10+ Proven Ways To Promote Your Music

Whether you play classical music or produce rap mixtapes, it is very important that you know how to get yourself out there and how to put your music in the right places.

Social media has created an outlet where you can attract people and expand your fan base very easily.

Many people agree that the key to success is simply publishing good music, but while this is true to a certain extent, nobody has ever gotten famous without good marketing.

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the best ways to promote your music either online, offline, with no money, on social media, or on YouTube.

Let’s get started!

How to Successfully Promote Your Music?

We will be talking about ways in which you can go ahead and promote your music and actually get good results from doing so.

Make sure that you always adapt every single thing that we talk about to your own situation, and know that what might work for other people, might not work for you, and vice-versa.

1. Go viral in a unique way

There’s no surefire way to make your music go viral, but there are a few things you can do to increase your chances.

First, make a great song that’s catchy and interesting enough to get people’s attention, we have seen many artists go from nothing to having millions of followers in days.

Take the example of the Walmart yodeling kid:

As you can see, those numbers in that YouTube video are really high for somebody that did not have any big recognition at all before all this happened.

That one viral video allowed him to go from singing at Walmart to singing at Coachella. And aside from that, his social media profiles also skyrocketed:

Now…

Going viral is not something that you plan, or even know when it’s gonna happen, and by no means, we are telling you to live your life trying to go viral, because, at some point in the future, people will see that very easily.

What you should focus on is being different and standing out from everybody else.

Think about it this way, we have everybody else, but we do not have you.

So, just be yourself, find your own style, and people will love you for that, and not because you look or sound like someone else.

2. Use social media to get yourself in front of new people

There are multiple platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. where you can promote your music.

Instead of simply putting it out there, create hype and anticipation before you deliver and drop new music.

You and I have seen many artists start fighting with each other just to drop an album or a song right after.

We are not telling you to do the same thing just to get attention!

What you can do is maybe tell your fan base to like a picture on Instagram, and that you will release your music if the post gets to a certain number of likes or comments.

With your post having so much engagement, Instagram will start to feature it on the explore page, and new people will start hearing your stuff.

Now…

On the other hand, if you have a budget for marketing purposes, then you can also create ads on these social media apps as well.

Facebook and Instagram will do a great job in putting your content out there, and the way that you can target your potential listeners is very accurate.

For example, you can decide to only show your ads to people that are between the age of 18 and 30, and who only like Hip-Hop music, or whatever genre your music falls into.

At the same time, remember that people will be more willing to give your music a listen if it is worthy enough, or in other words if it is actually good.

Posting high-quality content and good videos along with your music will always add a nice touch to your overall personal brand.

3. Use TikTok or IG Reels and promote your music there

The organic reach that both TikTok and IG Reels currently have deserves to be talked about on their own.

If you’re looking for a creative and fun way to promote your music, consider using these two forms.

You can use TikTok to show off your music skills, share snippets of your songs, or create funny videos that will get people talking about your music.

And then you can repurpose this content for Instagram and other social media platforms.

TikTok in specific has launched the career of multiple artists and is perfect for promoting your music because it allows you to use your songs in any of your videos.

People from all over the world can then reuse your sound and create a viral effect around it.

4. Get featured in popular playlists

This one is among my favorite ways to market music nowadays!

You could work your way into any big playlist on Spotify or any other streaming platform and get listens from those who already follow that playlist.

Spotify is a great way to do this since this platform is very playlist-oriented, or at least it makes it very easy for us to create and share them.

You can try to get into a big playlist by contacting the creator and see if they want to do it for free or sometimes even by paying a certain amount of money.

If the playlist is created by the Spotify team, then all you can do is wish for luck and that somebody notices you organically or through a direct connection.

On the other hand, if a regular user created it, then you can try to get in contact with them and see if they are willing to add your songs to the playlist.

Lastly, a record label might have been the one that created the playlist, and these are always open to business!

You can use the help of freelancers on Fiverr.com that would be willing to do this for about $5-$45:

Also, remember that these platforms’ recommendation algorithm works very well in the sense that they will always show other artists’ music to their listeners.

People who listen to similar music will get recommended yours as well.

Now…

What if there is no way that you could get into any of these playlists?

Just create your own and market it.

Make sure that the name is catchy and that the image that you use is creative or at the very least, professional.

Put the best songs at the moment, and also include some of your best work.

How can you market a newly created playlist?

Simply share it with your friends, and also if you are involved in the music community, just drop a link to your playlists in any forum or discussion.

Do not spam.

With enough time and a good playlist name and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Spotify will start to rank your playlist and people will eventually start liking it.

A quick and smart way to do this is to create multiple playlists with the lyrics of usually-hard-to-remember songs.

People will try searching for the lyrics on the app and you’ll want to have the actual song on the playlist with a few others that you wrote.

5. Join an online community of musicians

Using social media is not enough, you need to be active and let others discover you in every way possible.

For example, if somebody comments on your post, make sure that you reply to them. Once you start receiving too many comments, just reply to a few.

If you are just starting out, you can go to platforms like Reddit to talk to other people that are trying to make it out there at the same time as you.

Simply talk to others and engage with them, and from now and then just invite people to listen to your music.

If you have never used Reddit before, then Instagram will be just fine, if not better.

Go to big pages, and interact with them in a genuine way.

What we are telling you to do is NOT to go ahead and comment things like: “Hey guys, I am an upcoming artist, listen to my stuff”.

Just talk about something that is related to the post, and people will most likely go to your profile if you make it to the top comment.

People tend to be more invested in your music if they feel like you are trying to communicate with them.

6. Show your music to other people

One of the best ways to promote your music is to show it to other people.

Ask your friends and family to share your music on their social media profiles, and reach out to local media outlets and blogs to see if they would be interested in featuring your music.

What we mean by “show your music to other people” is to simply have your friends be your supporters.

Tell them to share your songs with their friends, and then to make their friends do the same.

You want to create a snowball effect, in which you slowly get more and more people to listen to your music.

I know this is very easy to say, sadly 90% of people won’t support you until you actually make it, but it’s still worth a try.

7. Collaborate with other musicians

While you are making music, it is essential to reach out to similar or interesting artists around you.

You should be networking and socializing, but most importantly, you should be willing to learn from others.

If you ask an artist to feature you on their track or collaborate on a project, you will be expanding your fan base, since they will expose you to each and every fan that they already have, just like you would hopefully do to them.

More people will be drawn to you through their platforms and vice versa!

Now, this is where it gets tricky…

You do not want to be collaborating with people that will not bring any value to you, you should hopefully reach out to people that are bigger than you in terms of listeners, followers, etc.

Although this is not easy at all, you can try having a track that is ready to be recorded, with lyrics already written down, and then showing it to the potential collaborator.

8. Create a website or blog

Do not underestimate the importance of a landing page or a personal website.

This will give you a place to share your music with fans from all over the world, and it will also allow you to showcase your skills as a musician.

You can use your website or blog to post updates about your upcoming shows, share photos and videos of your performances, and give fans a place to connect with you.

Creating a website or blog takes time and effort, but it’s worth it if you’re serious about promoting your music.

Not only is having a website good for all that but if you do the right SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you could rank on Google for your own name.

This is a very handy thing to have if you want others to be able to discover you easily and even more if your name is a bit common.

9. Grow a newsletter email list

There is not much to say when it comes to growing an email list.

Truth is, not everybody that will listen to your music will stay listening to it every day of their lives unless they become REAL fans.

But if at the moment when they are enjoying your songs, they get asked to subscribe to your email list, they will most likely do it.

A few tips would be to give people a reason to subscribe to your email list.

For example, getting to listen to your songs before anybody else, discounts to use in your online store, etc.

Even Justin Bieber, with all his success, still has a newsletter sign-up form on his website!

Once you have a big number of people on your email list, you do not want to spam them either, since this will cause them to unsubscribe very fast.

Rather contact them once or twice a week if necessary, or even every other week, and only if it will benefit both you and them in any way.

If you have a song that you want them to listen to or a show that you want them to go to, then it would be more than okay for you to send a few emails to your subscribers.

This is a great way to contact your supporters in a much more direct way without depending on the Instagram algorithm, for example, to decide if they should show them your posts or not.

10. Go out and perform your songs anywhere

This one is self-explanatory, and many people would think that is so obvious, but still don’t do it enough.

Playing live and performing in front of people should be the ultimate marketing strategy that any artist should be using.

We live in a world where cell phones are a big part of our lives and social media plays a big role in the way we share things with each other.

Playing live will most likely get others to record you and post it on their stories.

Imagine people hearing your song from a friend’s Instagram story and instantly liking you and your music, it’s game over, they are now your fans.

The point of this is to get new eyes on you, and at the same time, of course, practice your performing skills.

It’s a win-win situation!

11. Let others use your music for free

This one is tricky, but it could work very well if it’s done the right way.

You are not looking at giving the rights to your music away but just letting people use it for free in their YouTube videos and social media posts.

Channels such as NoCopyrightSounds on YouTube are constantly releasing music that falls under this criteria.

The exposure that you’d get from being featured in one of these videos would be huge, and even more, if your music is actually good and people like it.

Now, there used to be a really popular song that you probably have heard, Faded by Alan Walker!

When this song was first released, it wasn’t copyrighted as you can see from this Tweet below:

A lot of people could use it for free, so this created a lot of traction and led the song to become as popular as it is.

Also, there was a version that was uploaded to the NoCopyrightSounds YouTube channel on Nov 19, 2014, and for years, it was their number 1 video.

Recently, NCS legally had to oblige to take it down due to an expired contract that couldn’t be renewed with Alan Walker’s team since he signed to a new record label.

All tracks by Alan Walker had to be taken down as well as compilation albums containing Alan’s work, according to a pinned comment on a channel named Deleted NCS – Circle Spectrum.

The reason I’m mentioning this is to advise you that if you ever do this, try to keep it like that forever and don’t just do it for the initial attention.

Lastly, the content identification system will look for any video that uses your song and will properly credit you, and you will also start to get paid a small portion for the ads shown on that same video.

I encourage you to read more about this whole idea, and the difference between copyright-free, royalty-free, etc.

Doing this will give you great results in the long run if executed correctly, but you also don’t always want to give up any means to make a living with your music just for some exposure.

12. Get your music on all streaming platforms

Just like we talked about before, getting your music on streaming platforms should be already crossed off your to-do list.

Spotify and many other platforms are always recommending similar artists to their listeners, so your music will be more likely to be discovered by others.

Also, if you are going to show others your music, it would be very simple to do it with apps like Apple Music and Spotify than it would be with anything else since most people use those two.

In this YouTube video by MUSICBIZ UNCOVERED titled “9 Ways To Promote Your Music” you will be able to see other perspectives and points of view on this entire topic.

I encourage you to watch it since the actual content of the video is very interesting and could actually work for many people who put in the right amount of work into their passion.

Overall, these are the basics ways to promote your music.

With time, you can learn more ways and improve your methods or simply come up with new strategies for yourself.