web pages.

I had a similar guy looking for the same thing. So after I did some research I came up with this. He didnt have the money to pay me, but I hope it helps you.

Find a radio station that plays your type of music. Pick something local.

Do some keyword research and find the ones that have the least amount of competing pages. I found that there are a lot of search volume for local radio stations with very little competing pages.

Create a Youtube video of your music and optimize it for the local radio station. You can title it "107.5 The Bug Seattle WA - Best Song For 2013" In the description I would right something like. "If this song played on 107.5 The Bug in Seattle Washington, how long do you think it will take to be number 1? Or something to that effect to engage users. This way you can rank the video for the radio station keyword and it will attract people to watch the video and listen to your music. Try ranking it to the top 3 so that the video is visible in the SERP. I found that video thumbnails will get a lot of clicks even though its in the 3rd spot.

Hope this helps.

Soundcould and Youtube channel

the video idea with the radiostation could work. they might get pissed but whatevs haha

make a proper music video of 2 or 3 of your best songs.

For me its :

Bandcamp, Youtube, No1 Music, Soundcloud, Reverbnation, Facebook.

And you need to really work at getting it all up to scratch and presentable. I have done all the driving endless amounts of traffic to my sites but in the end those views are fake, and yeah they look good, but they dont do a whole lot at the end of the day as no-one is actually listening to you.

The best thing to do is to network yourself. And work HARD. Dedicate one night a week, ( one whole day preferably ) to emailing similar members on Youtube. ( Search *Your genre* Filter " Most Recent " ) and then go on to subscribe to those people, comment on some of their videos and build a rapport with them by messaging them and talking about each others music. By the end of the day you'll have several genuine friends, more connections, and will even be featured on several other Youtube channels if you do well. Also offer to collaborate with anyone you think you will mesh with.

I tend to email record companies and in my case, game developers, about once a month. I give them a link to my bandcamp page ( used to be Youtube, deleted it though ) and explain who I am, what I'm about and what I'd like to offer them.

Very often I still offer free tracks to online flash games. It means these guys come to me when they need anything and I have repeat business from about 4 indie game developers right now. My name is featured on each game and I'm hoping to get my name everywhere possible. One day you never know, someone might pick up on that, email me, and new business comes.

In many markets spreading yourself too thin is a terrible idea. But if you have a set website with albums and playlists people can list instantly, it doesn't hurt to get yourself out there. Out everywhere.


NOTE: Personalise everything. Put thought into each message and forum post. Don't just use ToolTube and send everyone the same generic message. Being in the game myself, I used to spot these messages instantly in my Inbox and delete them. Its nice to use the persons name and actually comment on their own featured music , and be genuine.

yea, when i get a mass message i don't even open it. thanks for all the information. i'm networking pretty hard myself, i'm pretty much trying to get a feel for what I may not be doing. this has all been helpful.

HereComesTheDrop said:

yea, when i get a mass message i don't even open it. thanks for all the information. i'm networking pretty hard myself, i'm pretty much trying to get a feel for what I may not be doing. this has all been helpful.

Click to expand...

Mass messages are pretty annoying, and lazy. Anyone can get a bot and spam 1000 of emails / Youtubes. I should know, I started out that way and I can tell you, if you TubeTool enough people eventually the

" Get the fuck away from my inbox " messages come and you realise maybe its not the best avenue to go down! lol After being established on Youtube I got that way myself. However instead of being rude I simply blocked the user.

Other than social networking it helps to join forums. But obviously, no spam. Ever. Give a genuine contribution to any forum you may join and the rewards will pay off when you have a good reputation. On Black Hat my knowledge is limited but I always give reviews, opinions and helpful personal advice wherever I can. I try to make up for my lack of SEO knowledge. ( However being here and reading up I actually am proud to say I know enough now to go down that route should I want to soon )

Getting some professional logos is a good idea. I have a few connections on Youtube who have made me several banners and logos over the years. And I have recently paid 3 different people on Fiverr to produce 3 different SoundCloud logos for me. They might not be great but I'm looking to see what I can get for my money. And of course you can do this for yourself with some good software, which I've been trying out this year.

Get a brand name and be consistent. Right now I'm guilty of jumping between my real name and my brand name, as I don't know whats best. This is only because the brand name I originally picked and have great logos for...already exist! I never even thought to research it back in 2011 when I came up with it. N00b mistake but hey-ho.

Mind letting me hear your music? Feel free to PM it if you don't want to share it here. I can give you a few comments / plays / shares if you like to help you along.

Can you link me to your youtube?

zebrahat said:

For example, on torrent sites, a popup window often shows up these days featuring "the Ex-Girlfriends" girl group performing in a sexy music video. The lead girl is apparently an adult film performer, and celebrity Danny Trejo makes a cameo appearance. Those provocative features make up for all the auto-tune.

Click to expand...

I would have to majorly disagree with you on this!

Her name is Lupe Fuentes, and she should have stuck to porn. The dislike count on that video is rising faster than the tent in my pants.

I forgot to add my real advise for the OP...

If you really want to get somewhere with your music, you need to have fan support and this just does not come from shoving your music in their face through online marketing. It comes from performing a lot and being a part of the party scene. Nobody thinks an ad for a musician is "cool" enough for them to want to buy it if they have no idea who the musician is. They will, however, buy it if you are that musician who is at every party, every club, knows a ton of people and everyone says good things about.

Maybe that sounds crazy to a bunch of internet marketers, but after years of watching my friends expect magic to happen with their bands and waste tons of money on pressing CDs/LPs and merch, the only success I've seen is with the bands that actually perform all the time and know a ton of people in person. This means they can draw a crowd, so clubs book them more and record labels start to get interested.

Hope this helps.

The internet is a place to find you not discover you

Promote your music offline once you get enough traffic to your site from people searching for more of your material then you promote it online.