While the titans of the music industry still hold a lot of power, music really does belong to the general public these days. This is largely due to the way people consume music. It isn’t just about turning on the radio or buying CDs anymore. Rather, people are looking online for independent or niche artists that only they can find.
Now, as you can imagine, this is excellent news for you. You don’t have to be famous or even paired with a label to get your music some serious attention. This is something you can do for yourself. At the same time, you also need a lot of guidance. While there are numerous avenues you can go down to promote your music, they aren’t always the right choices. So, to make sure you are taking steps in the right direction, these are the tips you need to follow:
Figure Out Where You Want to Go
Before you do anything else, you need to determine just why you are promoting your music. Is it a hobby that you enjoy and thus, are trying to get more recognition? Or, are you set on jumpstarting your musical career by yourself? In case you are wondering why it is important to make this distinction, your answer will conclude just how much effort you need to put into this endeavor.
For instance, if you don’t mind a little extra fame, you don’t have to put in as much time and energy. On the other hand, if you want to make a living from your music, then you will certainly need to be serious about what you are doing.
Find Your Ideal Audience
Once you have narrowed down your goals, it is time to figure out who you should be promoting your music to. See, not everyone is going to be as equally interested in your music. After all, if you find yourself firmly in the indie rock genre, it will be quite challenging to reach people who prefer rock. So, to save yourself some time, money, and heartache, it is best to stick with those that are actually willing to listen to your music.
To do this, you will have to guess just who it is that will pay attention to your work. This means starting with the basics like age, gender, and interests. For example, your audience will most probably be similar to you in age and likely to be the same gender as you. Of course, depending on your genre and the topics that you focus on, you may find that you appeal to all genders equally or one more than the other.
Once you have concluded who your audience is, make sure that most of your music promotion is targeted towards them. By doing this, there is a greater chance that your music will catch on as this is exactly what this demographic wants to hear.
Get Organized with a Promotional Plan
After you have found your audience, you will have enough pieces of the puzzle to create a promotional or marketing plan. Again, this does involve a bit of work so you may be wondering why this is something you need to bother with. Well, if you are random with your promoting techniques, you are likely to confuse the fans that you do pick up along the way. Furthermore, such a haphazard method means that you will find it difficult to discern what strategies work and which ones don’t.
Since you are managing all the promotional work by yourself, you should start by looking at what artists or bands within your genre are doing to promote themselves. Understand, these individuals have PR groups and managers at their disposal. So, there is a good chance that their marketing plan is more sophisticated than what you can come up with at the moment.
Of course, it is important to realize that not all tactics are successful. This is why you need to focus on bands or musicians that are achieving success purely through their promotional strategies. A good way to determine this is to consider the artists with the highest number of followers or fans online. Also, consider those that have an enthusiastic fan base as well.
Make an Effort with Your YouTube Channel
YouTube is one of the largest music and video platforms in the world. Fortunately, for you, it is also easy for you to get started on it. Nonetheless, a channel alone isn’t going to be enough. After all, there are hundreds of thousands of people with channels and only a small portion of these individuals are famous.
To ensure that you are making an impact, you need to get started on the right foot. This means setting up your channel in as professional a manner as possible. Ensure that the icon, art, and layout looks aesthetically appealing. It will be your first step in encouraging people to continue looking through your channel.
After this, it is about the video descriptions – make sure they are relevant and intriguing as this is what will people first see. Then, take time to figure out your annotations as these can get people to continue watching you.
Of course, the main attraction will be the videos that you post. So, what should you do? Well, since you may not have any fans as yet, you can post cover songs. This is certainly a popular avenue and has led to some success. Not to mention, you can draw more people in with the mention of something familiar before leading them to the content that you have created.
As with the channel, it is important to make the videos look as professional as possible. So, try to find a dedicated space that’s free of mess. Furthermore, when recording the videos, use good-quality equipment to create clear audio and video. Finally, edit the videos so that there are no gaps, lags, or anything else that may turn people away.
Offer Up Your Music
Now, you can wait for the fans to start rolling in on their own but this can take a while. This is why you should take the initiative and start reaching out to people who can help grow your fan base. Luckily, you can actually find some of these individuals on YouTube. Check out influencers or at least people who make popular how-to or tutorial videos.
Why should you do this? Well, in many instances, these individuals have music playing in the background. Since they don’t want to pay copyright fees, they are forced to find music from lesser-known individuals. This is where you come in. If you feel like there is an influencer or similar individual who will relate to your music, send them a message along with a sample of your song. There is a good chance that if they feature your music, their subscribers will make inquiries about the background music and find you through this channel.
Then, there are music blogs. These days, most up-and-coming artists are reluctant to contact music blogs. This is because the more popular blogs have high demand and don’t always pay attention to every musician that reaches out to them. Still, this doesn’t mean that music blogs are out of the question for you. You simply need to change your approach. Rather than contacting the in-demand ones, head over to those with a more modest following. In most cases, if these sites like your sound, they will be more than happy to feature your music or even you as an artist.
Get Your Songs on Playlists
In the modern music era, it is all about playlists. If you can land yourself on the right one, there is a good chance that you can have hundreds or even thousands of people listening to your music. As you can imagine, though, this isn’t exactly an easy task.
For one thing, you need to have several songs sorted out already. These need to be well-produced and appeal to your listeners. Keep in mind, you will be battling it out for attention with some of the biggest names in the industry. So, if your songs don’t sound good, they will be promptly skipped over.
Also, before you can even think of getting on playlists, make sure that all of your social platforms and updates are in order. This provides you with an air of legitimacy. Therefore, it is more likely that streaming services and influencers will actually take a chance on you.
Then, it is time to start putting together your own playlist. When doing this, make sure to feature other artists as well. After all, if people don’t know about you yet, they aren’t going to be inclined to listen to a playlist filled with your songs. Now, when creating the playlist, make sure all the songs have a similar theme. This gives the listener some idea of what to expect and therefore, will be more satisfied with their listening experience.
Follow these tips if you are interested in getting people to listen to your music. Yes, it will take effort, time, and a great deal of patience. Nevertheless, you may also be creating just the right opportunity to launch your music career. So, it could be the best thing that you can do for yourself.