Kind-of-Disclaimer: This is highly unprofessional opinion not meant to be construed as advice. It simply works for me. Please take into consideration that this particular array of thoughts should be geared preferably towards first-time/debut releases.
Ok, so my album is finally ready. Wat do?
Logic dictates that tending to select few social media channels will give you more time to be focused, thorough and detailed in your promotion efforts, rather than spreading out too thin over platforms that aren’t really worth the time. This being said, I concluded after much thought that I am not a wizard and I can’t foresee what random event could possibly snowball the band into wild success, because the right person at the right time stumbled upon my crummy Reverbnation profile (hahah, I know). This is an idea further backed by the fact that I’ve only begun to use promotion tools about a week ago, as my debut album got released this very month.
I really wish I was, but I’m not.
You will need plenty of time and patience to go through every channel and fill out info fields and upload all kinds of media – although ironically, time is of the essence at the time of release. Luckily for me, I’m currently not authorized to work in the US until my work permit arrives, and the World Cup ends this week, so yeah, free time. Since the number of sites and communities to engage in is pretty much daunting, the most apparent hazard in going wide across the entire social media gamut is writing half-assed, incomplete profiles that lack songs and information. Just one weak link will tell the listener your project fell through the cracks, even if it actually didn’t. I did my best trying to be as uniform and detailed as I could on each and every site, so here’s to hoping that a couple of weeks of intense community managing will shed light on what is actually working for my particular market, and perhaps even discover the fact that less favoured platforms could yield suprising, good results. Speaking of which – and I’m sure some of you will relate – going for a full-blown aggressive push to get everything published and properly sorted within a week or two goes well with the ethos of inconsistent, procrastinating people such as myself. So here’s the whole list (I hope) of communities where I got my band promoted:
Bandcamp (The purported ‘main core’ so to speak)
Facebook
Youtube
Twitter
SoundCloud
Reverbnation
BandPage
MySpace
Last.fm
Grooveshark
Pandora (Approval pending)
PureVolume
Artistlink
Instagram (That’s right)
Far fetched, yes indeed. But if you stick to the basic purpose of each site you shouldn’t have trouble achieving real, meaningful response. For instance, my first [and only thus far] Instagram entry was a Cinema 4D render of a mixing workstation I’ve been working on for a while. No ‘download now pls’ attitude to be seen – if anything, the band’s website is posted on the profile, but nothing else. A few hashtags later you have a couple dozen people relating at some level, people that may potentially connect to your music if you generated enough interest. Avoid shoving your tracks up anyone’s face, because quite frankly no one cares about your band on Instagram, nor should they.
Face it, this piece of furniture here is tearing new cloacas.
The yang to this ying consists in publishing/distributing the album on major digital stores. I’ve written a detailed article on how I did this, at zero cost. This entails iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google Play, Deezer, Rdio, and other major outlets, and truth be told it was much less time consuming to set up than I’d previously thought. On the other hand, this is a process that may take up to several weeks overall to be completed, so you may want to properly plan ahead if a release date is something of importance to you (each store is able to manage pre-orders and specific release dates as long as it has been uploaded within a reasonable time frame). So I’m just here trying to justify moot efforts, lol As if giving closure to the making of an album wasn’t enough, the subsequent distribution and promotion are unavoidable cans of worms for the DIY crowd, especially for us first-timers. On the bright side, once we sieve through the tools that really connect us to our audience, we’ll be on higher ground when promoting our future work with those who we really mean to connect with. The outcome of this experience should point towards those channels that worked for your case, and likewise indicate when/why to shut down those that didn’t (in a controlled fashion), so as to not waste your precious youth by the time the next release comes up. It’s a herding business. A second part of this article is bound to ensue where I’ll announce success or lack thereof. Guess we’ll have to wait for that one.
Brief Tenderloin 