The simple truth is that success in the competitive music industry has a lot to do with effective promotion. After all, you have to have a product – i.e. great music. But it’s also crucial to promote that great music. Before getting to the heart of the matter, remember that it’s important to consider both online and offline opportunities to promote an artist’s music, and that it’s also crucial to adapt the promotional strategy to the artist’s genre and target audience.
Let’s take a look at the different tactics you can use to promote someone’s music.
1. The importance of having a strong online presence
In the digital age, having a strong online presence as an artist is non-negotiable. The truth is that every artist has fans out there and all they have to do is find them. Or the other way around, therefore, it’s important to have a strong online presence as an artist to be more visible for potential fans.
Social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok are great for sharing updates, showcasing the artist’s personality and music and engaging with fans and listeners. It can also be interesting to create an artist profile on other more unusual platforms such as Reddit, Tumblr and Pinterest, as you never know where potential fans might be.
Having a good content strategy to promote your artist is also crucial and you should share things like updates, new releases, song samples, any high quality professional photos, videos (more on that later!) and any behind the scenes footage. In the same vein, don’t underestimate the power of user-generated content, as it can help increase visibility and engagement on social media platforms, and make sure you’re posting regularly and consistently.
A quick word about hashtags. They’re very useful if used effectively, but you need to make sure you don’t flood your posts with them and distract viewers from the main topic. And make sure you use both popular and trending hashtags (to gain visibility with a wider audience) and more specific hashtags (to develop your fanbase and niche).
When it comes to social media, it may be worth considering influencer marketing and working with influencers and social media personalities who have a large and devoted following on various platforms. As this type of marketing can be quite expensive, the best strategy is to niche down and contact influencers in the same genre as the artist, as the end goal is to develop a loyal and dedicated fanbase, so you really want to target the right people.
Now, before we move on, a quick word about having a professional website. It’s a crucial tool to promote an artist’s music as he or she can have all their information in one place.
Email marketing is also very important and, with that in mind, you need to send regular emails to your subscribers informing them of news or updates about the artist.
2. Leveraging music streaming platforms for greater visibility
Today, one of the best ways to promote someone’s music is to get it featured on online streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon Music and SoundCloud, as this can do wonders for reaching a wider audience (Spotify has over 600 million monthly active users worldwide!).
Having a complete and clear artist profile is essential, as it’s important to appear as professional as possible.
Now, one of the best ways to promote music on online music streaming platforms is to feature it in a popular playlist. To do this, you can either submit the music you’re trying to promote directly via Spotify for Artists to one of the playlist curators. Or you can go through a music promotion platform like Groover to submit the music to a whole bunch of playlist curators at once. This could also help you target the right ones and can give you credibility when submitting music.
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3. Making good use of TikTok and Instagram reels
TikTok is certainly enjoying a boom at the moment and has become one of the best ways of promoting music worldwide, particularly for independent artists who don’t necessarily have a big following or a lot of money to devote to promoting their music. This is mainly due to the platform’s features, which place a real emphasis on discovery. Indeed, thanks to features such as the ‘for you’ page, or the various challenges that always seem to grace the platform and are set to the catchiest new song, the platform has helped many songs achieve greater visibility and even go viral.
All that said, the best way to promote music on the platform is to create great content to showcase the music. And feel free to be as creative as you like here. It could be a lyric video, behind-the-scenes footage, an interview with the artist…
Don’t forget the challenges mentioned above, you could launch one on the theme of the music you’re trying to promote, which could result in a lot of user-generated content! You could also take an existing challenge and set it to the music in question. Bear in mind that it’s trends that make the rules on these platforms, so the key is to stay on top of them and always be on the lookout for the latest and emerging ones to be among the first to jump on a new trend, as this could help your videos go viral.
Now, while it may seem easier to go viral on TikTok, building a presence and developing an engaged audience on any social media platform takes time and effort, so stay persistent. It’s really important that you engage with your followers on the platform and reach out to other content creators and musicians who make similar music.
With the success of TikTok, Instagram has even launched its new feature, Instagram Reels, to compete. Bear in mind that a lot of the techniques you learn on one platform are transferable to another, so if you see that your TikTok strategy is working and your videos are getting lots of views and likes, transfer the techniques you use on that platform to Instagram.
4. The power of media coverage to propel an artist to stardom
Social media may take centre stage these days, but don’t dismiss the power of the press. Indeed, media coverage has the power to propel an artist to stardom by giving them visibility, credibility and validation within the music industry.
Positive reviews, interviews and articles in newspapers, magazines, blogs and online publications can generate buzz, create anticipation for releases and increase fan engagement.
What’s more, media coverage can pave the way for opportunities such as live shows, collaborations and endorsements, further raising an artist’s profile.
With this in mind, you can write a press release containing all the important information about the artist, such as genre, collaborations and release dates. You can then send it to music blogs or websites to get an interview, or you can even submit the music to a radio station in the hope of being featured.
Remember when we talked about submitting to curated playlists? Well, the same applies here. You can submit music directly to radio stations and media personalities, but you’re more likely to get a feature or even a response if you go through a music promotion site like Groover.
5. Making videos the star of your promotional strategy
Videos are now, more than ever, the ultimate medium for promoting music. They’ve always been part of the game, but now they seem to be the star player. So the best way to make music stand out in an already crowded market is to create and promote good music videos to go with the tracks you’re promoting.
These videos are a big part of your content strategy, so make sure the quality is professional and make them as interesting and unique as possible.
Behind-the-scenes footage is particularly popular with fans as people like to see real life, it’s more authentic and relatable.
As well as music videos, share any video content relating to the artist that you think would make good content.
6. Using festivals and tours to spread the word (and the music!)
Let’s not forget that playing music live is a great way to promote it. Not only does it give you great content for social media platforms, but it can be very effective in reaching new audiences and building a strong fanbase.
Festivals, in particular, are excellent promotional tools as they offer artists a unique opportunity to showcase their music to a variety of audiences. Indeed, festivals often attract participants from different regions and demographic groups. For a small artist, a good starting point would be to look for a festival in the same genre or niche and try to get them on the line-up.
Touring is also great because the energy and excitement of live shows can leave a lasting impression on audiences, encouraging word-of-mouth and social media buzz. Again, for a small artist who may not have the financial resources or backing to organise a full tour, supporting a larger band is a great option.
Promoting someone’s music is hard but rewarding work. Don’t forget that the most important thing is to persevere, as building a strong and committed fanbase takes time.
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