Succeeding in today’s crowded music industry can sometimes seem like an impossible task. With streaming services and social media platforms making it easy for anyone to share and promote a new track, how can you stand out from the crowd?
It’s no longer enough to upload your music to the various digital streaming platforms available to you and hope for the best. You need to give your music a little boost, and to do that you need to use promotional tools. There are a number of them and each plays an important role in promoting your music, as well as building a strong and dedicated fanbase around your music.
Let’s look at some of them in more detail and see how you can best use them to ensure you reach a diverse range of potential fans.
1. Spotify for Artists
If you already have a Spotify account and have music on the online streaming platform, chances are you’ve heard of Spotify for Artist. Essentially, it’s a central hub where all your account information can be found. But it’s also the place to go if you want to promote your music on the streaming platform. Not only can you use it to optimize your artist profile by writing a compelling bio and adding high-quality, professional photos, but you can also submit your music for playlist consideration by presenting your tracks directly to Spotify’s editorial team. It’s also an analytical tool, gathering vital data about your streams and listeners that you can then use to tailor your content and marketing strategy.
2. YouTube for Artists
YouTube for Artists is a completely free service offered by YouTube itself. It allows you to turn your channel into an official artist channel (and get that little music note next to your name!), which means you can have all your music in one place, which is great for building a community around your music, as your fans know exactly where to find you or any new videos you’ve uploaded. In addition to this, it also offers promotional features such as YouTube Premiere, which allows you to schedule video premieres and chat with your fans live as your new music video debuts.
Similar to Spotify for artists, by having an official artist channel you can update your profile with a nice bio and some high-quality photos, and you can also track metrics such as views, view time, audience demographics, and engagement for your music videos and even for your channel.
3. Google Analytics
As you may have guessed, Google Analytics is an analytical tool (which in turn can be a promotional tool). If you have a professional music website, it can help you promote your music by monitoring traffic and seeing where visitors are coming from (social media, email, search engines…). With this information, you can then focus your time, money, and energy on promoting the channels that make the most difference.
Not only that, but the tool also provides you with demographic and geographic data and you can use this information to better understand your audience (age, gender, location, and interests), which means you can then tailor your marketing strategy to ensure you connect on a deeper level with your audience.
4. Groover
Groover is a music promotion platform designed to help independent artists and musicians get their music heard by industry professionals, influencers, and media outlets such as journalists, radio stations, and music bloggers.
It’s a great tool to have in your musician’s toolbox as it allows you to target specific industry professionals based on genre, location, and platform type, ensuring your music is heard by the right people.
It’s great for networking and, as a new independent artist, the feedback you receive can be invaluable in tailoring your content to better resonate with the right audience.
Another great way to use this tool is to submit your music to playlist curators through the platform, as being featured in a playlist that already plays your genre of music is one of the best things you can do to get a real audience. You can do the same with radio stations, as well as music journalists and bloggers.
5. ReverbNation
ReverbNation is an excellent platform for promoting music because its main aim is to give musical artists access to an audience. The first way it does this is by providing musicians with a platform to publish their music, their pictures, their videos, and a short biography. With everything in one place online, it’s easier for fans and industry professionals to find and share it. Some artists use the tool to distribute their music through online music shops such as iTunes or Spotify, but it also offers a variety of promotional tools to help musicians reach and engage with their fans more effectively.
One of these is FanReach, which allows musicians to send personalized messages to listeners and fans, or even the Promote It function, which creates and uploads ads on behalf of the musician to the most popular social media platforms.
These are just some of the ways you can use this tool to promote your music, you can also use it to engage directly with your fans or track your metrics to better tailor your marketing strategy.
It’s important to note that there is a free profile, a basic profile, and a premium profile, and the features change slightly depending on which one you opt for.
6. Canva
Canva is a design tool with which you can create professional-looking promotional designs for your music content, such as social media posts, flyers, posters, album covers, and merchandising (vinyl, cassettes, hoodies, T-shirts…). You don’t have to worry if you’re not really great at drawing, the platform offers easy-to-use and customizable templates and other tools for designing visually appealing content without needing a good eye for design.
Most people are visual and are drawn to things they see and resonate with, and because there are so many different options to choose from on the platform, you can really design something unique and brand-consistent that will resonate with your target audience. This idea of brand consistency across all promotional material is really important when creating a cohesive visual identity, as it can strengthen your connection with your fans and listeners.
7. Bandcamp
Bandcamp is ideal for independent artists who wish to showcase their music online as it allows you to sell your music directly to fans.
You can upload albums, singles, EPs, and merchandise (e.g. CDs, vinyl, t-shirts) to your Bandcamp profile and personalize it as you please. You can also add a biography, some photos as well as links to your social media channels.
When selling your content, you can either set your own prices or suggest that your fans name their own price for the download, giving them flexibility in supporting your music. You can also offer exclusive content through the platform, such as bonus tracks, acoustic versions, or remixes. This is the type of direct relationship with fans that can really help you build a loyal and dedicated audience. Because there are so many music lovers on the platform who are eager to support a smaller, independent artist, there are features such as curated playlists, and discovery tools that help artists connect with new listeners in order to increase their fanbase. The platform also offers integrated email marketing tools that allow you to send targeted emails to announce new releases or upcoming shows. Finally, the platform also provides built-in analytics to understand your audience and their buying behavior, which in turn can help you adapt your marketing strategy.
8. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a great promotional tool that allows you to schedule and publish your content across all your social media channels at once, helping you maintain a consistent online presence and engage with your audience on a regular basis.
On the dashboard of the platform, you can manage multiple social media accounts and not only schedule posts, but also respond to comments on either Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook all in one place.
A great way to use this tool would be to schedule posts about new music releases, upcoming gigs, or behind-the-scenes content to keep your audience engaged, and then monitor the reaction you get on the different platforms. It’s easy to do this because, as with the other tools we covered, Hootsuite provides detailed analytics and you can measure metrics such as engagement, reach, and audience demographics to understand what content resonates best with your fans, which can help you optimize your promotional strategy over time.
9. Tunecore
Tunecore is a music distribution service that, as its name suggests, focuses primarily on distributing your music on various online streaming platforms such as Spotify or Apple Music. However, it does offer a few promotional tools, such as sharing your music directly on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and organizing pre-save campaigns for upcoming releases, allowing fans to save your new music to their library before its actual release, thus boosting initial engagement. In addition to this, the platform sometimes highlights independent artists through editorial posts on its website and in its e-newsletters. Finally, the platform provides detailed analytics on the performance of your music, including streaming figures, geographic distribution of listeners, and demographic information, which can help you target your specific audience more effectively.
There are a multitude of music promotion tools you can use to market your music and by mixing and matching, you can build a loyal and dedicated audience.
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Send your music directly to curators and pros 👇
