10 Clever Ways To Promote Your Music Online
10 Clever Ways To Promote Your Music Online
It’s not the best feeling when you invest so much energy and craft into music creation, and it fails to perform as you expected. With recent Statista data showing approximately 524 million music streaming subscribers worldwide, it is easy to assume that the world will hear your music, and you’ll quickly start making a living from music. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. If you feel like your prospects for success within the industry have stagnated or you’re looking for effective ways to promote your music, here are ten ideas for making your music reach a wider audience online.
- Create an artistic website
Creating an artiste website with a custom domain name will ensure your fans can find you easily online. The site should serve as a full-service page for your latest music, official artist bio, past and upcoming events, and so on. Your artiste website should be designed to promote your music online by posting about new releases, displaying your entire discography, and creating awareness for any live events. An artiste website also lets you put all your marketing communications in one place and directly solicit fan support.
- Build an email list
Your email list is most likely an important music marketing tool. Unlike social media platforms, where algorithms determine who sees your content, emails are sure ways to enter your fan’s inbox. You can never go wrong with expanding your email list. Whether or not you have new music, sending a monthly newsletter is an excellent way to keep your fans engaged and updated on everything happening with you and your music. This is essential for establishing a community that will be present when you have new music to promote.
- Get featured on music podcasts
Featuring on a popular podcast is an excellent way to reach out to a large dedicated listenership. One thing about podcasts is that it takes only die-hard genre fans to devote time and effort to them. Getting interviewed on particular genre music podcasts guarantees you reach people actively looking for new music and learning about new artists. If you want to reach them, it can be useful to look at where their favorite artists and bands have been featured.
- Start a YouTube channel
YouTube remains a music industry powerhouse. The platform is a fantastic blend of search engine and social media features and is excellent for promoting music online. However, promoting your work on the video streaming platform requires a unique strategy. For instance, while YouTube Shorts can help your micro-content, sharing long-form videos may require more effort. YouTube is ideal if you can create quality content and maintain some consistency.
- Blog your music
A blog can be an excellent way to demonstrate that you are an active musician by providing regular updates and insights into your career. Blogging your music can also help your website SEO and enable you to build a deeper relationship with your followers. It can be useful to create weekly blog posts about your music. However, avoid making it too self-promotional. The blog posts can highlight your creative process and new music or share personal stories about your career. Another advantage of blog posts is that you can reuse the content for sharing on social media or newsletters.
- Playlist on streaming platforms
Whether you’re releasing music on Deezer, Spotify, or Apple Music, having your songs included on popular playlists can make or break your career. Doing this can be difficult if you’re unfamiliar with platforms and their algorithms. You can feature your music on algorithmic-generated playlists or pitch it to playlist curators to boost your music reach.
However, streaming platforms are not trouble-free and usually face real-time issues and outages. This leads to a whole host of online searches such as ‘is apple music down?’ These are common issues subscribers have to deal with. While fans always want their music available, all platforms are not built the same, so it can be useful to consider a few factors when deciding where to upload your music.
- Promote on social media
Social media is an extremely powerful tool for musicians. It is always buzzing with something new and has become a necessary tool for musicians to share their new music and videos with their followers. Maintaining a presence on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok can be critical for success. It is easy for a user to become a fan when they regularly enjoy the content you share on social media. To maximize your reach, examine what other artists in your genre share with their fans, the strategies working for them, and how to utilize these to your advantage.
- Add your music to unrelated-style videos
This is another great way to get your music to your target audience. For example, you can boost your music exposure on YouTube by adding them to unrelated style videos on the platform. The videos may cover reviews, unboxing, sports, and so on. These are excellent ways to grow your brand beyond music and reach potential fans who may not be music fans. You can add your work at the start and end of such videos. Include a blurb about the music’s origins and how to listen to or purchase them.
- Be active and engage
Truly, social media is designed for networking and creating an active community. However, it is not enough to create and share content without engagement. Actively participate on social media and other music platforms to maximize it. This means commenting and responding to posts on subjects that interest you. Don’t limit yourself to your posts; interact on other people’s pages. It could be fans or other artists in your genre. Pick some blogs and get interactive on some YouTube channels. However, ensure that these platforms attract your target audience.
- Make good music
It can be challenging to make significant strides in your career if you don’t make good music. The industry is competitive and filled with many players, so you are faced with an uphill battle as an independent act. For instance, music fans and listeners are constantly besieged with chart-topping music. Consequently, it would help if you went beyond your abilities to create amazing music that resonates with your target audience. This increases the chances of getting noticed, so take everything into your stride to wow your fans.
These are a few ways to reach new listeners and promote your music online. It is tempting to want to be everywhere, but the most effective approach is to pick platforms you are comfortable with and figure out how to maximize them to promote your work.