How to Promote Your Band - Social Media Tools

Throughout my life I've always been around music. My father was in the music industry, my closest friends were in the music industry, I always had something playing, always going to concerts, always stealing my brother's CDs. Today is no different. After falling in love with an artist and vowing to help them succeed, I became involved in their day to day promotions, PR and Marketing. My fiance has two bands: Goodbye Nautilus and Untrust Us. I've been volunteered to help them promote their bands too.

So what makes me qualified to promote bands? Well to be honest, while I have spent the past four years in some form of Marketing: PR, Bus Dev, Branding, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing; there really isn't anything I can do that a band can't do themselves to promote their bands. The first step though, is giving up any hesitation you may have about using the internet to promote and promote shamelessly. Marketing your band is relatively simple, but it requires a great deal of commitment and timeliness. You can market your band just as effectively as a record label if you're willing to learn about what's out there and spend the time to do it.

I will show you the various Marketing areas to focus on, including: Social Media, Blog Outreach, PR, Online Marketing (Optimize Your Band Website), Online Distribution & Guerrilla Tactics.

Our first lesson in band marketing and band promotion is, Social Media: User Generated Promotion. Today, any band can reap the benefits provided by user generated websites.

Below I've listed sites that can help with promotions. It's simply a starter list with a small description. As I uncover more, I'll make updates. Also look out for Social Media highlights where I can walk you step by step in leveraging each site.

Social Media:
Facebook- Although Facebook isn't perfectly tailored to provide musicians with all the nifty artistic and music player abilities that Myspace has, Facebook is constantly growing and pulling market share from other Social Media sites and the best offering Facebook has that Myspace doesn't is tracking. On Facebook, you can track your visitors, visitor demographics and feed any information into your fans feed. Remember, create a "Fan Page" not a regular page, you can then check that you are a band or other public figure.

Myspace - This is a must have. Myspace has pretty much replaced the traditional press kit for bands. While the feedback and tracking information is missing, there really isn't a reason you shouldn't have a myspace. Most important though: keep updating it. Remember to use your band name in your URL.

iMeem - A social networking site focusing on music, iMeem is picking up some steam in the music community. The idea is to create a profile and upload songs you like to your personal music player. iMeem features artists that can be added to your list. However, a lot of these artist come through distributors, so unless you're part of a distribution network or label, it may be hard to get on this list. What you can do is create a personal profile, like all the members, remember to use your band name and upload your music to the player. Add your friends, syndicate your music everywhere.

Going.com - An event website that allows you to post up your event at your own descretion. It's a somewhat new site. It primarily focuses on the big national cities: SF, LA, NY, Seattle, etc. Sign up, create a profile and post.

Upcoming - Another event listing site owned by Yahoo. Upcoming lists any type of event but you can use it's massive audience to market your band.

Jambase - A concert listing site dedicated to well, listing concerts. This is a nationwide listing site. Jambase helps you promote your band no matter what city you're in.

That's it for now!

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