With the advances of technology, it seems that everyone and their mother have started a record label these days. This is a good thing for artist who may not be in major city music hubs, or those who know the true financial and creative value of being an independent artist and putting out your own records. While many may know how to put together a slamming album, most don't know how to be innovative in getting the word out to potential fans and customers. For those artists who truly have fantastic music that the world needs to hear, I'll provide you with some details on how to promote your product.
Work your MySpace page correctly: Everyone knows that MySpace is the place that any knucklehead with a mic, a beat, and some lyrics can promote their music for free. The key is to utilize your MySpace page effectively. Make sure you have a custom designed page layout. It gives you a professional image, and image after all is what really sells you. Stay away from the free layout generators that promote everything but your music. If you're good at Photoshop, then make your own, or pay a few bucks to have a pro design it for you. You never want to look less than professional, because you're competing with major, independent, and all kinds of terrible amateurs. You may only get one chance to gain a fan, and due to so many fans being heavily bombarded by other artists, you have to make sure to stand out and have a professional image. Also when leaving comments on fans pages personalize your message to them and always request they add you as a top friend. Along with your comments make and post an online flyer that advertises your music, shows, merchandise, etc. Try to be unique with it so that it can catch the eye of others who visit that fans page. Once you've convinced fans to click your page, make sure that your page is clean and easy to navigate and that all of your images and videos load quickly. Lastly if you're selling any your products on the page, make it easy to notice and order so that you won't miss any sales.
YouTube campaign: Stars are being made daily on YouTube by doing silly stuff like banging their heads against walls. If that can happen on accident, just think what a little planned creativity can do for your music career. Show the world your talent by posting videos. You can post a music video, or show yourself performing, singing, rapping, making a beat, being interviewed, and whatever else you can think of. The key to success is to put out a consistent and quality video. Invest in a mini dv camcorder for the cheapest, yet best quality picture. Read around the internet and learn how to shoot good video. No one wants to see shaky video, or watch you and your friends standing around talking about nothing and smoking cigarettes. Assume you'll get only one chance to capture a fan's attention, so encourage them to subscribe to your channel, check out your music, and any other relevant info. Don't forget to add those videos to your MySpace page.
Send press releases: Put together a professional quality press release and email it to every website and blog that you can find that caters to your music. Make sure to include a complete bio, pictures, and no more than 3 of your best songs. Search the internet for tips on how to make a press release. The bigger, more mainstream sites more than likely won't post your info, but send it to them anyway, because they just might, especially if you have an interesting angle that makes a good story for them as well as yourself. There are numerous websites that cater to independent artist and will be happy to post your info, just to have something to post. Don't sleep on this because you never know what writer will fall in love with your music and give you major kudos and in turn fans of his website will become fans of your music. Also most websites archive their pages, so old news might become new news to someone months or years later and thus you'll obtain new fans and sales.
A bonus tip is to watch already successful artist and emulate their moves. Keep in mind, some of their moves you can completely copy, but other moves you'll need to put your own twist on things to avoid so that you can stand apart.
Those are some good tips to get you started with your record label, but of course you should never stop learning and always remember that knowledge is power and the more you learn, the better chance you have at being successful. Good luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment