Being a musician is a tough gig – literally and figuratively. Aside from the actual act of performing and mastering your craft to be the best you can be at whatever instrument you play or band you are a part of, you need to be able to get your name out there and market yourself. Marketing yourself as a musician/band is pretty commonplace and is a very useful skill to start learning to help get yourself out there.
The question then becomes: how to market yourself if you have never promoted your work or brand? Well, it is actually a lot easier now than ever because of the internet and social media which is helping expand artists’ reach and audience. For those aspiring musicians or current ones, these 5 ways to promote yourself online can help further your career.
1. Selling Your Music Online
One of the best ways to promote yourself is by actively selling your music. What better what is there to gain an audience than to give people your music, while also making some money in the meantime. Selling your music is direct marketing without putting in the advertising effort and can help you get some word of mouth going. By providing your music to listeners you are promoting directly and you can check musicaroo.com and similar sites for tips on platforms, sites, or other means of selling music. It can be a competitive way to promote yourself because you are doing it against many other musicians but it is certainly worth the shot.
There is also the important fact that selling music is part of your end goal. Musicians love to play music because they enjoy it but to support your hobby or profession you need to find a way to monetize your talent. Selling your music online helps you set up a lasting presence to make money that can continue as you grow as an artist and spread your talent and awareness of your career.
2. Create a Website
Another great way to put yourself out there is to build your own site. Website creation is becoming increasingly easier and so many people are doing it whether to sell their products, music, merch, or even just to create a blog. Musicians can take advantage of website creation to promote themselves and gain new listeners, which could end up helping you expand your listeners tremendously. It is a huge problem for musicians to not have a strong online presence and a site helps boost your credibility immensely.
Websites are as good as you want to make them and there are tools and extensions for use for musicians that help a lot. Music players, video embedding, and a strong visual presence can make your website appear as a professional platform for marketing purposes. The better your site looks, the more likely people are to engage with it, and branding yourself can be exponentially improved with a site.
3. Social Media Marketing
An even easier step than creating your own site is to take full advantage of social media. Mind you, it is better to use both together to maximize your potential but social media has the advantage in it being incredibly simple to use. The other advantage that social media offers is the fact that it is free. Starting a website costs very little but still has some fees associated like domain name and hosting, but social media is almost completely free.
Depending on what you use it for, you can simply create an artist page or make your page a business page on Instagram to check analytics. Likewise, Facebook allows for ads that can be paid for on their app but you can simply run your page without spending a single cent and still reap the rewards of having hundreds of millions, to billions of people, able to see your content.
4. Start a Video Channel
Any kind of video sharing site is an amazing place to start as a musician. Not only are these sites free, just like social media, but they allow you to upload higher quality and longer videos. You can have interviews, live performances, and a number of video-based content. You want people to see more than just album covers or song titles. You need potential listeners to have a face to put to the name because there is a huge overlap in people being more receptive to music when they can visualize the artists.
Videos are also a good tool to show off a more creative side of your artistic talents. Even if you are not a videographer or super inclined when it comes to making motion videos to boost your music, you can always find a friend, family member, or outsource some quick work and let someone whip up a video for you.
5. Newsletters and Email Lists
An age-old marketing technique was newsletters and mailing lists. Now that email is the predominant business tool for communication, it has become the new normal to use these means of connection to spread awareness. Some people shun the idea of using newsletters or mailing lists but you would actually be surprised at how effective they can be. Email subscribing is a great opportunity to create a lasting form of communication between you and visitors on your site, people who buy your music, and just spreading your content and name.
It can be as easy as coming up with a mailing list of your friends then growing from there. Networking is the name of the game and using these methods is still effective. Newsletters are also great ways to let people know online about what your schedule is for shows.
Being a musician has never been an easy task. Whether it is scrounging up money to afford new gear, getting quality gigs, or just improving your craft, there is a lot that goes into pursuing this passion. One of the overlooked qualities that a great musician has is the ability to market themselves and promote their music. Using these 5 ways to promote yourself online you can help push your career further and help define yourself to your audience.
