How to Successfully Market Your Music in Today’s Digital Age

There are many ways that musicians can market their music in today’s digital age. The importance of becoming aware of these standard yet very important tactics to marketing your music and building a strong online presence sets those musicians up for more success and attention from the media and their fans. Below are seven key ways to market yourself as a musician. 

Build an Online Presence

One of the first things an artist should do when they are embarking on their musical journey is to make sure they have built an online presence. This of course takes time, but making sure you are doing these steps before releasing music and performing live is crucial. 

Set up Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for starters. Make sure you are also using a distribution platform to get your music uploaded on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. When you are releasing new stuff, make sure you upload at LEAST two weeks before your release, although It is recommended to upload 3-5 weeks prior for Spotify editorial playlist submissions. Also, it is a good idea to set up a Spotify for Artists account, where you can change your profile pictures, add gallery photos, add an artist bio, tickets to upcoming shows, make your own personalized playlists, etc. 

The last part to making sure you have a good online presence is creating an artist website. This is important because it acts as a landing page for those who find your music and want to find out more. Make sure to include a bio, pictures, links to socials, upcoming releases, upcoming shows, merch if applicable, and any PR, radio, or other important highlights for your career.

Build a Brand

The importance of building a brand as an artist is essential, especially with the massive amount of people wanting to pursue music. Building a brand makes you unique and allows fans to grasp onto your presence and connect with you further. Make sure you develop a memorable brand identity, this often takes a while to fully develop, but the stronger the brand you can build, the stronger your presence will be. Your brand should reflect your music’s style, values, personality, and align with your artistry and craft. Be consistent with your brand amongst all platforms and be sure to market yourself how you want to be noticed and recognized. 

Collaborate with other Musicians and People in the Industry

Collaborating with other similar artists and people in the industry is so important. It is a good idea to find artists that are a similar size to you or a little bit bigger, so you can enhance your network and gain new followers. Also, it is important to collaborate with other producers, influencers, and people in the music industry to expand your reach. Participate in industry events, online music communities, and be active and available to network with other like-minded creatives. 

Create New Content

When you’re a new artist, it is crucial to create as much new content as possible, so you can share on socials, build up for releases, share with people when you are doing outreach, and so on. Make sure you have a variety of different content and stay up to date on new trends and notice what other artists are doing that are gaining a lot of attention. Oftentimes, artists find it discouraging when they feel like their content isn’t getting recognized, but keep being creative and finding new ways to gather content and it will reach the right audience!

Optimize SEO

SEO is search engine optimization and is the process used to optimize a website’s content relevance, technical configuration, and link popularity. As an artist, you should be using relevant words in your website content, social media posts, and YouTube descriptions. This will increase your chances of discoverability and makes it easier for your music to land in the right persons’ hands.

Paid Advertising

When appropriate, use paid advertising on socials such as Instagram Ads, Facebook Ads, and Google Ads. It takes time and experiments as a newer artist to find your demographic and to make sure you are targeting the right people when you launch your ads. Make sure you are tracking data and seeing what types of content is working and what is not, and take that into consideration when you are organizing and placing your ads. 

Network

Always network with other music professionals in your city and beyond. It is so important to take that extra leap, meaning, attend the show, the conference, the networking event, the masterclass, or whatever event or situation it is to meet new people. This is an industry that is based upon who you know and who you can get connected with, so make sure you are putting yourself out there even on your “days off” so you can open up new doors and opportunities for yourself as a musician.