What’s the best way to promote music online. I have formed this new band two months ago and I want to create a buzz about it.
Put your music on the first page of google is OK, but it is too difficult to reach this.
Youtube and Myspace are perfect sites for music promotion, you’ll get a lot of feedback there, that I am sure of.
Yup, forgot them…well sort of.
CDBaby (along with competitors such as TuneCore and The Orchard) offer distribution to the most prominent MP3 download stores such as iTunes, AmazonMP3 and eMusic.
I forgot to mention this step, but it is definitely worth doing, and is very reasonably priced for the possible sales you get. iTunes doesn’t promote unsigned music to any great extent, but you should definitely have your music on there so if people search for you it is available.
go with google adsense, advertisement will definetly work.
Surprising no-one has yet said iTunes. Independent artists can put their music into the iTunes catalogue and promote it elsewhere. 
I’m a electronic music producer and in my experience these have helped me alot:
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This is a bit slow promotiong, but very important: create a blog around your music. Pick a hosting, register a domain name that includes your band or artist name and set up a wordpress blog on it. Wordpress blog platform is easy to install and maintain. Put some content to your blog: write your biography, (discography if any) and samples of your music. Also, if you can, write anything music related articles (preferred to your genre): How To -guides, opinions, reviews… anything. Social bookmark every post you make. In time you start getting longtail keyword search traffic via Google to your site. And most often visitors also look around what’s more in your website and some of them check out your music as well. This is what I’ve done and it’s working quite good. Comment on other artists, producers and music lovers blogs as well. Try to create a network around you.
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Create a channel for your band on Youtube, create a video for each of your song and upload. The videos could be simple still images playing your music on background. I have created a tutorial on how to do this in here:
Also, embed the videos to your blog posts as well.
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Promote your music on forums. This is how I got my record deal for couple of my songs. Most music related or genre specific forums have a promotion area where you can post a link to your musical productions. Try it out. If your song is good, it may create a buzz on forum and that means good things for you and your band. Also, if you’re a member of a forum, you can create a signature to your user account and I suggest you use a link back to your blog. That way you can get more visitors as well.
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Facebook and Twitter. Create a Facebook and Twitter profile for your band and start collecting friends and followers, though remember not to spam
Every now and then, post a link to your latest music and also remember to mention on both sites when you post a new blog post. -
Leverage P2P file sharing sites. Upload a preview or free track on the most popular torrent sites. That’s where masses of people hang around and downloads their music anyways. That’ll create exposure for your band and music. You can read more about this on my website here:
http://petrisuhonen.com/promote-your-music-by-leveraging-p2p-networks
Hope these helps to get you started!
Thanks for mentioning Itunes AlexDawson , yes, Itunes is the best site of all.
If you want to create an online buzz around your band, make sure you have an online presence on Facebook, MySpace, Bandcamp, a blog, CDBaby (and maybe Twitter)
- Everyone has a Facebook account so having a fan page on there is always useful for viral marketing purposes.
- MySpace used to be the place for bands, but whilst you should still maintain a page there, they have lost their way a bit.
- Bandcamp is the newcomer that is taking MySpaces crown. - it offers much better streaming and download options to bands and fans, including possible payment processing for downloads.
- Having a blog will allow you to keep people up to dae with new gigs, releases, etc
- CDBaby offers a great and cheap way to sell your CDs online, so when you start DIY releasing stuff.
- If you know how to use Twitter then that can also help to find connections.
All of this is just to offer a presence. You then need to get involved in online communities that cover your genre of music, and send out your demos (as mp3s or CDs) to blogs that cover similar bands as well.
However, the best way to build a buzz around your band remains playing live gigs and getting a following that way - there is no way to market your band that can even come close to this.
The best way is the SEO of your website so that it come in top 10 in google or you will buy hit.
Myspace is the good area to promote music
Have you tried CD Baby? If you have an account and would like to share reviews pm me!
Oh yeah, don’t forget music forums and blogs! Share your link everywhere!
- create myspace account and publish your band & your demo song there
- make some simple music video and publish in youtube
- create facebook,twitter or any social media network account to reach & search fans
- create official sites or blogs and fill it with music content
hope this help
cheers~
Actually, SEO is a lousy way to promote a band. Certainly you should try to rank for the name of your band, and maybe you can even manage to rank for some combination of your town and your genre, but neither of those is going to get you much traffic.
Just ask the guy who created “Moshable.com”; he’s one of the SEO masterminds of our time, but that site gets p00t for traffic because nobody is searching for bands that nobody has heard of.
People are searching for “The Eagles” and “Hootie and the Blowfish”, but (i) that’s not your band, and (ii) you’re facing real competition if you want to rank for that, and (iii) that kind of traffic is hard to turn into money… Look at the crater that’s left where iMeem used to be!
To promote a band you’re going to need to get in front of people who don’t know you exist; that’s much more a mission for social media and old-fashioned publicity. For instance, getting your band mentioned in a high-viewership blog can get you some attention, but to do that you’ve got to cultivate a relationship a high-viewership blogger… Those kinds of activities and skills will help you with SEO too, but it’s really a whole new wild and wonderful world.
youtube? I think it is a good one for music. Just create some music videos on that one.
Promoting Music? Focused more in music related sites. In that way, you will got the right backlinks and visitors for your music site.
better you promote in myspace …
now myspace is media to promoting specially music / new band …
or you can try to promote in twitter or facebook …it’s also good to do promo …
Thanks for sharing
YouTube is great for promoting music! You can also sign up for ringtone websites, and upload ringtones with your music.
MyspacE? Better promote it in Facebook and twitter/. :goof: