Giving it Away? Get it right!

The value of music is something that's been debated a huge amount in recent times, and if the music industry is to get out of this rut, that's no bad thing. Sure, the internet has allowed people to steal music in huge quantities, and in this post I have promised myself not to rant about the positives and negatives of that, so I wont. Another thing the industry has given us is the ability to give our music away for free, as a way of building hype, building reputation, and building a fan-base. Great.

And it is great. Before the internet we couldn't have dreamt of finishing a track, and being able to distribute it to fans all over the globe simultaneously, at the click of a few buttons, and letting people have your music for free is an effective way of persuading people your tunes could just be worth the listen. Easy? Well it sure sounds it, but trust me, there's an art to giving your tracks away. I've devised some ground rules.

1. Collect email addresses. I cannot stress this enough, I've said it before, and I will say it again. Every opportunity you have to take the email address of somebody that might be interested in your music now, or in the future, take it. Plus, in the instance of a track giveaway via your site, it makes it feel legitimate. Check my previous articles for info on why a Mailing List is so damn important.

2. Keep it bitesize! If I see somebody giving away a whole album for free via their myspace, or a link on sendspace, I feel like it's something they've made in their room over the course of a week, on a terrible computer, with terrible speakers, and terrible software. I think it's gonna be terrible, if you hadn't already gathered. This could just be prejudice by me, granted. For somebody who runs a record label I should probably be more forgiving of this kinda thing. But I'm really not, and I'm sure that the connotations of a free album from an artist you've never heard of are the same for most people. Give away a track, maybe two, in the run up to an album or an E.P release, and it will make fans feel like they're getting something exclusive, and build some hype for when the release does come. Sorted.

3. Try and include some artwork. An image for peoples iPods wont go amiss, and it'll make sure they remember who you are. Again, it can make it feel more official and professional too. It's the little things, guys...

4. Get it featured! Your giveaway doesn't have to be exclusive to your own websites and social networking. Get Blogs to feature it too. They're often keen to have the content, and find some new music, and indeed draw people to their site. Using a company to spread the word for you, such as Method Promotion can get your music to hundreds of blogs at once, and even if only 20% were to feature it, you can still reach thousands of readers.

That's it folks. If you have any more tips and ideas, stick them in the comments, hell I may even come back and edit the post if they're good enough.