It comes as no surprise that the internet has provided a multitude of ways that you can use to promote your music for free. You can now grow your fan base and make a ton of cash by promoting your music online. You literally do not need to get out of your house to make sales from your music. What a long way we have come, right?
While all this may sound terrific, there is a twist to it. Te availability of these numerous ways to promote your music online means one thing. You need to be very strategic, knowledgeable and focused on the intended result you are looking for. Armed with this information, you can then wisely choose a few ways that can fast track you towards your goals.
Here are a few free online marketing ideas you could use.
Social Media
If there’s something we all use, its social media. We are all on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter these days. Heck, my grandma is on social media too! However, you may not be maximizing on social media to use it to its full potential when it comes to marketing your music.
Social media is definitely NOT what you would refer to as a straight-up marketing platform. In actual sense, it is a catalyst for both word-of-mouth marketing and conversation. On average, 80% of your posts should be humorous, conversational, witty and interesting, leaving only about 20% of promotional content.
That doesn’t mean that posts can’t be both conversational and promotional. You just need to learn about how you can frame your content in an interesting way. If you are in the studio recording a new album, for example, try and sprinkle little snippets on social media. Post a story about your experience in the studio that day. Share a photo or post a short teaser video of a song.
If you are on tour, take pictures at the venues or post short videos or pictures of your audiences. These aren’t directly promotional things, but they still keep fans in touch with what’s going on.
Remember, when it comes down to it, social media isn’t the end-all-be-all of promoting your music. It potentially becomes a huge time suck and can tear you away from your music unless you learn how to manage your time.
Music Blogs
If you are looking to promote your music, simply sharing things with your fans is not enough. Another major goal should be winning new fans over by reaching out to untapped audiences and converting them. Music blogs are one of the great ways to do that. Bloggers are always on the hunt for fresh, new content. What’s even better is that as an artist, there are tons of smaller blogs that you are easily within your reach. Blogs pretty much have niche following. What this means for you is that if your music is run on a certain blog, you are guaranteed that it will be seen and heard by people who already appreciate the genre!
Do some research and find blogs that cover your genre of music. Get in touch by sending out personal emails to these bloggers. Do you have any interesting stories regarding your new tour, song, or album? A unique story will most definitely help with standing out from the many thousands of other musicians just like you who are releasing their album too. Making it as easy as possible for music bloggers to get interested in covering your story is something that you should give very serious thought. Establish good relationships with those who do cover your art. Great relationships are part of life and go a long way in promoting your music.
Website
As a musician, whether an aspiring one or already established, you must have a website. The idea here is basically to keep more of your content out there and within your fans’ reach. In addition to allowing your fans the opportunity to access your music, your website will also give them a place to get information on your performance schedules and keep them up to date with what you are working on. It’s also the place where they can access your music any day, anytime.
You need to constantly be in your fans ears. See, if you aren’t, there’s a high chance that they will simply forget about you and shift their interest to the next big thing.
Take advantage of your website to keep fans engaged and informed. For a better running professional and consistently updated website, seek the services of a content marketing strategist. I understand that this all sounds very simple and doable. In actual sense it is extremely time consuming and you may soon run out of content. Your other life roles and duties could also cause you to falter and fall into inconsistency or creative-block. These are a few among the reasons why you are better of having a content marketing strategist. They will be consistent in providing your fans with your songs, videos and blog posts about your projects and performances and engage them by seeking their views and opinions.
As a trick to rank higher in searches, broaden the content in your website. Instead of talking solely about you, diversify and talk about your music genre in general. Doing this will increase traffic to your site and eventually increase your visibility, creating an even bigger fan base for you.
There are many more ways to promote your music online for free. These can be very easily done from anywhere and at any time.
Of highest importance to note is that consistency and content are key here.
Keep it relevant, short, interesting, witty and funny. That will most definitely get you noticed and place your music in everyone’s home, car and phone within no time.
Free online marketing has worked for very many big musicians out there. It has made them who they are today. So don’t hesitate. Do it now and do it right.
