12 Best Music Promotion Hacks

The current music industry and today's music production technology can now be completely handled by you. You can be the songwriter of your music, record, mix and master it yourself. Then distribute it to yourself or sign up with a distribution company. Then if you are a touring artist you need to plan gigs and all the associated music promotion hacks. This means that music-making is open to everyone. The road to success is there if you have the talent, patience and perseverance required.

However, what this means is if you are an unsigned indie artist you are now entirely responsible for your success. There are many hats to wear as mentioned earlier and you may not have the required level of expertise in all areas. So when it comes to music marketing especially digital marketing, here are some music promotion hacks that will help.   

Content is everything especially when it is content that answers questions being searched for on the internet by the public. If your content has keywords that relate to these questions then you could reach the associated traffic who then find your music. 

What are these questions being searched for? One way to find these questions is by using www.answerthepublic.com. Just enter a keyword that is relevant to you and the site will offer longtail keywords based on the keyword you entered but question-based. You can then research these keywords for volume and then use the ones you select in your blog or social media posts. Satisfying these specific internet users.

Using your fans for promotion is one of the most efficient and economic ways to get music promotion. So challenge your fans to produce a cover of your song or an excerpt. With platforms like YouTube and Tik-Tok, you could find these videos going viral as fans share the content and spread the word.

As an incentive, you can always offer a prize for the best one. Give details of when and how the selection will be made and make this an event to create even more attention.   

If you haven't got an email list then start one up. This allows direct promotion to listeners you know, at the very least, are interested in your music or they would not have signed up. Having this targeted audience means promotion to your list is time well spent.

Subscribers to your email list should be made to feel important. Everybody likes to feel a bit special so make sure they get exclusive content, news, special promotions and additional content not available to anyone else. 

If you have a small email list, try to give your email subscribers personalized attention which is more difficult with a large list, so there are some advantages to having a small list You could, for example, ask subscribers for input to songs or song titles. This feels much more personal and may turn these fans into super fans. These super fans are the fans that will be with you for life. 

There are plenty of music curators who have YouTube channels. These are channel owners that re-upload the artist’s music videos to their own YouTube account. If they have a large following, this could mean many more views for you the artist as a result. 

There are many of these channels on Youtube so choose one that best suits your music genre and style. Before pitching listen to the songs they upload as this will give you an indication whether your song would be a good fit for the channel. Search Google for youtube music curators or top youtube music promotion channels.

Songs can be full of keywords. Have a separate page on your website for each song with lyrics and a link to the song. Depending on your songwriting you probably have many metaphors in your songs. This is another way to attract people searching on the internet and then finding your song.

So, for example, if you had a song with lyrics like 'you painted a picture in my heart' you may well turn up in searches for art or painting. Your page may not be initially what the user was looking for but curiosity will get you some views, clicks and maybe some fans.

It tends to be the rule to title your song from your hook or verse. But if you can make your song title unique or more SEO friendly this will help it to be found. These are a couple of techniques to consider when songwriting or choosing the song title.

Factoring in the name of a famous person. Remember the film 'Kick it like Beckham'. How much impact do you think the title played in attracting possible viewers? A lot I would say. The same approach can be taken with a song title.

Another approach is double-titling. If you are really fixed on a title or have a title that is quite common, you can extend the title using parentheses. For example, for a song entitled 'Flood' you could double-title it like this, Flood (Clearing the Waterways). This gives an additional keyword that will help your song to be found.

Businesses can spend millions on charitable causes. They do this not just because it is a cause worth supporting but because it is good PR for the brand. This is the same for an artist you will find many top artists have their own causes that they support.

You can do the same. Find a cause that you want to support contact them and say you will offer your services to raise funds and donate the proceeds. If something gets organized, then, as well as the charities own promotion network, contact local media, spread the word online.

This way you attract others who are also interested in the cause but may not have heard about you. They may turn into fans or at least spread the word.  As well as being good PR it feels good to be supporting a cause and creates a relationship.

In this new music industry of millions of music artists, you need to stand out from the crowd.  We all want to be unique and have our own sound, which is fine, but we are dealing with a world with short attention spans. One way to stand out is the description of you, your band or your sound. 

There is a lot of focus on 'the look' with platforms like Instagram and YouTube playing such a big part in marketing. However, 'the word' still has its place. So, when your promotion includes copy (text) then make this quirky and stand out. For interviews, your EPK, posters, adverts, flyers create a description that is going to create curiosity.

So to answer the questions what is your sound? or Who do you sound like? Come up with an answer that raises eyebrows. This is something you need to work on and test out but make it quirky.

Your answer shouldn't be 'we don't sound like anybody we're unique' (curiosity rating 1/10) or 'we are a Rock band' (curiosity rating 2/10). Fire up the curiosity with something like 'We are the re-incarnation of the Blues Brothers with techno sunglasses'. This immediately creates curiosity or at least a talking point.

Create playlists on platforms like Soundcloud and Spotify. These can be by genre, mood or a specific celebrity. However, make sure you include some of your own songs. This is a great way to gain followers and extra streams.

If you have a forthcoming release you can create a Facebook event entitled something like “Here is the brand new album by Joe Blogs”. Set the event date as your release date and Facebook will remind “attendees” but this upcoming event. Include all relevant music and video links in the event description and share like crazy.

Get leverage from other artists followers by promoting them and yourself. Find soundalike artists or up and coming artists that have a fan base bigger than yours. Then message them and say you want to do a feature on them on your blog, website or YouTube channel.

If they agree, you can either interview them using something like Skype or send a list of questions that they can answer in text form or answer by video. Make sure you plug their music in the video or article and link to their social media in the comments. When that artist shares your video or article on their social media their fans will hopefully become curious about the author and check out your sites and music.

Another approach is collaboration. Co-writing a song may not be to everyone's liking but, it has the advantage of two sets of fans which means you can cross-promote and get new followers.

Have you seen those experts on TV that are wheeled out for specific topics? Well, journalists also need specific expertise. 

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) www.helpareporter.com connects journalists and bloggers with relevant expert sources. HARO distributes more than 50,000 journalist queries per year, reaches more than 800,000 sources and 55,000 journalists and bloggers.

You can sign up as a source and then receive emails regarding queries that you may be able to answer. As many of these journalists are working for top media outlets you could get the opportunity to be quoted which may lead to the media outlet contacting you again in the future. In any case, if your contribution is used this is free and quality PR.

Well, that's the 12 music promotion hacks. I hope you find some of them useful.