Posted: Feb 6, 2017
Category: Social Media
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**Guest post by Doug Beney, lead editor of MIDI Lifestyle.
"You've been improving your skills for months, spending countless hours slaving over your DAW, perfecting every slight detail in your mix.
Finally happy with your track, you publish it on Soundcloud, sit back, and.....Crickets.
A month goes by and all you have to show for your effort are 11 listens.
Frustrated with the lack of comments and views your tracks have, you make the ever-so-common Google search, "How to get followers".
You're immediately presented with a lot of obvious, fluffy advice, sketchy looking "10,000 followers overnight" packages from gurus in Nigeria, and spammy tactics - such as following thousands of people in hope some follow back.
+5 Music Industry Schemes That Still Exploit Artists
What I hope to provide you with today are some quick, practical improvements you can make in how you promote your music that will actually get you results.
The situation I described earlier is all to common and because of that, I was inspired to write this article.
The 9 reasons you have no followers...
How many Twitter musicians have you seen where the only thing they post are links to their music? The Answer: A LOT.
It will pay off to vary your content. This can be as simple as posting pictures/videos of your studio, you recording music, or even shows that you play at.
You can also share your opinion on industry news that happens in your genre. You'll notice many average Joes on Twitter have massive followings, not because they are a celebrity or anything, but instead because they tweet on Trending topics a lot, getting a lot more eyes on their accounts and Tweets.
During the 2016 US Presidential Election, many average Joes who were either pro-Trump or pro-Hillary had their accounts blow up with new followers because a.) what they were talking about was controversal and b.) The topics they tweet about were trending every single day, giving them a lot of exposure.
If your favorite musical artist sent out a Tweet that started going viral and your @ reply was the most popular, you'll gain many new followers.
+6 Wrong Ways to Start a New Twitter Account for your Band, and How to Make them Right
Somebody lands on your Soundcloud page, leaves a few comments, and then you never see that person again. Sad.
What if you could retain that listener and be able to have them comment on your music for years?
In this section we'll talk about retaining your fans.
Building an email list
There are many different ways to stay in contact with your fans/customers, but the #1 way that big artists (and even fortune 500 companies) use is email marketing.
Using something like MailChimp - a popular tool for email marketing & list building (free to start out with), you'll be able to capture email addresses from your fans and email them whenever you come out with a new track or have an important announcement.
One thing you might be wondering is how you'd actually going about collecting emails from your fans. Most email marketing tools (Including MailChimp) allow you to create signup forms and be able to link to them. All you'd have to do is take that link and share it on social media.
You're also able to embed email signup forms. So, if you have a website, all you have to do is simply embed the form and your fans will be able to sign up for email updates on your website.
To wrap up the email marketing section, consider that there is a much greater chance of your fans reading your email than catching your latest Tweet. Therefore, it's a powerful tool to stay connected.
+Why social media is DEAD for music marketing (and why email works)
Following up with your fans
At the very beginning of your music marketing efforts, you will have a core group of around 5-10 people who care about your music the most.
It's important to keep these people hooked, or they'll just leave and forget about you.
When you come out with a new track, it can be a good idea to message these people asking for feedback on the track. You can simply @ mention them on Twitter or even Facebook message them.
What matters most is that you keep these people active with you and your music.
+Social Media: The Best Friend A Musician Never Wanted
There are so many popular music discovery channels (MrSuicideSheep being an example of one).
Now, I'd imagine that MrSuicideSheep, someone with over 6 million subscribers, get bombarded with music submissions every day. So it will be pretty hard to get in contact with him when you're brand new.
However, there are thousands of music discovery channels on Youtube that don't get as many messages per day as the big ones.
Here's a quick way to finding smaller channels to submit your music to:
• Search your Genre in Youtube (ex. 'Tropical House')
• Click the 'Filters' button on the top of the page, and filter the results by Channel.
Now you have a big list of channels that are related to your genre. Weed through these and find pretty small ones (4-10k subscribers). All you have to do now is outreach to them, asking if they'd be interested in hearing your music (don't be spammy).
And don't just stop with YouTube channels! You can do the same on Soundcloud as well. Music blogs are still a popular place to submit your music, so feel free to try them as well.
+How Do I Get My Stuff Featured on Music Blogs?
Take a long honest listen to your music and ask yourself:
• Is this actually something someone would have on their iPod?
• Is this generic?
Can't tell you how many EDM artists I've listened to that use the same sample packs and presets. So many up and coming artists sound very generic. Don't fall into this category!
Some people only post on Twitter when they release a new track (which is typically every one to two months).
If you want to be serious about music marketing, you should be posting multiple times every day.
It's common for someone to get very motivated, hustle very hard for a week or two, and then completely stop efforts because they don't have any results yet.
Patience is critical as it's very rare to go viral overnight.
Consistency ties into Reason #6.
Whatever efforts you want to put in to market your music, you should be doing it every day. A little work every day for many months is much better than a lot of work for a couple days and then quitting.
+7 Tips to Increase Your Exposure and Potential
Something quite annoying (particularly on Twitter) is spam. People who follow thousands of people every day to get more followers.
Just try your best to avoid these kinds of tactics. There are better ways to market your music. They get you poor quality followers who are not interested in your music.
I see some people on Twitter with 10,000 followers, but they might as well have zero because no one interacts with what they post.
+30 Day Twitter Guide for Musicians
Optional but helpful, building a website allows you to advertise your musical talent, collect emails, and have a "home base" for the brand that is you/your band.
It's so easy nowadays to buy a $10 domain and set up a Wordpress site (or use something even easier like Bandzoogle or Wix).
A website makes it easier for people to find you on Google and also find out what social networks you are on (If you set up social buttons).
+5 Reasons Why Bands Need (Better) Websites
I really hope you got a lot of value out of this article.
These 9 tips can really help you out if you apply them.
Feel free to leave any questions in the comment section below and I will do my best to personally respond to them."
Related Blog Posts:
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+Hashtag 101: How to Use Them & Why They Matter