How to promote yourself as a music artist - Create a brand : Blog

You spend time writing, producing and mixing your music to create the perfect song, but your career keeps stuck in the same place. So, how do you change the game and stand out from the others? It all comes down to music promotion. Promoting your songs is an important step to gain visibility and reach the top parades. In this article, we'll give tips on how to promote yourself as a music artist. Music promotion is nothing more than raising awareness of your music. With so much content online, the only way to catch the attention of listeners is promoting yourself as an artist. You can start simple, with a post on social media, and then buy ads to help boost your scope. Either way, music marketing is an important part of being a musician. If you don’t promote your music, who’s going to know you’re an artist? Even big labels don’t sign new artists if they don't have at least a small fanbase. You can always contract a professional in music marketing to help you. However, if you're on a budget or simply doesn't feel like spending money at the beginning, you can do it yourself. Grab a pen and let’s look at some important tips!

Create a professional account for your music

The main thing you must do in order to promote yourself as a music artist is create an account on the main social media apps, such as TikTok, Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram. Each one of these platforms has a different purpose and requires a particular strategy in order to promote music. That’s why it’s so important to know your audience. A great number of views in a post means nothing if you don’t make an impact. You should always aim to gain more fans and not only viewers. Having a small but solid fanbase is so much better than having a single song with millions of views, but no fans. To know who your potential fans are, Spotify can give you a hand. In their For Artists section, Spotify offers tons of data about the people who listen to your music. This resource helps you find where they're from, what’s their age and who are the other artists they’re streaming too. Use this valuable information to plan your content and direct them to the right audience – for example, if your music reaches a younger public, Facebook can’t be your focus on your marketing strategy.

Plan your posts

How are you going to build the hype on social media? With backstage photos? Snippets of your upcoming tracks? Plan something based on your style and be consistent. Don’t forget to check out what’s trending in social media like Instagram and TikTok. Following recent trends is a great way to catch the attention of new people, since the algorithms will help to boost your content. Remember that each platform requires a different plan. Leave Facebook for tour dates, online merch divulgation and live videos. Twitter is more used to interact with fans. TikTok is better for short videos. Although some users are allowed to post up to 10 minutes long clips, users prefer shorter videos. After establishing your account, it's worthy investing in ads. Facebook, for example, offers a lot of options for marketing campaigns, including low-budget ads for new artists.

Stay online

To become relevant on social media, you’ve got to stay active. Posting regularly will enhance your engagement. The more you post, the more your fans will like, comment and repost your content. In this way, the platform will understand you've got a big engagement and can even start paying you.

Use a lot of hashtags

How to Promote Yourself as a Music Artist

This is the era of internet algorithms. Nowadays, it’s really easy to gain visibility on social media using the right hashtags and knowing who to interact with. Through hashtags, people interested in meeting new things can find you, especially on TikTok and Instagram. But be consistent! Putting a lot of hashtags that don’t match with the content you’re posting are only going to repel the audience.

Work on your branding

A brand is basically your image as a musician, an unique identity that sets you apart from other artists in the same genre. Before creating your own brand, you should think about what impression you want to give. See the example of the British indie band The 1975. Their logo is a simple square shape surrounding the band’s name. It’s not too sophisticated, but it’s considered a successful branding because it’s impossible not to associate that specific shape with the band.

There are tools available on the internet to make your own logo. If you’re looking for something with more impact, contact a designer to produce your branding. Remember: your brand the first impression you’ll make on your soon-to-be fans. See some others tips for a good brand:

Develop a stage prompt with special costumes and effects;
Write impactful lyrics;
Create an unforgettable logo;
Use your branding in all your social media and to build your EPK;
Create a mailing list to share information about tour dates and new releases;
Make merchandise such as t-shirts, water bottles, bottoms and vinyl discos.

Create a website

A website is very important for an artist or a band, since all information such as tour dates, exclusive content, releases, the links of all your social media and merchandise will be there. Your website will also contain your visual identity. There’s some website builders available on the internet that also allow you to create an online store, so you can sell your music and merchandise online too. Others even offer the option to instantly make merch with the artwork you've uploaded and send it to buyers, using a dropshipping technique. Redbubble and Society6 are some examples.

Do you have an EPK?

EPK stands for Electronic Press Kit, and it’s basically a curriculum vitae of an artist. In music promotion, an EPK is usually sent to agents, event bookers, radio stations, journalists and bloggers to topple your songs on important agendas. An effective EPK has:

A brief artist bio. Two or three paragraphs about your trajectory as an artist and music style. This is called an elevator pitch. It’s a way of summarizing your product — in this case, your music — to someone so briefly that it could be done in an elevator ride.
Press photos with high quality. Be sure that the pictures show your branding and your persona. Try to include photos in vertical and horizontal sizes.
Music videos and live gig recordings. Some audiovisual content comes greatly along the photos.
Compilation of articles and reviews about your songs in important media outlets. This brings authenticity and an outside vision of your work.
Contact information. Always include your website, social media profiles and email.
Analytics from streaming platforms and social media to show the impact of your music. This is important because some places can look up your numbers to see if it’s worth promoting you!

Don’t forget to keep your EPK updated! It has the power to be a game changer in your career, so it’s important to always keep it fresh with your most recent achievements.

Get out there and perform live shows!

Playing gigs is nothing new in the music industry. It’s the perfect way to make money and find a new fanbase. For indie artists, the best gigs are big festivals that involve other bands or singers with similar genres. Usually, people go to festivals because of a few specific musicians, but end up watching all the presentations. This is the perfect opportunity to promote yourself as a music artist, since the audience there already likes the genre of the music you play. You can also record concert videos and upload them in your social media. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok also offer the possibility to do live streams.

Music marketing takes time, but the efforts are never in vain. If you want to be more than a local indie artist, you need to raise your sleeves and get out there! START NOW!

How to promote yourself as a music artist – Create a brand