Making it as a musician: How to promote yourself

Forming a career as a musician is one of the hardest things you could do. It’s not impossible however, passion and hard work go a long way in achieving your goals. You should probably not get into the career with the sole aim of making money, but rather as a hobby and passionate outlet.

Build a website

Owning your own website comes with a number of benefits, such as being able to control what content you put out, and even sell your own tickets if you’re smaller, avoiding certain fees. You can put anything you like on here, and even build a mailing list.

A mailing list allows fans to sign up to all things related to your music. That means you could email them about any latest music, tour announcements and merchandise that they might not see on social media. You could also offer unique discounts through these mailing lists, as a further incentive for fans and people to sign up.

Create a social media presence

Social media is becoming a major tool and asset to musicians. Apps such as Instagram, TikTok and Twitter allow musicians to share their performances in small bite sized portions and also interact with their fans. The main way in which fans find out about new songs and tours is through announcements on social media.

Have an engaging artist bio

Sometimes, people will see your song on a website and look at an artist before listening to it, so it’s important that your artist bio is engaging in order to grab the attention of anyone who comes across it. A high-quality artist profile can help to entice new listeners and enhance your reputation with current listeners.

It’s also important to have this bio, as it could help sell the reason why someone comes to listen to you live. It will form a key part of your press kit, which becomes important when you start looking into booking festivals and growing in general.

Of course, your music is still the most important element about you, but a solid musician profile will go a long way in helping spread your music. You can learn from experts like Pirate, to get the best advice on how to write an artist bio, which becomes even more important if you are deciding to be your own publicist.

For example, you should include important information about your bio, such as where you’re based, your genre and style, who influences you, your current releases and other related information. If you’ve ever won an award for your music, then of course you also want to include that here somewhere.

If you’ve got a unique selling point that offers something different from other musicians or artists, then you should absolutely include that here. The bottom line is, this should represent you and your music for people to understand who you are and what you are about.

Upload to streaming platforms

In this digital age, it’s almost impossible to become successful without using any sort of online streaming platform to get your music out there. Look at the rise of superstar Loren Gray, who found fame on TikTok. Other more music-based platforms, such as Spotify, SoundCloud and Apple Music are also important avenues to look into.

In most cases, aside from TikTok, you will have to pay some sort of small fee in order to host your music on the platform. Some platforms will pay you per view, or pay you based on monthly listens, in small amounts. Either way, money aside, it’s a great way to help have your music listened to by a greater audience across the world.

A lot of the time, these streaming platforms will allow users to create and share playlists of their favourite songs, with the platforms themselves creating their own global playlists. If your song manages to get into these playlists that go viral, then your listening records will take off, and more people will discover you.

Blog and press coverage

There are various different music publications, both at local and national level, that can really help with your career. Getting into these with an article or two will help build up hype surrounding your latest release or tour announcement. If you’ve got the money and are starting to rise, consider hiring a PR company to help handle your campaign.

Create music videos

Music videos that are creative, engaging and connect well with the song always have the potential to go viral or be popular in general. Even if the song is forgettable, many will remember an iconic music video.

Consider doing something compared to everyone else, such as doing something about current events in order to grab quick traction. Of course, the danger here is that the video could become outdated quickly, but it will have served its purpose.

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