10 Uncovered Ways to Promote Indie Music Online
Being an indie musician means waging a constant war for survival. At the times of R.E.M., it was a real nightmare to self-produce and self-promote indie music, as artists didn't have such a powerful tool as the World Wide Web.
Original Post Written By Alice Koval – @alicekoval
Happily, now things have changed and emerging indie bands have vast and affordable opportunities for making their music heard by the large Internet audience.
Even if you did a great promo job, there is always something you might have missed. Check these hidden ways to promote your band online to get new sources and ideas for self-promotion.
Create Professional Video with Visualizations
Maybe it’s hard to believe but videos with interesting and unique visualization can be popular as professional clips. For example, this video has over 3 million of views being just heart bit visualization with music.
No doubt, professional video clips are much better than visualizations or just pics. At the same time we all understand it costs a pretty penny. Thus, while you are doing your best to earn money for your first music video, don’t lose a chance to show yourself to fans. Create a video with your band pics. It may be some funny moments, live shows, professional pics, or rare ones. Or just add an album cover for your songs and upload it to YouTube right from the software. You may use, for instance, Freemake Video Converter to join pics with your tracks.
Cross-Post YouTube Videos to Get More Fans
YouTube is the best place to promote an indie team. However, don’t stop with only one official channel. It’s not really enough. The more channels you create, the faster your promotion will go. You may create a channel with your song lyrics. Then, a channel with backstage videos from your rehearsals, or a channel with remixes and covers. Cross-post your videos among these channels to let more people view them. Don’t forget to turn on comments to see what people think about your music. And of course, write a good description for your channel and videos to make users subscribe to your news. Try to use different keywords and hashtags for one and the same video. After some time, check what goes better and rename other videos. Also, use tips from this post to create an attractive and interesting channel.
Share Experience on Popular Music Blogs
Your future fans will be curious to know how it all has started. Share your experience via popular music blogs or even create your own one. Write down your story, your promo success in case you have any and all falls and rises that you have already passed by. Provide rare pics and your YouTube videos. Add info about upcoming events and important dates. Besides, other bloggers may notice your band and you’ll get broader coverage.
Learn Latest Music Trends with Google Alerts
Go to Google Alerts main page and check corresponding news and pages. If there are any forums, boards or chats dedicated to your music style, get into habit to check the latest posts and communicate with other users. It’s a great source for getting new fans. Moreover, there you can meet other musicians and learn more about their positive experience in self-promotion.
Make Song Covers to Get More Recognition
You are likely to have influencers who played an important role in your band’s music style. Why not
making a couple of covers on their songs? Just don’t take too popular and wide-know tracks. Usually these songs already have a lot of remixes and covers thus it’ll be difficult to promote your masterpiece. Use Google Trends to understand what songs you may use for most effective self-promo and start creating. Here’s how to do it. Enter an artist name and Google Trends will show you the list of popular queries. Now pick up a song which isn’t the hottest. As soon as your track is ready, upload it to all popular music sources such as SoundCloud, Last.fm, and of course your YouTube channels with “remix” or “cover” in the title.
Use Vine as Trailers for Videos
Vine is a great source for short videos. Short videos are much popular than long YouTube ones. They don’t take too much time and people can watch them literally everywhere. Do you best to make great short videos out of your YouTube clips and post them to Vine. Don’t forget to provide a link to the complete video and add corresponding hashtags.
Create Social Channels to Get People’s Opinion
Create your band profile on Facebook and Twitter. Cross-post all your news, blog posts and YouTube videos to your social channels. Follow most popular music bands that play the same music as you do. Try to contact famous music critics and music blog editors. Ask them to check your tracks and share their opinion. It might be very useful for your future.
If you have enough funds, create a paid account on LinkedIn and start writing to music labels and record studios. Try to provide detailed information about your band including pics, links to your profiles, and tracks.
Subscribe to Music Marketing Tips
There might be a lot of ways to promote your band that you’ve missed or even don’t know about. Subscribe to best practices on Spotify or to YouTube creators to get the latest ideas about music promo. Check for music blogs to learn other bands experience. Don’t be shy and ask questions when something is not clear. Try everything you’ve learned on your own site pages and social channels. Check what goes best of all and cut the rest.
Watch Your Competitors on Facebook to Get New Experience
Facebook allows to all page owners to compare their pages with related ones. Go to Insights – Overview and scroll down till you see a title “Pages to Watch”. There you will see 5 pages suggested by Facebook. If they are not good, click “Add Pages” and search for the necessary ones. When you are done, click “Watch Page” to compare your social performance. Start following pages that have better performance to learn new tips and tricks. Check where their fans come from, their age, gender and create an ad-campaign with these parameters to get more people on your page.
Become iTunes Content Provider to Spread Your Music Worldwide
If you believe your tracks are ready for iTunes, it’s high time to become a content provider. You’ll get a chance to see your tacks in: Free Single of the Week, The appropriate genre’s Free Discovery Download, Weekly New Music emails, and iTunes Essentials.
Another way to use iTunes is iMix. It’s a compilation album where your track can go alongside with songs of more popular musicians. It’s a good way to get new fans and increase your own album sales. Read how to create an iMix here.
Don’t forget to create a link to your iTunes profile with iTunes Linkmaker. It’ll be more comfortable for your fans to just click a link to get to your album than to search for it manually. Post the link in your social profiles so anyone could reach it at any time.
The key for successful music promo is your desire to bring your tracks to world and constant learning how to do it. Follow these 10 tips, watch educational videos, take part in discussions and step by step your local fan base will turn into an international one.
Alice Koval is a freelance mommy blogger. She enjoys reading and writing about kids & latest tech. Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/AliceKoval
