- This post is part of the DIY Musicians Guide -
The internet is a massive black hole of information, advertisements, and trolls…that’s right..trolls.
While trolls are a topic for another day, I am going to tell you about some easy online promotional things you can and should do as an artists, for the low cost of ZERO.
This is not the be all end all of online promotion for bands and artists, just a starting point. Get creative and try things out.
Website
If you did not already see it, our post on What Every Artists Should Know Before They Make A Website, check it out now.
You’ll learn that your website is the main hub of your internet activity. It’s here that we want to have all the necessary and relevant information about our bands.
Once that is set up, it’s time to start sending traffic to the website and collecting fans.
The best way to do this is by adding new content, and sending links to that content out to the internet.
Having a blog on your site is a great way to post new content, and keep it organized for future reference. Much like these DIY Musicians Guide posts that we do.
We recommend the following simple outline:
- Website is main hub, drive traffic here.
- Use blog to add new content, send links out to the internet.
- Use your website sidebar to promote events or other important information.
- Collect email addresses
This works for any business, including yours as a band.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is not as important for artists, but something I feel we should at least touch on.
In order to make sure people find you when they search for you, it’s good to make sure there is a good amount of text with your band or artist name on at least one page.
I recommend using your About page for this. Just focus on one page, make sure your name is used several times throughout, and you should be good.
Most of you will have your band or artist name in your domain name, which will also be helpful.
Click here to learn more about search engine optimization.
Social Media
If you are not already aware of the main social media sites to be using, you must have been sleeping under a rock.
As of the time this article is written, Facebook and Twitter are dominating the internet.
There are a slew of other social networks that pop up daily, but the only ones you really need to pay attention to at this time are Facebook and Twitter.
For Facebook, you’ll want to create a PAGE for your group. For Twitter, there are no options other than just getting a regular account. Use your artists name as your username so people can find you easily.
Once you have these two set up, this is where you will begin to send out links back to your website. Remember those blog posts we mentioned? Copy/Paste the URL of your newest blog posts to Facebook and Twitter, and watch the traffic come back to your site!
As for Google +, keep an eye on it, many people are having great success with it but only a small fraction of social media users are using it now.
Go to where the market it, and move when the market moves.
You may have also heard of other websites like the now defunct Myspace(seriously if you are still trying to use this site something is wrong in your brain), reverbnation, sonicbids, etc.
I’ll just say this. You ‘could’ sign up for every social media site ever, and spend 1% of your time on each, and see 1% success.
Or you could focus on just 2 or 3 social networks, and CRUSH IT.
Keep your focus, branch out after you are winning.
Press / Blogs
It’s so easy now to set up a blog and start writing about anything in the world. Due to this there are now music and art bloggers the world over, who CRAVE new material.
Do them a favor and send it to them in a nice package. The easier it is for them to digest, the faster they’ll probably post something online and get you some buzz.
Start with finding the local bloggers in your town. Don’t be obnoxious and spam them over and over, be professional and to the point.
Make it so easy for them that they have to take action.
After you’ve logged the locals, start branching out and seeking popular blogs in your genre regardless of their location. Many music bloggers write about anything they hear from anywhere in the world. These sites will help spread your message to the world.
If you do get some press, take an excerpt from that, post it on your blog, and link back to the writer.
This will look good for you on your site, and also show the writer some love….and you have one more new piece of content you can send links out to social media about.
Music Hosting Sites
The only two I want to mention now are Soundcloud and Bandcamp.
Again, there are tons of them out there and new ones popping up daily, but we recommend focusing on less, and seeing more results.
These two sites are different but we feel it’s important to have your music on both.
I am always hearing about someone finding a new band on Bandcamp. Promoters rave about it, booking agents use it, you should have your music there.
Soundcloud is my personal favorite player to embed on websites. They also have a community of users that search for, find, and comment on new music.
Consider maintaining both of those and keep them up to date, you never know who is looking for yo.
Mailing List
Your mailing list is probably the single most effective online marketing tool that you have. If you are not collecting email addresses, you are missing out on a huge opportunity for big conversion rates.
We use Topspin Media to handle all of our email list, merchandise ecommerce, ticket sales, and more. They have an amazing platform that is designed for musical artists.
To note, they have a really fantastic article about Creating a Marketing Strategy That Works, HIGHLY recommended that you read this.
How do you collect email address?
Stick an email signup form in your website sidebar. Remember that you are sending links out to bring traffic back in to your website. Once those people are there, you need to capture their contact information so you can hit them up later.
Offer a download of your single in exchange for an email address. Maybe a video. You can constantly come up with new incentives to trade for an email address.
Once your list is big enough, even a small percentage of conversions from an email blast is going to be worthwhile.
OK That’s Information Overload, Can I Get Started Now?
We understand that this could all be too much all at once, don’t freak out and don’t worry. You got this.
Instead of trying to do everything at once, just do one thing at a time.
Set goals and by the end of this year, I bet you’ll be more knowledgeable about the entire scope, as well as seeing successes from those things you tried.
The worst thing you can do is to do nothing, so get started!
We’ll cover more online promotional options in more depth later in this series, so stay tuned.
- This post is part of the DIY Musicians Guide -
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