How should promote my work as a solo artist?

[tomas_almeida]

Hello everyone.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this.

I'm basicaly clueless when it comes to self promotion and trying to make a name for myself. I will soon release an EP/demo where everything is done by me; while I do it out of my love for music I think it wouldn't hurt to try to get some reputation going.

So do some of the big cats around here have some tips in that aspect? Or people that went through similar situations?
I imagine this thread could be useful to a lot more people besides me.

 

[tomas_almeida]

bump

 

[DullElysium]

If it's for free try finding blog-sites that publish albums in your genre. That helped my band a lot.

Then there's ofcourse ads you can put on facebook that go visible to people with interests of your choice. Don't know the total cost for that though.

Soundcloud has a feature in wich you can send your songs to a load of people. Haven't used that either but i have got many songs sent to me so i guess it might work.

 

[tomas_almeida]

If it's for free try finding blog-sites that publish albums in your genre. That helped my band a lot.

Then there's ofcourse ads you can put on facebook that go visible to people with interests of your choice. Don't know the total cost for that though.

Soundcloud has a feature in wich you can send your songs to a load of people. Haven't used that either but i have got many songs sent to me so i guess it might work.

Thank you for the tips.

I really did not know about those facebook adverts. It is something that interests me. If you are speaking about a specific service for musicians (not just advertising companies in general), might you provide more information on that, please?

I really am not aware of that soundcloud feature. Is it a premium feature?

 

[DullElysium]

I think the facebook one is made for everything. You can check it out and see if the options there suit you. Just go to your artist account and on the right panel you should see a button stating something like "market your site". Or atleast that's what mine says. You can select the group you're marketing to by selecting various artists that you think has potential fans for you too. That's about what I know of the FB marketing so you might need to explore further on your own there.

as for soundcloud, i havent really used it too much but it looks like you should be able to join a group and share your track there. For free membership it seems the limit is 1 group for 1 song, but that's still better than nothing.

 

[Star Ark]

Put your songs on the internet and direct people to the webpage. If your songs kick ass then people will tell other people about it and everyone wins.

If your songs suck then it doesn't matter how well you promote. That's why nobody knows who I am, because I haven't written any songs lots of people actually want to hear.

And that's my pep talk.....

 

[DullElysium]

Put your songs on the internet and direct people to the webpage. If your songs kick ass then people will tell other people about it and everyone wins.

If your songs suck then it doesn't matter how well you promote. That's why nobody knows who I am, because I haven't written any songs lots of people actually want to hear.

And that's my pep talk.....

This is also a good point. Just make sure you direct the right people. Might be hard to direct Beliebers to a grindcore project etc.

 

[tomas_almeida]

Thank you both.

I've shown some demo tracks to the friends I have that actually like heavier stuff. They all liked it and always ask me if I have anything new. The thing is, they are very few (5). Most of my friends only listen to radio pop shit.

I think when my first proper release comes out I will go with the paid advertisements suggested.

 

[LeSedna]

Put your songs on the internet and direct people to the webpage. If your songs kick ass then people will tell other people about it and everyone wins.

If your songs suck then it doesn't matter how well you promote. That's why nobody knows who I am, because I haven't written any songs lots of people actually want to hear.

And that's my pep talk.....

Might not be the catchiest songs in the world; but I actually enjoy your EP man.

 

[HostileEx]

1) Create a self-promoting page on a popular social networking site.
2) Fill out the information, upload some music, photos, and videos.
Note: Photos and Videos are important as well, as that attracts more fans.
3) Advertise like mad, post on popular sites asking them for a "like"
4) Post a note/status/update about a particular song, ask fans to share and one lucky fan that shared gets a prize/discount/meet 'n greet
Note: Small things like an autographed CD work well and are cheap.
5) ??!?!??
6) Profit.

 

[Star Ark]

Might not be the catchiest songs in the world; but I actually enjoy your EP man.

wow, thanks mate..... I'm normally a rude prick on this board so cheers for that. I'll try and add something useful for a change.

Here are a few things I've discovered:

1. Don't spread your internet promotion too far, stick to a few major websites for promotion. If you sign up to every website that is a myspace clone you will end up with a lot of pages with hardly any followers. This looks bad if you make a real fan who then types your name into google and finds dozens of shitty websites that prove how little a following you actually have. Direct all your internet traffic to a few major sites and build them up.

2. Reverbnation is good if you want to try spamming fans. Last fm is great if you spend a few dollars for plays. I payed $20 3 times for about 250 listeners and now I have a few new listeners each day. If you don't put up a few dollars at the start you will have a shitty page with no listeners or plays.

3. Answer every single fan mail. Every now and then I log into last fm and find heaps of plays of a single song. That always happens when I reply to fan mail and it makes the fan want to help you and promotes for you. I also find it fun making new friends and I scored free band artwork from a fan.

4. Write a song specifically for web promotion. Make it amazing from the first second, no big epic intro, you need it to be instantly engaging. You will only get one first impression, and if you're a small time artist people won't give you a second chance.

5. Don't even bother with facebook. They are always changing the rules for bands and businesses. It used to be great but these days it's terrible. You need a lot of page likes before they even let you put songs up on your bands facebook. My guess is soon they will be charging money for it.

6. Label your mp3 files correctly before posting them on the net. Right click on an mp3 file, chose properties and then details and add your artist name and year the song was recorded etc... all of those details are used by sites like last fm to build statistics.

 

[StefTD]

plus one on every part besides point 5.

Facebook might change the rules and so on from time to time, but it's still by far the biggest
social network in the world, loads of people use it all the time and you don't have to upload
the songs to facebook. Just add Soundcloud or whatever you like the best as an App, it's
pretty easy and you can share all the stuff you put on there and so on.
Almost nobody around here checks reverbnation or lastfm for example, but everybody checks
fb at least once a day and so on, just because you don't like it very much doesn't mean, that
it doesn't work
Besides that, at least around here, there weren't any limitations due to likes for uploading stuff,
and I am administrating a few different sites for companies and bands-maybe they gonna do it
later, heard lots of rumours about commercial stuff.
But like I said, you can add reverbnation or soundcloud and so on to your Facebook page, that
way you just have to update one thing.
Besides that, if you play shows or whatever you can create an event and invite your friends and
so on - I understand the hate for facebook, but there are 900 million people, you can't ignore it

 

[Star Ark]

plus one on every part besides point 5.

Facebook might change the rules and so on from time to time, but it's still by far the biggest
social network in the world, loads of people use it all the time and you don't have to upload
the songs to facebook. Just add Soundcloud or whatever you like the best as an App, it's
pretty easy and you can share all the stuff you put on there and so on.
Almost nobody around here checks reverbnation or lastfm for example, but everybody checks
fb at least once a day and so on, just because you don't like it very much doesn't mean, that
it doesn't work
Besides that, at least around here, there weren't any limitations due to likes for uploading stuff,
and I am administrating a few different sites for companies and bands-maybe they gonna do it
later, heard lots of rumours about commercial stuff.
But like I said, you can add reverbnation or soundcloud and so on to your Facebook page, that
way you just have to update one thing.
Besides that, if you play shows or whatever you can create an event and invite your friends and
so on - I understand the hate for facebook, but there are 900 million people, you can't ignore it

I wasn't aware of that, thanks for the info mate
You're right, I sort of just hate facebook because it is facebook, but you make perfect sense about it being the biggest social networking site and I do visit my facebook page each day

 

[StefTD]

no problem, many people aren't aware of stuff like that, I wouldn't be aware of it, too if I wouldn't
do social media stuff as a part of my job