How To Promote & Share Your Music Online

From social media platforms to digital playlists, there are hundreds of ways to market your music successfully online. But when it comes to promoting your music online, not all roads lead to Rome - it's all about finding the right mix of marketing tools to get your music heard and sold. Check out this list of ways to promote your music online.

Website

A website is usually base one for establishing an online presence. It's where your fans will go to read your band biography, buy merch, and check out show dates all in one place. It's where promoters and talent scouts will go to learn the history of your band, download your EPK, and listen to your online playlist.

A website is a piece of digital property that your band will own outright, so you have total creative control of what goes on it. BandVista can assist you in building a pro website in almost no time at all, with mobile conversion, embedded playlists, videos, a band blog, and loads more tools for creating a central digital space for your band's online presence.

Blog

Having a blog is an easy, low-cost, and engaging form of content marketing. Maintaining a blog will help fans, promoters, and talent scouts gain behind-the-scenes knowledge of your band's creative process, tours you're planning, and upcoming releases. It creates instantly shareable content as well, which can boost your social media engagement tremendously.

Merchandise

Ever have someone ask you about the band featured on your shirt, bumper sticker, or keychain? Selling merch online is a great way to get your band promoted offline. Even having a small merch shop with just a few items can assist with increasing online engagement - and increased sales of music and band-branded merchandise.

BandVista can help you build a fantastic online merch shop quickly and easily - and manage your payments and sales records painlessly.

Mailing List

Email marketing is hands-down one of the most effective forms of online marketing. Offering a mailing list that your fans can sign up for ensures that they'll know when you're going on tour, when you're set to release a new EP or album, and when you've got new merch in the shop. Email marketing is not only effective but inexpensive or even free - so make sure you're utilizing it regularly.

Gigs and Events

Utilizing digital platforms to promote your shows and tours, like Facebook event pages and Eventbrite, can help you significantly boost event attendance. In turn, you can use event links to send to local publications, like regional, arts, and alternative newspapers, to publish in their own online and in-print calendars.

Billions worldwide use Facebook and other online platforms to find and attend entertainment-based events, so don't discount the importance of using those tools. The best part? They're almost always free.

Collaborate

Many an artist has made a successful career by collaborating with other bands and artists. When you collaborate with another artist, you gain an entirely new audience via your collaborator's own social media and online presence to show what you can do - and by working with you, they gain the same benefit. Collaborating is an amazing tool to employ your creativity and musical skill and gain new and enthusiastic fans at the same time.

In addition, working with local civic organizations, non-profits, music venues, and charities will also help you increase your online visibility, along with your show, music, and merchandise income.

Social Media

Social media is an indispensable tool when it comes to successfully promoting your music online. Social media engagement is a daily activity for billions worldwide, and using social media can help you tap into thousands of potential fans.

Choosing which social media platforms to utilize can be tricky. Start by checking out bands similar in style and genre to yours, and find the platforms where they're most active. Choose a few social media platforms that have high levels of activity in your musical scene, and post consistently on them. Social media management is an acquired skill, but a bit of reading up online about effective social media marketing will go a long way.

YouTube

YouTube is a tremendously popular and effective tool for marketing and selling your music. Whether you post band announcements or vlogs, music videos, or tour footage, video marketing creates an instantly entertaining way to help your fans engage with and buy your music - not to mention attend your shows!

SoundCloud

SoundCloud is a free and valuable tool for sharing your music online. You can create playlists, provide free downloads to fans and promoters, and embed digital playlists elsewhere on the web.

Tons of agents and talent scouts use SoundCloud as a tool for finding new artists to sign and promote - so make sure the music you upload to SoundCloud is the best you have to offer.

Hire A Manager/Marketing Person

If you have the budget for it, hiring a marketing manager for your band can be an excellent investment. By engaging a professional to manage your digital and print marketing for you, you can focus entirely on creating music to release to the world - and let your marketing professional do the rest.

While hiring a marketing manager may represent a fair cost in the beginning, in the long run it can help significantly increase your band's visibility and income beyond what you might have made if you did it on your own.

Outreach & PR

Outreach and public relations involves a group just as important as your fans - the press. Research your local media outlets, especially music journals or alt newspapers, and get to know them. Send them your EPK or your show dates, and let them know when you're releasing a new album. Ask if they'd be willing to run an interview or article on your band.

Media outreach and PR is just as important as marketing to your fans, so don't miss out on amazing opportunities to splash your band across the pages and social media platforms of local and regional publications.

EPK

Having an electronic press kit, or EPK is another important tool in your digital marketing arsenal. EPKs can be sent to radio stations, media outlets, venues, and promoters to help get your music heard, resulting in increased online visibility and online sales. If you don't have one already, BandVista can help you build a brilliant EPK that will showcase the best you have to offer.

No matter where you are in your career, BandVista can help you build an incredible online presence - and a bright future for your music.