Online Marketing for Musicians
Online marketing for musicians is especially critical in this digital age where online streaming music services dominate the music industry. The industry is so competitive and saturated that anyone can share their music out of their bedrooms on any music streaming platforms, social platforms, and music websites.
Your main task is to create a huge fan base and keep your fans engaged online. Today, we will look at the best ways to market your music online.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Online Music Streaming Platforms
Many people use music streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music to listen to their favorite music, so you should release your music on these platforms. However, you cannot upload your music directly to their platforms but through a digital music distributor. They will distribute your music on whatever music streaming platforms they have contracts with.
Streaming playlists can work wonders for your digital music promotion. While you cannot submit directly to the brand-curated and algorithmic playlists e.g. Spotify playlists, you can reach out to user-generated playlist curators to ask if they can put your music on their playlists for their audience. There are millions of user-generated playlists which you can identify based on genre and other attributes.
Besides, the more music you release, the more you will get noticed by those algorithmic playlist curators. This makes it possible for bedroom artists to reach their audience organically.
Check out How to get playlisted on Spotify.
Your Music Website
A musician without a website is not considered professional. Period!
Your music website is the place where you want your fans and other people to land when they find out about your music. Although social and streaming platforms may make you think that you don’t need a website, your website is a must-have in marketing your music online. You own your domain name, content, and design of your website. A website gives you the ability to control the user experience of your fans, tell your story, present and sell your music directly, etc.
Check out How to create a professional music website for online marketing for musicians. Besides, make sure your website is SEO-friendly.
Email Marketing
Collect the email addresses of your audience on your music website using newsletter subscription. You email newsletters regularly keep your audience updated of your new music tracks, upcoming shows, new merch, etc. with images and videos.
Your Music Blog
Starting a blog on your website to build your fan base is important in online marketing for musicians. Here are some tips.
- Ensure your content is SEO-optimized.
- Blog regularly and share your posts across your social channels.
- Blog about your behind-the-scenes music production and songwriting process, other musicians in your genre that you like, your recent and upcoming shows, tours and rehearsals, music gear and knowledge, etc.
- Post lots of photos and videos.
YouTube Channel
According to Statista, YouTube is the second most popular social network worldwide as of January 2021 with about 2.3 billion active users. Besides, YouTube Music is the fifth most popular online streaming music service. Here are some tops on online marketing for musicians.
- Create your own YouTube channel.
- Upload all your music as Youtube videos to the channel.
- Include music videos, lyric videos, cover songs, shows, rehearsals, interviews, etc.
- Make quality videos and upload them consistently.
- Monetize your music by joining the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) whenever your channel has more than 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months, and 1,000 subscribers.
- Enable YouTube Content ID for each piece of music and video you upload. Alternatively, you can also enable Content ID on music distribution websites like Repost by SoundCloud and Ditto Music as part of the packages whereas DistroKid charges per release.
- Write SEO-optimized video titles, descriptions, tags, and hashtags with the relevant keywords to all your videos.
- Enable channel recommendations.
- Create playlists for each type of videos.
- Collaborate with influencers in your niche. Start with smaller influencers, and gradually move to larger ones as you get more followers. Add your music as background music to their videos.
Facebook Page
According to Statista, Facebook is the most popular social network worldwide as of January 2021 with about 2.74 billion active users. Below are some tips on how to use Facebook to market your music.
- Create a Facebook Page for your band.
- Gather insights in Facebook Business Suite about your audience.
- Post high-quality, authentic, and engaging content consistently e.g. photos, videos, and pictures of your rehearsals, shows, music promo, and musicians in your genre that you love, funny memes, music, Facebook Live, etc.
- Put your teaser music videos at the top of your posts.
- Get inspirations and ideas from the Facebook pages of other similar musicians.
- Comment a lot on other people’s content.
- Add your Facebook feed to your website.
- Reply to questions and comments.
- Create ads on Facebook to get people interested in your album, tours, merch, etc.
- Create Facebook Events like concerts, tours, promos, etc. which Facebook users can find in their cities and neighborhoods.
According to Statista, Instagram is the third most popular social network worldwide as of January 2021 with about 1.22 billion active users if Messenger and WhatsApp don’t count. Below are some online marketing tips for musicians.
- Post high-quality, authentic, and engaging content consistently e.g. photos, videos (Instagram Live and IGTV), and pictures of your rehearsals, shows, music promo, and musicians in your genre that you love, funny memes, etc.
- Put your teaser music videos at the top of your posts.
- Get inspirations and ideas from the Instagram profiles of other similar musicians.
- Schedule posts for upcoming launch of singles, EPs, and albums, tours, etc.
- Use hashtags that align with your music genre and style e.g. an instrumental music producer may use #InstrumentalMusic #InstrumentalPop # InstrumentalJazz #InstrumentalRock, etc. you can use hashtag generators like Sistrix to generate suggestions.
- Create Instagram Stories e.g. music videos, behind-the-scenes videos, new music gear videos, etc. using location tags, hashtags, etc.
- Create Instagram ads and promoted posts.
- Comment a lot on other people’s content.
- Add your Instagram feed to your website.
- Reply to questions and comments.
- Release your music to Instagram Stories where any Instagram users can add your soundtrack to their Instagram stories. You can do so through most of the digital music distribution websites with no additional charge like DistroKid, Repost by SoundCloud, Ditto Music, Amuse, LANDR, and iMusician.
TikTok
According to Statista, TikTok is the fourth most popular social network worldwide as of January 2021 with about 689 million active users if Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat don’t count. TikTok is the world’s leading destination for short-form mobile videos, available for iOS and Android.
Besides, music is TikTok’s universal language. TikTok became America’s go-to platform for music discovery, as well as a launching pad for smash hits by artists of all genres. Over 176 different songs surpassed 1 billion video views as TikTok sounds. Check out Year on TikTok: Music 2020.
Marketing Tips
- Make 15-second music videos to capture the catchy and memorable moments (e.g. a lyrical hook) that make your audience to sing along, dance or do something with it.
- Use hashtags that align with your music genre and style e.g. an instrumental music producer may use #InstrumentalMusic #InstrumentalPop # InstrumentalJazz #InstrumentalRock, etc. you can use hashtag generators like tiktokhashtags.com to generate suggestions. Create a hashtag using the title of your most popular songs.
- Create contests and challenges to reward your fans with free tickets, merch, etc. by using your music while dancing to build familiarity and loyalty. Collaborate with dancers on TikTok to start a dance challenge using your music as the soundtrack.
- Give fans behind-the-scenes access to you and your artist project. Document the creative process behind a new project (like recording your new album, or filming a music video) and be consistent. If your fans feel like they’re part of the project, there’s a bigger chance they’ll support it when it’s released.
- Create videos using Duets which allows you to build on another user’s video on TikTok by recording your own video alongside. For example, if you are an instrumental music producer, you can create a song with lyrics and vocals added by other musicians and influencers whom you collaborate with. This way, you can reach their fans and grow your followers.
- Get your music used as a soundtrack on some videos of other musicians and influencers whom you collaborate with.
- Create Tiktok ads.
- Release your music to TikTok where any users can add your music as track snippets from TikTok Sounds Library to their TikTok videos. You can do so through most of the digital music distribution websites with no additional charge like DistroKid, Repost by SoundCloud, Ditto Music, Amuse, LANDR, and iMusician.
Other Music Blogs
Getting music bloggers to write about you will help promote your music. Many discover new music from music blogs. First, you need to find music blogs that feature similar musicians in terms of music genre and style. Secondly, you need to find out what the bloggers write from their past posts. Thirdly, you need to prepare a compelling, unique pitch for your music.
Reaching out music bloggers is important in online marketing for musicians.
Crowdfunding Websites
Crowdfunding means raising money from a large audience such as your fans. It allows musicians to find out if there is enough demand for their music album before releasing it. They set a campaign goal and ask their fans for financial support. Only if it reaches the goal, they release the album within the pre-determined timeframe.
Besides, it is a way to do online marketing for musicians. More people know you through your crowdfunding campaigns.
Major crowdfunding websites for musicians include Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Patreon, artistShare, Ulule, FundRazr, Pozible, Rocket Fuel and Qrates.
Conclusion
The music industry is competitive and saturated in this digital age. Online marketing for musicians is especially critical to create a huge fan base and keep your fans engaged online. If you produce high-quality music and online content as well as develop and implement the right online marketing strategies mentioned above, you will be able to create your dedicated fan base.
