The Internet presents a wealth of opportunity for the small band or local artist to promote music, earn extra money, and even turn their passion into careers. But in order to get the most out of the World Wide Web, you need to be focusing your marketing efforts in the smartest possible manner and maximizing your earning potential. Make sure that if you think you are ready for a career in music, you are not neglecting the following rules of making it to the top:
Use social media to connect. There are many social networking sites out there, and it really doesn't hurt having a presence on each one. But twelve accounts can be awfully hard to manage if you are also trying to create new music, schedule live shows, and balance your web presence. It is for this reason that you may ought to think about an aggregate tool such as Threadsy that allows you to make updates to all networks using one interface. When you can consolidate work like this, it saves you the cost of hiring a social networking manager, and it allows you to focus on creating music.
Make sure you have maximum exposure. There are many ways to reach people online. Individually, it may be difficult to grow a network, but combining your efforts allows you to reach the maximum number of people with the minimum amount of effort. Of course, it all starts with making great music, but after that, you should be trying anything you can to build links and get your name to the top of the search engines.
Give your audience incentive to find you. Link building is a part of all these steps, and integral to web marketing success. One of the best ways to build them is to give your audience a reason to find you. Suggested methods of accomplishing this: give away music for free. Run promotions on band merchandise. Generate products that build a sense of community.
Don't just create music. Create relationships. Developing a unique sound that people will want to listen to is the cornerstone of any great band, but the ones that stay around create followings. Behind the scenes web content, smartphone applications, and allowing your fans to provide easy feedback makes you accessible, and accessible bands will always be there for their audiences, come rain or shine.
Balance your creative side with your business side. Playing music is a passion. It can turn into a business. You have to make sure that it becomes enough of a business to turn into profits, but never let your passion for it go away. The minute that happens is the minute that you no longer have anything worth promoting, either in the virtual or real worlds.
Get "Mean Business" for only $5 (AUD) using the codewordthistle
Generally speaking, when one thinks of music distribution we think of expensive CD recording, CD replication and manually delivering them to radio stations and music stores. This is a costly and time-consuming exercise....as well as expensive. It is also a massive gamble. How do you know that radio stations will even acknowledge your music, let alone play it? How do you know that your CDs will sell at least enough to break even? You don't and it's one long, unpredictable, frustrating roulette game.
Unless your band is 'known' far and wide then I highly advise against the above means of achieving success. You may strike it lucky and sell a few CDs from a record store if they happen to not only play your CD at a time when your target audience may be in their shop. Receiving anything remotely like a 'result' from a radio station is even less likely. The custom is that, if you're lucky, the station will play one track that a few listeners pick up. To make a tiny crack in this market, your bands name and website needs to be mentioned.
Pretty grim stats, eh?
Now that we've arrived here in 2010 there is no need to be creating and delivering CDs and quite possibly with a rather nasty credit card balance. There are so many music internet sites and internet stations screaming out for your music....in digital format. Once your digital recording equipment is purchased, then you're hot to trot. No more booking costly recording studios, needless arguments over cover notes and so forth. You can pretty-well record your music at home....and it's FREE!!!
You can upload your music and/or email you music....as little or as much as you think is an appropriate amount to relevant internet music sites ant internet music stations. In all of these instances it is advisable to include a brief bio. and band photo. I highly advise checking out the internet music sites and internet radio sites that seem more suited to your genre of music. Now that your digital music has been distributed to exactly where you want them to be, it's a bit of a waiting game. Relax. The wheels will start to move soon enough. Again, all of this is FREE!!!
There are sites that I advise avoiding. Sites that demand that you submit at least one track that is a free download. Other sites, mainly the major distributors pay little attention to the small guys like us. They charge you to have your music for sale on their site. Case in point; myself. I have one album with a major distributor. This album is selling for more than an album by The Rolling Stones! Why is this? I have no control over the price of my own music.
Once the above-mentioned album is due for renewal....it won't be.
The Bandcamp player that you see to your left gives me total control over the albums price. Additionally, you can stream the entire album as often as you like. If you opt to purchase the album, simply enter the codeword thistle to receive a 50% discount.
To the younger bands starting out, I cannot stress enough the importance of carefully examining each music site that they are considering. I am currently re-assessing ReverbNation for numerous reasons based on my professional outlook....
If you are an independent musician, serious or newcomer to the independent music scene then Bandcamp is the spot for you. If a no-frills, 'cut to the chase' approach and want an easy-to-follow website that allows streaming music to load quickly, then Bandcamp is also a great resource. A minimal and sleek design makes things easier to navigate, and a faster connection like satellite internet means dozens of songs are instantly listen-able....and it's FREE!
Bandcamp isn’t yet another place to put your music. Rather, they power a site that’s yours. So instead of ads for Sexy Singles Chat and so forth, your fans see your design, your music, your URL. The independent musician retains all ownership rights, whilst the owners of Bandcamp stay in the background handling the technical aspects.
The Bandcamp player that you see to your left is for my 12-track album "Mean Business." The 'visible' price is $10....BUT....if you enter the word: thistle at checkout, you are able to observe the hefty discount....whilst still having the option to proceed with your purchase (which can now be made via PayPal as well). This aspect offered by Bandcamp have seen a marked upturn in my music downloads. I feel that independent musicians are crazy not to capitalize on this feature.
Musicians tracks are offered in mp3, AAC, FLAC or Ogg. The independent musician can choose between giving away free music downloads, setting a price or letting fans name their price – it’s all up to the independent musician. Fans have easy tools to share your music with their friends, and most importantly we do it in a way that drives traffic back to you. The independent musician is also given complete transparency into how your music is spreading with outstanding, real-time statistics. You can see where your fans are coming from, what they’re listening to, even which tracks they’re obsessed with versus which ones they’re skipping over.
Fast, dependable streaming and downloads of your entire catalog, adorn your tracks with all the metadata they need to sail into iTunes with artwork, titles, and so on intact, and mutter the various incantations necessary to get your site top-ranked in Google.
As mentioned in the title of this blog, independent musicians keep 100% of sales which, hopefully, will see more independent musicians making their music at a competitive price within the online music industry.
