Playlist Research - Affordable Ways to Promote Music Online

Videos

Timelines

.............. ABOUT ** MUSIC ** RADIO ** THEMES ** ERAS ** ARTICLES ** INDIE ** SCENES **

Affordable Ways to Promote Music Online
by Alex Cosper (2/15/2014)

While it may cost thousands of dollars to pay a promotion firm to "work your song at radio," it costs next to nothing to promote your music through blogs, social networks, forums, classified sites and email. The best way to create a free vehicle that continuously promotes your music is to develop a regular blog. If you think blogs are shallow and trendy, they can be, but those are examples of the blogs to avoid. The successful blogs, the ones that are favored by search engines, are the ones that are highly informative with original perspectives.

You may even find that it's easier to make a living as a blogger than a musician, but why not do both? Blogging can be a lot of work, but it's also fun and can be meaningful to followers. If you can develop a site that showcases and sells your music that also features a popular blog, then you will be way ahead of the crowd. Most musicians either give up or turn to one of the many low cost music promotion services but don't do enough to see any results. It should be obvious to many indie artists after awhile that it takes a lot of promotion, meaning a team of people talking with hundreds of other people, to make things happen with music.

Ideally, your blog should be about what you want to share in depth with the world. A blog over time becomes an encyclopedia of knowledge, which is why search engines give comprehensive helpful blogs such credibility. Developing a large library of unique content that answers user questions is the essence of a powerful blog that can attract a significant following. Blogging is part of a bigger umbrella known as content marketing, which is a subset of inbound marketing. The revolutionary significance of inbound marketing is that instead of interrupting content, it serves the content the user is looking for.

Great blogs full of useful information have a good chance of getting ranked high in search engines, if the competition isn't very crowded. The best theme for a blog is one that you can own or dominate. By crafting your own niche you can be the most authoritative storyteller of that niche. Your niche might be the music itself or something that relates to the music making process. First you should research which niches that fit your expertise are in demand with the online community. Once you define your niche you should expand on multiple relevant topics and keep writing as many blogs as possible without resorting to fluff.

Eventually useful web pages become indexed in search engines and then become promotions for your website. The more quality web pages you create, the most potential traffic your site can attract just through search engine activity. Every popular page should include links to your music. Your music should be easy to find once people arrive at your website. By offering at least one free download of your music, you are allowing others to enjoy your music at their convenience.

The best way to get free media coverage from a televsion station or a newspaper is to be involved with a community event that raises funds for charities or causes. The media likes to cover public service events that involve the community. Associating music with public events that become news stories is an excellent way to get exposure in the press. If you happen to blog about issues and your music addresses issues, then it all ties together nicely. The essence of blogging is storytelling. If you can tell a good story then you can be a good blogger, which these days means you can be an influencer.

Blogs have become very important to promoting independent products, especially music. Even if you decide not to do your own blog, your music can gain attention when popular bloggers review it. Most blogs provide interactivity, such as an email link or a comment box. It opens the door to building one on one relationships with fans. Another way to nurture your fanbase is through social networks such as Google+ and Facebook. Social networks make it easy to share your music and videos with followers. They also help you stay in touch with your fans visually every day.