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Musicians of Tildes, how do you promote your music?
My band are releasing a new single on the 5th August, another later in the year, and a third early next year. We've released a few tracks already, but we never seem to get much traction when trying to promote them. The band has agreed that a different approach is probably needed, and so we're open to a bit of experimentation. So, musos of Tildes: how do you go about promoting the music you release?
You may already have done or know about some of these but in case you don't or for others:
Good luck and I hope some of this helps someone!
Edit: Adding things.
Thanks for a pretty comprehensive list! I think we're doing most of all of that already, so I guess it's just doing it better. I always find that our audience increases the most from playing live, so I've been trying to convince the band to do more of that, but some of our number are resisting travel without the guarantee of having a good show :(
Nobody really listens to my music but this is what I do! I always announce a new release on Instagram and have a pinned post to my album. Finding curated playlists on Spotify or other streaming platforms that matches your style or location is good, too. The curator will often have how to submit a song in the description. I also seek out radio stations that take submissions. A lot of low power stations aren't able to play licensed music so they like self released and unlicensed options.
I've been involved in music for about 30 years and unfortunately if you want to get any traction online you'll have to spend a fair bit on ads on social media sites.Then out of about 10% of the people who see it , only a smaller percentage will actually listen to your music and an even smaller percent will buy an album. Don't listen to most of these YouTubers who will tell you to get on playlists or post stuff daily on tik tok. You'll waste time better spent elsewhere to build up followers who aren't real fans. If any of these guys had any real methods that worked,they wouldn't be making videos telling people how to do it.
The best way to develop a strong fanbase, or any fanbase really, is to play live as much as you can. Hand out codes for bandcamp links, CDs or music on SD cards. I guarantee at a live gig you'll gain more real fans than you could online and sell more albums.
Your last paragraph is bang on. Our social media numbers (and I hate that that's how things are tracked) always jump the most after a live performance. More gigs to book, then!
If you are wealthy, hire a promoter and be prepared to spend massive amounts of money on advertising.
If you are not, try getting a label to sign your band. You'll lose a lot of creative freedom (and future income), but they will have the resources to promote you.
If you can't (or don't want to), you'll have to accept that like almost every other indie artist, your music won't be popular no matter what you do.
I agree with all of this, sadly. It's very much a numbers game, and the more money you can put in, the more numbers you get out. We're all on a bit of a shoestring budget though, so it's not like we'll ever be able to put the necessary thousands into advertising.
That said, I wouldn't necessarily say we're looking to be "popular." Depending on how you define success, popularity isn't really a requirement. You only need a sufficiently sized group of fans to be willing to pay you on a regular basis, and that number is smaller than a lot of people think. 100 people paying £5-£10 a month on something like Patreon would be more than sufficient to cover the costs of the band, and in fact be enough profit to start working towards some exciting new projects.
It depends where your band is, but have you read Donald S Passman's book? It isn't perfect, but it covers the basics.
Depending on your style of music, but you should try to get into some TV shows. Music supervisors are always looking for fresh (read: cheap) music that suits a scene -- and actual indie music is perfect for this.
There are a lot of variables and nothing will cover all genres. Networking is the most important thing. Make friends with everybody in your local scene and hit the road for some profitable touring.
Rent a van so you aren't stuck when it breaks down...
If you're Canadian, don't tour Canada. Its a waste of gas.
Play shows, make and sell merch, tour (if possible), make friends in other cities, put on shows for them when they come through and hope they'll do the same for you. I'm old-fashioned.
I don't release much music anymore, but I used to contact different labels to release through. This was in the heyday of netlabels, so the barrier to entry was very low.
For example I contacted a Russian netlabel releasing similar sounding music out of the blue to see if they would have my music, and they would. Years later, I learn that because this label actually did promote their releases and also organized a lot of parties in St. Petersburg and played my music there, I had a bit of a fanbase in Russia. I went on tour there a decade after the release and met people who had had long relationships with my music.
Another means for me to promote my music has been to try out new software quickly. Specifically, trackers. Then I send the authors my songs because as a software developer I know I'd love to hear about the stuff people do with my software, and they sometimes ended up in the examples directories in future releases. This happened to me with SunVox and TFM Music Maker.
Third, because most of my music fits into a pretty tight niche (FM-based chipmusic) there have been relatively tight communities around it. On (now defunct) 8bitcollective, chipmusic.org, the (now defunct) soundshock.se forums I made friends with more other artists and people organizing the relatively bigger labels, e.g. 8bitpeoples and would eventually release music there.
Now, if I make something, I find some interesting looking 40s-60s educational video material on archive.org, set my song to it and upload it to YouTube.