The Easiest Ways to Promote a New Song

 

The Easiest Ways to Promote a New Song

Every musician has one question: where to find an audience, a listener? Until recently, the main way was to publish music on CDs, cassettes, and vinyl. But with the advent of streaming services and social networks, musicians at first don't need labels and credits to replicate CDs, which makes promotion even easier than using a betting app or cooking the meal you really like. It's enough to post material on the Internet to get auditions, feedback, and even monetary rewards for their work.



But first, you need to make sure everything is ready to be published. A successful release will require:

Good music in a good recording. It's rare for anyone to have a masterpiece at the beginning of their creative journey, but the material needs to have something to latch on to, and it needs to be enjoyable to listen to. That means taking the time and money to produce the track - arranging, recording, mixing, and mastering. Audio requirements in most cases are 16 bit, 44 kHz, but there are also services, which allow you to publish lossless formats.

Artwork. A cover art is essential for any single, EP or LP - not only does it set the atmosphere and individuality, but it also allows users of streaming services and social networks to catch it by sight and remember it.

Press Release. Brief information about the band, project, artist, or release itself. You'll need it for filling the corresponding fields on your social networks and streaming pages.

Streaming Services

First, it's necessary to give the audience an opportunity to legally listen to and buy ready-made tracks. There are dozens of streaming services, and trying to understand all of them is a living hell. That's why there are aggregator sites that allow you to download music to a dozen platforms at once. The most famous are Tunecore and CDBaby, and Google knows many others. Hosting itself is inexpensive, but services take a commission on sales, so you need to carefully read the terms and conditions. Nevertheless, this is the easiest way to publish your music and get a presence in the global music market.

Social Media

The next step is a social media presence. They not only allow you to post music, but also to communicate with your audience, inform them about news, performances, etc. This is important for the formation and growth of the future fanbase. Sometimes posting audio recordings is included in the package of the posting aggregator along with iTunes and Play Music, otherwise it's not difficult to do everything yourself.



Instagram is suitable for music projects centered around an artist's personality. Many hip-hop, rock and metal musicians use it to casually interact with fans and post behind-the-scenes content. Snapchat is sometimes used for the same purpose.



You need to pay attention to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can't post music in them, only attach links to it. But the presence in them is important so that the audience knew about the existence of the project and could subscribe to news. It's worth placing links to all the tracks there, adding hashtags to them with the genre and name of the project. Using these tags, users and administrators of communities devoted to relevant music are looking for new releases.

Social Media for Musicians

Bandcamp is an online store for indie musicians. It allows you to post your music and merchandise, sell digital copies and discs at your own prices for a small service fee. The artist can create a page on the platform with a short name and put a link to it in social networks (for example, the Facebook page has an action button that can be used to redirect to Bandcamp). A big advantage of the service is the ability to sell real media and merchandise, so a lot of CD and vinyl collectors have gathered around it. Thanks to its large community, you can find a listener in even the most exotic genres.



Soundcloud is a social network for indie musicians, the main feature is the opportunity to comment on the track directly on the soundtrack. So you can mark the most catchy moments. This website allows you to put up to 5 GB of your music in mp3 and lossless formats, there are paid accounts, expanding the space and functionality. On Facebook and Twitter, it's convenient to put links to your tracks on Soundcloud, it's integrated with them.



Last.fm, though it has lost its former popularity, still has a core of loyal users. If your work was previously posted on social networks and streaming sites, it is likely that it is already available on last.fm. However, it's worth registering your project page to have control over your profile. This platform is great because it associates similar bands and projects with each other quite accurately. It's convenient for users to explore entire genres and trends, and it's beneficial for musicians who get free auditions.



Patreon allows fans to subscribe to the channel for a small fee (a basic subscription is only a dollar) in exchange for exclusive content. This can be early access to works, rare performance recordings, song covers, remixes, demos, dressing room videos, etc. Different subscription levels can be set up with different costs and amounts of content offered, including offline gifts - merchandise, CDs, posters, etc. Patreon is popular not only among musicians but also artists, photographers, cosplayers, bloggers, and other creative individuals.