How to promote music

10 Top Ways To Promote Your Music In 2022 That Actually Work!

So I’ve already written a free complete ebook introducing people to music marketing, and even created one of the (if not THE) best courses around on promoting your music.

That said, today I wanted to go a step further and bring you in on some hard hitting strategies that will gain you more fans, and that actually work in this day and age.

There are too many dated articles out there which talk about promoting your music. Many of them simply share old information which didn’t work that well at it’s peak.

Many of them give smaller results than they’re worth. Today though, I’m going to cover 6 things you can do to better promote your music.

Marketing your music is essential if you want to get your name out there and actually start making money from your talent, so if these are some of your aims, be sure to read and implement as much of this guide as humanly possible.

In other words, all of it. 😉

And if you find it useful, please share it with friends or talk about it on your website. So, let’s get into the promotion tips.

Note: If you want to save time and would rather pay someone to promote your music for you, here’s an affordable promo company our readers have had good success with.

But first, if it’s your aim to do music professionally, you’ll want to check out our free ebook while it’s still available:

1. Market Yourself As A Business To Business Musician

Ok, so here’s a huge tip I can give you:

Instead of focusing all of your efforts on reaching out to all your fans individually, focus a lot more of your efforts on building up good relationships with other businesses!

So I know some of you will be wondering what I mean by this.

What I mean is that you should spend a good portion of your time contacting event organizers, radio stations, websites that cover your genre of music in some way, TV channels, DJs, musicians who are more established than you, and the like.

What do all of the above have in common? They have a much bigger audience than you, and within their audiences are people who will fit into your ideal fan base!

While a lot of musicians spend lots of time grinding it out trying to make new fans one by one, more successful and full time musicians often spend more time building up relationships with people who can get their music out there better than they can.

The thing is, if you get in good with bigger companies and they recommend you to their audience, you’ll get a lot more exposure from that one article / event / show / interview than you would from spending a month on Facebook and Twitter trying to get new fans from scratch.

That’s why it’s worth investing time and effort into forming these kinds of relationships.

Now I’m not saying don’t market to fans individually. You should, but usually only once they’re already on your social sites and mailing list.

In terms of actually getting people to hear you the first time around, getting other established businesses to promote you is one of the best ways to go about doing this.

So switch your target audience and start focusing more of your efforts on other businesses. And remember, as a musician, you are a business!

2. Focus A Good Portion Of Your Time On Gigging

Gigging is one of those golden activities every musician should be doing! Not only can it be great for raising awareness of your brand, but it can also be monetized in multiple ways, and help you build a strong relationship with your core audience.

Now playing gigs isn’t anything new or ‘out there’. That said, it’s something that works, and works well.

In terms of promotion, some of the best gigs you can do are events which have other acts in your genre also playing at the event. This will mean the audience will contain one or two types of people who you’ll want to target:

For gaining NEW fans, this is the kind of audience you want! While for increased revenue you’d want to put on your own gigs and make it all about you, you won’t get very many people first discovering your music at these kind of gigs.

Because of this, they won’t do much in terms of increasing your fanbase. When playing at shows with multiple artists however, you have a good chance to get your music in front of new targeted music fans.

Gigging is great for both gaining new fans and making money from the music industry, so be sure to get your gigging game on!

3. Post Content Regularly On Your Own Professional Website

With so many new acts coming out every day, it can be hard to stay top-of-mind.

Yes, someone might hear one of your songs and like what you’re doing, but if you don’t keep giving them more content and keep them entertained in some form of another, there’s a good chance that they may forget you.

It’s because of this that you’ll want to take advantage of your website, and employ a good ‘content marketing‘ strategy.

“any marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers”

In other words, you want to use your content to get in new fans and to keep existing fans happy.

But what kind of content can you publish? Here are some types of content you should be creating:

As I mentioned, the majority of content should initially be going on your own website. This will help build your website up into a valuable asset, and one that will go a long way to getting new fans as well as keeping existing ones happy.

If you haven’t yet made a site, you can see how to make one here.

4. Be More Than A Musician

This is a big one, so listen up. If you want to get as much exposure for your music as possible, you’ll really want to make yourself more than just a musician!

What do I mean by this? Well, you want to do everything you can to get yourself out there and in front of a targeted audience.

And by everything, I mean things that aren’t directly related to promoting yourself as a musician (but that will still get new targeted eyes to you and your music).

The good news for you is, not many musicians are doing this. This means there are a lot of opportunities out there if you use this tactic correctly.

Some ways you can do this include:

Talking About More Than Just Your Music On Your Site

Remember the above point about posting more content on your site?

Well who’s to say that you have to talk about you all the time?

By talking about other acts and your genre of music in general, not only do you have more content to share with your audience, but you’ll have more things which you can rank for in search engines.

This will mean more traffic to your site in the long-run, as you’ll be using relevant terms which people will be searching for to find your kind of music. This strategy is definitely worth using, so get started with it asap!

Creating A Platform Related To Your Genre Of Music

This is something I’ve talked about and helped people do in my other guides. So taking the above theory even further, why not create a website or podcast which you target at people who like your kind of music?

This can be a music review podcast, a radio show which showcases your genre, or even a website which generally covers everything in your music scene. Furthermore, it could even be something not 100% related to your genre that a lot of people in your genre also like.

So if you make music skateboarders often listen to, you may want to make a skateboarding site and play your music on the site and in the videos.

You’ll also want to include a shop page where people can buy your music, and possibly even start selling skateboarder related merchandise with your logo on it.

Doing these kinds of things will get you in front of people you wouldn’t have otherwise, and allow you to showcase your music to new people who are largely interested in your genre.

5. Use A Mailing List

As my regular readers will know, I’ve been banging on about this for as long as this site has been around.

Having a newsletter which people can join is one of the best ways to not only communicate with fans, but to also build up relationships with them and turn those relationships into profitable ones.

Once people visit your website, the last thing you want them to do is leave and never return again. This is where mailing lists come in!

If you can get people to sign up to your list before they leave, you’ll have their email address. From here you can communicate with them on a weekly basis, and remind them about you and your music.

The following strategy on swapping their email address for a freebie works very well.

If you haven’t set your own newsletter up yet, you can see how to do so here.

6. Never Make Any Weak Moves!

Ok, so this one is more of a tip of how not to promote your music. That said, focusing on not losing fans is just as important as gaining new fans (I should have made that point 7 ;)).

If you can make good songs but also make the occasional dud, it’s important to know what to do with that dud song. Even if you’re spent money to record it, don’t use it.

Don’t give it out to fans. Instead, put it in a deep folder in your computer that will never be found by anyone!

This song will do you more harm than good, and work at chipping away at your reputation.

Similarly, when you’re starting to do well, it’s easy to want to scale up quick, or rinse and repeat what’s been working for you. This is a good idea, but only if you don’t let the quality of what you’re doing slide.

In general, you want to avoid doing anything that will have a negative impact on your reputation. You want people to think of you as one of the best musicians in your genre, and you want to give people who haven’t heard you before the best first impression.

If you’re putting out weak songs though or weak artwork, a percentage of people will first hear you through that weak song, and possibly never give you another chance.

So keep everything you’re doing to a consistently high level, and people will regard you as a higher quality of musician.

7. Make Great Music

If you don’t make great music, nothing will ever change in your music career. As an independent musician, you’re fighting an uphill battle by default.

You’re competing for the attention of people who are constantly being bombarded with top 40 chart-topping hits. The bottom line is this – if you don’t go above and beyond the call of duty to write incredible music, your chances of being noticed are slim.

You need to “wow” people with your music to draw them in!

My friend, Hello Moth, recently co-wrote a song that became a hit. And you know what he said? “After all this time, it’s still about having one good song.”

If you’ve been in the music industry for any length of time, you’ve heard that before. To make it big, you just need one song that captures people.

As it turns out, this is still relevant advice today.

Additionally, without great music, a lot of the strategies mentioned in this guide won’t work for you. Gigging is great, and it will help you make money and improve as a performer, but if you don’t make music people care about, it doesn’t matter how often you play.

You can make as many industry connections as you want, but if they don’t feel like your music is up to their standards, there’s no incentive for them to help you promote it.

There is a fanbase for every type of music, but finding your audience is a lot of work. So it makes good sense that you’ll more readily stand behind a quality product than a product that’s subpar.

And the same goes for your fans and the connections you make too. They’ll support something that’s great, but not something that’s just okay.

8. Define Roles Within Your Band Or Hire A Team To Help

If you’re in a band, then you need to figure out who can do what in terms of creating content, managing your social media sites, marketing, updating your website, and so on. If you’re a solo artist, you need to build a team.

And building a team is ultimately something you’ll want to do regardless of the size of your act.

You can either divide the work between you if you make music with others, but if you’re a solo musician you can use companies and services to help you out. For example use a music promotion company to get your music out there, Upwork to find freelancers who can help with admin, and the like.

Is there someone in your band that’s great with social media? Fantastic – have them manage your online presence.

Is there someone else that’s technically proficient, and has all the gear necessary to record videos? Great, get them to start making engaging content for YouTube.

There’s always the chance that no one in your band knows the first thing about marketing or building a website. First and foremost, you are a musician, so you may not have many strengths outside of playing an instrument or singing.

The key is to figure out what everyone’s good at, and what they’re interested in learning. It doesn’t make sense to force a band member into doing something they don’t even want to do, so determining everyone’s strengths upfront is an important step.

This is something the band The Middle Coast does very well, and if you go to the contact page on their website, you can even see that each member has a clearly defined role – Dylan and Roman handle booking, and Liam does everything else.

It’s simple, but it works.

Then, as you become more successful, and you build a bit of a budget, you’re going to want to start growing your team. As a starting point, you can outsource tasks you don’t like doing or ones you’re not good at.

This gives you more time to focus on creating. Working with freelancers and contractors is a good way to get started, and you can find plenty of them on Upwork.

When you’re ready, you can start working with publicists, booking agents, managers, and so on.

The reason this works is because it gives you a foundation from which to execute your marketing strategy in a coordinated, organized, consistent way. And consistency is key when it comes to spreading the word about your music.

9. Find A Great Publicist & Work Closely With Them

If you’ve ever listened to Music Business Radio, you’ll notice that there is a common theme among some of the most successful artists – most if not all of them work with a publicist!

Things have changed a lot with public relations (PR) in recent years. Online press releases used to help you get the attention of the media, for potential interviews and news coverage.

Today, press releases actually do more to boost your SEO – they help you rank for particular keywords, and when they’re published and distributed to a large network of sites, you also get links pointing back to your site!

To overcome obscurity as an artist, it takes more than just luck and being at the right place at the right time.

Gigging might lead to some great exposure opportunities, but chances are they won’t, unless you’re playing well-known venues, or venues where industry people are known to gather.

You need to create newsworthy stories on a regular basis, engage the media, and develop awareness for your music, tours, special events, releases, awards, and so on.

A lot of artists wonder about the effectiveness of getting coverage on music blogs, podcast and radio interviews, or entertainment magazines. To be fair, you won’t have access to the best publications when you’re just getting started.

But there are two things you need to keep in mind:

10. Capture Behind-The-Scenes Footage & Share It With Your Fans

Video is a powerful promotional tool. But the right kind of video? That makes all the difference.

One thing that’s fascinating to fans – and will always be fascinating to fans – is the recording process. There’s a lot of mystery and intrigue about the gear being used, mic techniques, how certain sounds were achieved, and so on.

And even if not for that, people love to see how their favorite songs came together in the first place.

These types of videos are great for your fans, because they offer insights into who you are as well as their favorite music, but can also convert new fans, because they see you putting in the hard work to create a great product.

Music is a strange thing, and first impressions may stay with you, but they aren’t always right.

I remember not liking Rush when I first heard them, mostly because of Geddy Lee’s voice. But watching Rush in Rio convinced me that they were an amazing band, and I’ve been a fan of theirs ever since.

Plus, you can turn your video into a DVD using a service like CreateSpace, and give it away as a bonus, or even monetize it by selling it to your fans. The cost of putting together great video could be significant, so if you don’t have a budget, don’t try to implement this strategy just yet.

But when you’re ready to take things to the next level, make sure to capture professional footage from your next major recording session.

How To Promote Your Music Conclusion

So as you can see, this isn’t the average ‘promote your music online with Facebook and Twitter’ guide.

I hope it’s shown you that there’s more to music marketing than the advice you hear thrown around on most other music advice sites, and I hope you now trust me enough to impart other wisdom on you in future.

So now you have two options:

Either way someone needs to promote your music if you want to get it out there.

So what do you think about the above strategies, have you tried any of them before? Are there any other ways to promote your music that have worked well for you? Let me know in the comments.

And please share this guide around if it’s been useful.

Music Promotion: How to Promote Your Music in 2022

Music promotion spreads your music, grows your fanbase and advances your career.

In the past music promotion was taken care of by industry professionals. But today the power of music promotion is back in the artist’s hands.

It’s a lot of work. But with the right plan you can grow your music on your own terms and share it successfully in a way that fits your vision.

Making strong music promotion part of your music marketing plan includes online tools like digital distribution, social media and email, as well as traditional means like live shows, press kits and mailing lists.

How to promote your music independently:

1. Make good music: You need great tracks first

Let’s get this out of the way right now—if you want to do good music promotion you have to start with good music.

It can seem like promotion muscle is all it takes to push a track to the top. But if the music you’re promoting doesn’t have something to offer to listeners you won’t get anywhere.

Do your best to make your music as compelling as possible before you start your promotion.

That means take your time to produce great tracks, perfect your mix and master your music to create your final product.

When you’ve finished tracks you’re proud of you’ll have the confidence to set goals and promote yourself enthusiastically online.

Making the best music you can is a commitment to your fans and listeners.

Why You Should Never Quit Making Music

How to Set Realistic Music Promotion Goals in 5 Steps

How to Separate Inspiration from Impersonation in Your Songwriting

2. Release your music on streaming platforms

The advent of streaming platforms changed the way most people listen to music—and it changed the way artists promote their tracks.

Today, having a plan for promoting an upcoming release and existing catalogs of music on streaming platforms is critical for every artist, big or small.

That’s partly because revenue from streaming platforms is one-way artists can monetize their music with song streams, merch sales and concert tickets.

But, these platforms are also hubs that fans flock towards to find new music—whether that be through playlists, music journalism or algorithm recommendations.

Each platform has its unique quirks for finding success—but there are few things in common between them.

For example, each platform will have an artist profile that you’ll need to claim and fill out.

And, to get your music on any and all streaming platforms you’ll need to choose a distribution service provider.

If you’re interested, LANDR Distribution is an excellent option with a variety of music distribution plans.

Let’s dive into the specifics of promoting your music on today’s major streaming platforms—Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal.

Everything Musicians Need to Know About Digital Music Distribution

14 Distribution Articles to Help You With Your Next Release

The LANDR Distribution Guide

How to promote your music on Spotify

Out of all the streaming platforms, Spotify offers the most opportunities for promoting your tracks.

From experience enhancements like album visuals with Spotify Canvas, to scrolling lyrics to playlisting submission and its revered algorithm recommendations, Spotify excels at offering promotion tools.

Once you get your music on Spotify, the number one thing you need to do to start promoting your music is to claim your artist profile.

By claiming your profile you’ll be able to submit upcoming releases for playlisting on Spotify’s own playlists and you’ll be able to add merch, tour dates and customization to your profile.

You’ll also be able to use Canvas—Spotify’s visual album art tool that allows artists to add custom looping videos that show while a song is playing.

Promoting your music effectively on Spotify means having some kind of plan to get your fans listening to your new tracks the moment they come out.

Drumming up excitement is always a good idea and it will also help the algorithm pick up your new track sooner—so, the best way to do that is by launching a pre-save campaign with a promolink.

Check out our past writing on promolinks and pre-save campaigns if you’re interested in running one!

Spotify doesn’t have to be an intimidating platform—if your music is great and you have a plan to promote your tracks, you’ll have no problem finding fans to love your music.

Pre-Save Campaigns: How to Build Early Traction on Spotify

Spotify Canvas: How to Stand Out With Video and Find New Fans

How to Get Your Lyrics on Spotify

How to Put Your Music On Spotify and Get Streamed

How to promote your music on Apple Music

Apple Music is the other major streaming platform and while it doesn’t have nearly as many promotional tools as Spotify, it’s totally worth keeping in mind as you plan your releases and promote your tracks.

Again, the first step to success on Apple Music is claiming your Apple Music for Artists profile—this will allow you to customize your profile, add a bio and custom artwork.

Once you get your music on Apple Music and claim your profile you’ll also have access to a handful song sharing tools like a special Twitter link that’ll share an in-feed player and a player that you can embed on websites.

Unfortunately, Apple Music does not offer an option to submit your music for playlisting directly—you’ll need to have relationships with their curators to get a placement.

So, you’ll either need to have built up a significant following or have a public relations agent working to get the attention of these curators.

Outside of Apple Music’s own tools, you can always funnel people towards your streaming profiles with a promolink that lets fans choose their streaming service and quickly find your tracks.

Of course, like any streaming platform, uploading consistently and growing your fanbase of monthly listeners is key for growing your streams and increasing your chances of getting playlisted or recommended by the algorithm.

How To Promote Music in 2021

The internet and the impact of the Covid-19 remain relevant factors that affect music promotion. While options may seem limited, artists are finding ways to push their content, brand, and music to meet a wider audience—even in 2021.

The Music Industry and the Internet

The good news is that the internet offers artists flexibility even with the world in lockdown. Without live shows, artists need to see how to maximize their digital opportunities so people can hear their music. The internet has many outlets for artists to find new listeners—it’s just a matter of understanding how to harness the connections the internet provides.

Build a Website and Email List

Though social media is an important place for artists—every musician could benefit from a dedicated website. A website is a place for audience members from all social media platforms to gather.

It could be a place where artists sell merchandise and also post scheduled events. A website could also be where artists announce the release of new music.

Building a website does take time and might require some help, but a good website could act as a central hub for fans to interact or know more about an artist.

Email lists are another asset that may seem outdated but are direct connections to fans. With emails, artists can promote their new songs by sending them directly to fans who have given their email addresses.

Get on Playlists

Playlists on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music are now popular ways that fans of specific genres and artists discover new music. These streaming platforms are the new record stores where fans share new music they’ve found.

Artists who want to promote their music should look into how they can get their song onto as many playlists as they can that fit their genre or aesthetic. Playlists with similar artists and genres attract the kinds of fans that the artist makes music for. That gives musicians a higher chance of finding fans who want to listen for more.

Getting onto these playlists means the artists also need to develop a profile on the specific platform. They can maximize the opportunity of getting their music on a playlist by also uploading their other discography. If a listener likes the artists’ song, they can search the artist on the platform and find more of their music.

Create Content on Social Media

Social media remains a key player for artists.

Tiktok is now a significant platform for discovering new songs. Artists who want their music to find new listeners can see if they can create content that is native to Tiktok using their track.

Other platforms like Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook remain places that artists can promote new music. Being present in these spaces allow artists to share new music in creative ways.

From pictures, videos, and skits—artists can market their new song, along with their aesthetic and personalities, through social media. It’s just crucial for musicians to recognize what kind of content fits each platform. The content might include the hook of a song, or the lyrics of a song without being the entire track.

Reach Out to Local Radio Stations, Blogs, and Podcasts

Artists shouldn’t rule out older promotion methods.

Local radio stations need new music in rotation. Often, they are excited to play the music of artists in the area. Musicians can reach out to these stations with their new song for the chance of air time. This might involve cold emailing or cold calling, but reaching more listeners can be worth time spent.

Many music fans read blogs that cover stories about emerging artists. Artists can promote their music by writing blogs about their new releases. Interested bloggers might write a story on the artist to promote them or their music.

Podcasts are now important outlets for information and entertainment. More people are listening to podcasts now than ever before. Many of these podcasts are dedicated to music. Artists can contact these podcasters and talk about how they might add value to it. Either by putting the song onto the podcast or getting featured as a guest on the podcast.

An artist who can get on one of these shows has the opportunity to tell their story and talk about upcoming projects. These are great ways for audiences to find out more about a musician and follow them afterward.

Final Thoughts

The pandemic and the internet both require musicians to adapt in different ways. While some methods are not currently available, artists need to see that many opportunities still exist for music promotion. Through digital means, musicians can still meet and reach new listeners to grow their audiences in preparation for when live shows return.

Music Marketing in 2022: 15 Strategies To Promote Your Music Online

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If you’re serious about getting your music heard and growing your fanbase, music marketing isn’t an option.

It’s a necessity.

So where do you start?

To get your music in front of the right people, generate momentum and consistent growth, we need to start looking at how you’re going to promote your music.

Great marketing is all about excitement, storytelling and really building traction over time.

Your music and content is one part of thousands of things just one person will see in a day.

The digital world is the noisiest it’s ever been. So, how will you stand out amongst the crowd?

This is the vehicle that allows you to promote your music, get your music heard, generate more views for music videos, create a fanbase and so much more.

There are so many ways for independent artists to carve out their own space in the music business and make a real impact.

Here are 14 music marketing tips & strategies to help you tackle music promotion as an artist effectively in 2022.

1. Build Your Brand Foundation

This is the most important layer to music marketing in 2022. Without this nothing else sits properly.

The foundation of building a strong brand in music is who you are and what you stand for as an artist, thinking about who your audience is and who would connect with you.

Music promotion isn’t a simple task. But, without a solid foundation, nothing will work.

Think of your artist brand as an extension of your own identity.

It’s a representation of who you are aesthetically and this is what someone will see the first time you come into their world.

Therefore it’s imperative you smash that first impression.

Here are the first steps to branding yourself in music marketing:

Write down everything that relates to you and your music

Circle the most important aspects to you

What does that LOOK like? Visually map it out. Imagery, colours, tone of voice, music, clothes.

Compare that to what you’ve been putting it so far. Does it match?

To make waves in the music industry as an artist, you need to stand for something. Getting your branding foundation right will inform everything else across your music, your imagery, band photos and ultimately, your career.

Don’t skip this stage in a rush to chase arbitrary numbers and metrics. It doesn’t work, especially if you don’t have a solid brand first.

2. Know Your Demographic and Psychographic

The better you know your predicted audience, the better you can create music and content that they’ll love.

If they love it, you’ll build faster organic traction.

Knowing who and where your current fans are will help you learn more about who is paying attention to you, and why they are paying attention to you.

You can get detailed analytic information from your social media accounts, Spotify For Artists, and more to understand your demographic and their behaviour.

If you’re starting from scratch, you will want to build an example fan avatar.

It’s common practice in any digital marketing to know exactly who you are trying to market to before you begin. Marketing in the music industry is no different.

Think of artists that are similar to you. What kind of person listens to them and what is it about them that they are resonating with?

3. Look After Your Current Fans First

In music marketing, it’s easy to become obsessed with the numbers when trying to get more music fans.

Here’s the secret.

Marketing your music to more people begins with looking after your current followers first.

It’s in your best interest to build a community of dedicated followers. A tribe. Learn how to cultivate an environment around your brand, your music, and your music marketing platforms that can turn an interested follower into an obsessive superfan.

To do this, artists need to become less focused on the numbers and getting newer followers.

If you provide value to your current audience, from the outside looking in, people will see a community that they want to be a part of.

Give more than you take as an artist.

Being in music isn’t the same as being in sales. You need to give more and do more for your followers if you are to set a precedent for future followers to join you on your journey.

4. Allocate Time for Speaking 1-1 With Your Audience

Every single day, you need to allocate time to speak to your audience and connect.

I can’t stress how important the 1-1 is when growing your audience (it’s still also the most successful form of marketing ever!).

This means commenting on their pictures on Instagram, replying to their messages, and starting conversations about them. Take a genuine interest and you’ll be rewarded!

Doing this provides a great opportunity for being more human and creating a genuine connection with your fans.

Want to get the music industry to notice you? The music industry and record labels only care about artists who have an audience. A following of people who would do anything for you. A tribe.

The audience holds the power and strengthening your current audience with real 1-1 connections is how you can create something special.

5. Choose Which Social Media Platforms You Will Focus On

Choose a maximum of two platforms to begin with. You don’t have the time as an artist to dedicate to more properly. Research Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube and work out what suits you.

Social media for musicians is all about consumption and when you utilise social media right, it’s the most powerful tool artists have.

Everyone may say be on every digital platform, but you don’t have enough time in the day to be successful on many platforms.

It’s overwhelming and isn’t the best music promotion strategy when you’re starting out.

So you choose a platform based on where your skillset lies.

If you love video and being on camera, then I’d look at how you can utilise YouTube.

If you’re wanting to build a community and like photography & short-form content I’d choose Instagram (this is a good place for artists and music in general, if you’re not sure I’d choose Instagram for musicians).

If you want to look for where the highest organic reach and engagement is right now, artists should look at TikTok. But bear in mind for this platform you need to learn what works and how you can bring virality, as that’s what TikTok does best. Check out this guide for some musician TikTok content ideas.

Choose your platform and keep grinding away producing content that you’re proud of and build your fanbase daily through smart promotion.

Having one large concentrated audience on one platform is a lot easier to manage than multiple small audiences spread out all over the place.

What you’re aiming for is just one person to say «I like that» and then they keep returning for more. This compounds from one person to ten people and from ten people to a thousand people.

That is how you get started.

It takes work, it takes learning, but the payoff is that you build a dedicated fanbase that loves you as an artist and your music.

6. Create Engaging Content On Social Media

Most artists view their socials as somewhere to tell people to go to Spotify and then wonder why this doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work because it isn’t engaging, you haven’t got their attention with just your music alone.

Play the socials game right, do your research, and be creative.

Average content isn’t enough. You need amazing content.

As a creative and a musician, your job is to entertain your followers. Give them a reason to follow you, a reason to engage with your content, a reason to come back to your page, time and time again.

The biggest mistake musicians make with music promotion is using social media platforms as simply a portfolio of their work.

I always see artists using ‘push’ marketing to get people to stream their new album, listen to their single or consume their music, watch their new music video with no consideration for quality of content or sign of any larger campaign at work.

So what do you do instead?

You need to surround your music with awesome content.

Instead of just releasing the song or DIY music video and shouting ‘hey go listen to it’. break the release down into several smaller content drops.

Examples of this are behind-the-scenes photos, clips from the song, artwork, lyrics. Anything that you can bring from that master content to your audience in multiple forms.

Think outside of the box and be bold. Only marketing your music releases and not the content surrounding out is a fast track to being ignored.

7. Post Consistently

Music promotion and music marketing on social media requires a lot of effort.

You need to build consistent value every single day to start to build momentum with your music promotion.

If you post on day 1, day 5 and day 17 that is going to have nowhere near the same impact as day 1, day 2 and day 3.⠀

Social media and music marketing is about little hits every day, not big swings. This is why we break down our big single releases and music video content into smaller pieces to make sure we’re giving it in a digestible way to cause the most momentum. ⠀

This requires dedication and effort.⠀

But if you go for it and get it right, social media music marketing is powerful AF.⠀

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself:

You need to be brutally honest with all of these questions.

If you’re not putting in the time and effort to put out something meaningful on a regular basis, it won’t grow.

8. Promote Your Music and Single With a Solid Plan

Don’t release your single without a plan.

Picture this scenario…

You release your new single, do everything you’ve always done, put in less time than you know you should do, and then get annoyed when it doesn’t do as well as you wanted it to.

Does that sound familiar?

Before you release your next single, you know that you need to up your music marketing game.

Your music deserves to be heard, so it’s time to get your launch strategy and campaign in place.

Too many musicians fall into the trap of having a 24-hour promotion cycle for their music, and then starting all over again after that day of excitement is over.

This leads to an endless and vicious cycle of being underwhelmed with every song release, only to make the same mistakes again and again.

Be organised and have a strategy in place that evolves a couple of weeks before the release date, as well as the weeks afterwards.

I’ve detailed a plan for you to follow to release your next single. This is the most up-to-date, in depth release plan you’ll find anywhere!

21 Day Single Release Plan

9. Music Promotion Through Paid Advertising

Music marketing through paid digital advertising only works when your brand foundation, organic social media strategy and content are in place.

But this is where brilliant strategies really make the difference as you bolster on top of your current brand and messaging.

I get a lot of questions about social media advertising budgets, music promotion and music marketing on a low budget.

One strategy is to put your money into brand awareness and video view campaigns.

If you’re marketing on a low budget, you need to keep people on the platform. It’s cheaper and more cost-effective in the long run.

Traffic and conversion campaigns are more expensive as they take people away from the platform.

If you are going to put money into marketing your music online, remember to target effectively and concisely.

Platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow you to hyper-target specific demographics on things like age, interests, location and so much more. The more focused and defined your audience, the more likely you are to get great results for your ads and expand your follower count.

10. Pitch Your Music To Playlists

It’s a good idea to try and get your music on Spotify playlists or other streaming playlists in your genre.

Getting this right can be a game-changer for your listenership and streaming numbers.

There are loads of Spotify hacks for music artists to beat the algorithm organically, but we can take even more control and manually submit our music for playlist consideration.

You can submit your music directly to Spotify’s editorial team themselves via Spotify For Artists, as well as pitching your new release to listeners and playlist curators.

Whether you are promoting your music on Soundcloud, YouTube, Apple Music, or Spotify, it’s important to understand that your presence needs to be maintained on these services as you would your Instagram or TikTok profile.

The Spotify streaming algorithm in particular works in a similar way to social media. If you are serious about getting more Spotify streams, it’s in your best interest to look after Spotify as much as you would any other social media platform to generate organic streams and healthy data to get heard.

11. Collaborate With Other Artists & Influencers

Collaborations done well can be a worthwhile creative pursuit in music promotion.

You can crossover your fanbase with somebody else’s and generate content that is mutually beneficial for both parties.

You have to be careful with your approach when it comes to collaborations. New fans may not respond well to you if it is obvious you are just doing this for clout or a quick numbers grab!

Be authentic with collaboration campaigns.

You need to bring something genuine to the table. If you are just trying to leech off someone else’s following, it’s painfully obvious and can do more harm than good.

Going back to your demographic and psychographic, where do your ideal audience hang out? Where else is their attention?

This can help you figure out who you can contact for a potential collaboration.

Collaboration doesn’t just have to be with other musicians, although this is the most common. You can collaborate with anyone or anything. Think outside the box and consider influencers outside of the music sphere.

9 Highly Actionable Ways To Promote Your Music In 2022

Table of Contents

‘If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’

It’s an age old riddle, and the thought process behind it can be applied to a wide variety of situations. You could take it and rephrase it this way:

‘If I am creating the best music around, and no one is around to hear it…then who cares?’

Whether you’re a solo act or a full blown band unit, artists that are creating original music face a big challenge – how can you get your music out to the world? What are the best things that you can do to increase the size of your audience?

It’s an understatement to say that the music business has changed at extreme levels over the past 20 years or so. The advent of the Internet has greatly altered what it takes to make your presence known to a targeted audience.

The ‘old school’ approach of playing live as much as you can…then getting a recording contract with a major label…then playing some more to promote your latest single or album (ahh…albums – remember those?)…then targeting radio airplay…then making promotional appearances…then repeating the whole cycle ad nauseum…

Well, that just doesn’t exist anymore. So what are you to do?

Check out the video below which shows how the band ‘Radiohead’ completely changed the game, and where the industry is heading:

To expand on that, I’ve got 9 top tips on the best ways to promote your music in today’s culture and environment.

Many are DIY’s that you can pull off with a little elbow grease and not a lot of cost.

Let’s take a look!

Before you do anything at all related to promoting your music and unleashing yourself on an unsuspecting public, let’s get your mindset firmly in the right place.

They call it the music business for reason, and let’s be perfectly clear – it IS a business, regardless of your artistic ambitions. That being said, if what you want is to make your own recordings and distribute them freely just for the sake of artistic integrity, then by all means you should do just that.

But if you’re looking for more, as in ‘making your living doing what you love’ kind of more, then you have to approach your entire enterprise as a business. Every action that you take needs to be carefully thought out.

While it’s true that some of the things you can do to promote your music may not take a lot out of your bank account, they can take up something that ultimately can cost a lot more – your time.

That means you need to plan your attack for world domination.

Ensure that every move you make is destined to bring yet another step closer to your goal. If you treat your music career as a hobby, then that’s all it will ever aspire to be. Treat it as a business and you’ll have the focus to succeed where others may not.

The Music Institute offers a complete course (Music Business EDGE) on turning music into a career, with training in just about every area you can imagine. If music is what you want to do for a living, it’s definitely worth checking out. Below is a quick preview of the course:

Build an awesome website

One of the basic cornerstones of your promotional strategy is to have a website. And not just any website. It should have a professional look and feel to it that imparts a sense that you take yourself – and your music – very seriously.

The Layout is everything

That means a lot more than just a single static page with some info, a less than basic graphics layout, and maybe a download link or two. I’m referring to a well laid out site that has seperate pages for news and updates on your activities, downloads, videos, and contact information.

Basically you should plan to run the whole gamut – take a look at your favorite professional artist’s website and you’ll exactly what I mean.

Professionalism also means having a domain name that is reflective of how you want to be known. For the most part, domains are relatively cheap, and unless you have a very common name you should be able to get ‘yourbandname.com’ without breaking the bank.

The more simple, straightforward, and memorable your website URL is, the more likely your audience will be able to find you.

How can you create your own website?

I can hear multitudes of you saying ‘but I have absolutely NO idea how to create a website’. Fortunately, you don’t have to go at it all alone. Many web hosting providers have website builders built in, like WordPress for example. Alternatively, you could use something like Bandzoogle which practically sets the whole thing up for you.

Understanding what makes up a great music website is all you need to get going (along with some relatively minor costs for the web hosting itself).

If the thought of going the self-build route scares the daylights out of you, there are an unlimited amount of website developers that can give you exactly what you envision. Sure, it may cost more, but if you have a design in mind and no time to do it, it’s simply worth the investment.

Before you go throwing money at developers, take a look at how easy it is to do yourself in the below video:

YouTube is the biggest streaming service

While it’s true that MTV sure isn’t what it used to be (do you remember when they actually played music videos? Heck, some of you may not even know what MTV is), you’ll find a modern day equivalent in YouTube.

YouTube is a great repository for any videos that you may wish to produce, be it a performance, a concept-based video, or even if you just want to have video messages for your fan base.

Creating a channel gets everything located in one place in the YouTube space, and you could target any other promotional materials to include the channel link as well.

Here is a great video on setting up a professional YouTube channel especially focused on music, check it out:

Establish a strong social media presence

Social media is completely ingrained into today’s culture. So much so that you could potentially be seriously short changing yourself by not having a carefully crafted strategy to take advantage of the reach you can get with just a few posts.

Don’t limit yourself to just one platform, either – it may be best to have accounts on all of the major platforms. While it’s true that some people are Twitter-holics, those same people may despise Instagram with a passion…so if your focus is on IG then you may be missing a great opportunity.

Facebook always remains to be a social media behemoth, and having a presence there is almost a mandatory thing to do nowadays.

If you are fortunate enough to have some measure of a budget to work with, you may even consider investing into some well placed ads to help drive up your exposure. There’s no doubt that approach can work, and work well if managed properly.

Check out this highly energetic overview of the various ways available to promote your music through social media:

Make Use Of all the major streaming services

One thing – and a pretty major one at that – which record companies were needed for in the past was large scale distribution. Back in the day there were really only two ways to have your music available: radio airplay and going to the local music store to buy a record (that’s ‘vinyl’, by the way), then moving to cassette tapes, progressing further to CD’s.

The advent of streaming services has completely changed the game, and it has swung the pendulum in favor of the artist. Streaming platforms are becoming more plentiful by the day, and being able to use a digital format instead of a physical one has numerous aspects to exploit.

Which streaming platforms and how do you get on them?

I’d recommend targeting the major platforms such as Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, SoundCloud and Apple Music/iTunes – and that’s just for starters.

Which brings up a great point – with so many services available, there’s no doubt that going through and creating accounts for each one, then uploading your files can take a ton of time – time that would be better served actually making the music instead of managing its distribution.

A great way to get your music uploaded to multiple platforms is to use a distribution service.

There are numerous ones available, and most have partnered with a large amount of the ‘big guns’ as far as streaming services go. Individual business models may vary, but in a nutshell you simply upload your music, select which services you want to use, and pay a fee.

These services will then do the distribution work for you, all without taking a cut of whatever proceeds you earn from each individual platform.

Benefits of using a streaming service for music distribution

First off, there’s no physical inventory to manage. That means no costs to make that inventory in the first place.

Second off, there’s no cost for the actual delivery itself. Sure, there may be some costs involved with streaming service accounts that have better feature sets, but those are minimal when you consider the logistics of actually shipping a package.

Third off, these services are essentially ‘cloud based’. That means the files are stored on their servers, and they handle all of the traffic bandwidth. For a new artist with relatively little exposure when first starting out, that may not seem like that big of a deal. If you are a more established act, then having those mechanics being managed for you is a huge deal.

Fourth off, you can simply not ever worry about having to deal with a record company. Ever. Many artists have moved towards completely independent distribution, some with amazing results and benefits that they may not have ever realized if they were under contract.

Collaborate with established music bloggers and YouTubers

If the Internet and – specifically – social media have done anything, they have made it extremely easy to network with others that have similar likes and interests. There’s no reason at all why that same approach can’t work when trying to promote your music – some of the connections you may make could have huge influences on your career.

Many times this type of approach is a ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ type of deal. Collaborations are a huge deal, and developing a relationship with someone that has a substantial online identity can pay off huge.

It’s all about leverage – if you can seize the chance to get your music out to a large audience while being recommended by the blogger which owns that audience, then you could have a potential gold mine of exposure on your hands.

Attract users to subscribe to your email list

No matter what you do with your website, having a form where people can join your email list is an absolute must. There’s no better way to build your fan base and keep them up to date with everything related to your music.

With a well managed email list, you can easily let people know when your new songs are being released, or you can keep them in the loop as to your performance schedule. Some may say that a small incentive may entice people to sign up, and that actually is a great tactic to pursue.

I’d recommend offering something that a potential fan can’t get anywhere else. An unreleased song would be great – it wouldn’t cost anything to distribute, and you can get it to them as easy as having a download link included in your ‘welcome’ email.

All of that being said, take the time to maximize the exposure that you can get from your individual emails. Besides offering current info, you can include links to your YouTube channel or to social media accounts as well; you’ll have the reader captive so it’s a perfect opportunity to capitalize on their attention.

Also, I’d recommend making sure that your content is well written and is useful to your audience. A poorly formatted and grammatically incorrect message may be a huge turn off, and you may have people unsubscribe just as fast as they joined.

The point is to take the level of professionalism that you have invested into your website, and carry that through to your email campaigns as well.

Find a great publicist and/or digital marketing specialist

All of the tips we’ve discussed so far can be, without a doubt, very effective in promoting your music to the masses. But yeah…it does take time. And money; maybe not a ton, but there is typically some sort of financial outlay to get some of these options up and running.

And, taking a look at the points on website creation, you just may not have the technical know-how to turn your website into a haven for weary Internet travelers, or turn the universe into your personal Twitterverse.

But what can you do if you just don’t have the time or the desire to learn how to Instagram your way to success?

Sometimes it may be best to let your wallet do the talking and hire some professional help to do the heavy lifting for you. A good publicist and/or digital marketing specialist should have the savvy to manage your press presence and social media accounts along with keeping your website looking at its absolute best.

And yeah, I get it – it’s super easy to say ‘just hire someone’ without knowing what your financial position may be. But if you think about it, it would certainly be money well spent – having someone to manage that end of your business is a great way to let you focus on the creative end of the game.

Play. Play. And play some more…

While it’s certainly true that many elements of promotion simply aren’t the same as they used to be, some things truly remain the same and will never change.

Regardless of how the use of technology fits into your plans, some of the ‘old school’ trains of thought still apply. There is nothing that will truly replace a good live performance. Getting your music heard and connecting with an audience is an experience that you just can’t get from uploading your latest video to your YouTube channel or announcing your latest release on Spotify.

Music is, at its very heart and soul, an emotional thing that was meant to be shared with the world. If you can achieve that with an exciting and engaging live show then you’ll have a benefit that all the money and promotion in the world can’t buy.

Bottom Line

At the end of the day, if you want to make yourself and your music known to more than just your friends or the next door neighbor that hears you playing all the time, then you will inevitably have to take steps to promote what you have to offer.

A well thought out strategy that combines the power of the Internet, social marketing, and good ‘ol face to face interaction is a sure recipe for success.

How much success? That all depends on you – how hard are you willing to work to ultimately get the brass ring?

Fortunately, it may not be as difficult as you may think.

Technology has helped to transfer a large amount of control over your destiny from radio airplay and the record companies into your own hands. The ball’s in the artist’s court, much more than it ever has been – use it to your advantage!

And don’t forget to copyright your music. After all, the core of your business model depends on protecting your investment, and who knows – you may end up earning a ton of money from music royalties further down the line.

I’m keen to hear your thoughts and experiences. Have we left any critical advice out? Leave a comment below and share your knowledge!