Let Your Fans Do The Work

Yes, you heard. It's tough to gain followers in this cut-throat world of music, so we'd all be very stupid not to utilise the support we have. We ALL have support, if you don't have 20,000 followers on Twitter or Facebook, don't make the mistake of thinking nobody cares enough to help you out, even if it's friends and family, our methods will help you getting people to spread the word on your behalf.

1. Social Networking - It has to be said that spending all of your time trying to promote yourself on Facebook or Twitter is absolutely useless. Don't obsess, and please don't spam people, or bombard them with suggestions, status updates and links every minute, nobody's going to care. However, in moderation, and used constructively, social networking sites can be useful. Ask your friends, family and fans to invite their friends to a Facebook page, maybe this can be mutual, if they have something they'd like to promote, repay the favour, this helps both of you get your name out, and usually builds your reputation locally. Once you have people as fans, though, use them wisely, don't lose their interest.

2. Who do I know? - Sometimes it can be easy to overlook what your friends and families actually do, as jobs or hobbies, and how this can help you. Maybe you have a friend who works in the media, or even attends a university with a good music scene. Think it through, how can your contacts help? Ask them to pass on a demo or put up a poster somewhere useful. It will surprise you how far this could get you.

3. Merch - Get some Merchandise made! It all helps spread your name. It doesn't have to be T-Shirts. Badges, pens and posters can all be good, cheap ways of getting your band name in peoples houses and offices. Sell them for a small price at gigs, or give them away. I'm not implying that somebody will see your name on a badge and instantly buy your CD, or look you up online, but the more times they hear it, the more likely they are to pay some damn attention!

4. Demos - If you haven't already recorded demos (and recorded them WELL thankyou very much), do so, and don't think they're just for all those important people at the radio stations and record labels. Give them to your friends, give two to a friend and encourage them to recommend it to someone. Not only is it a nice gesture, especially if they're going to help you with promotion, it increases the chances that somebody is going to listen to your music. Get on it.

Bandcamp - Online Music Store of the Future

So, one of our musical ventures "Method Label" has just relaunched. Previously it was called something different, and used Paypal to accept people's money. We're a "pay what you like" label - which made any sort of online shop very difficult to set up. Not many support this method of payment. And neither did Bandcamp, until this month...

Yes, as if by magic, I was trawling the internet looking for an outlet for Method Label's tunes when I heard the news that Bandcamp had just started letting their stores charge what they like to download (if they choose), and not just this, they've started supporting shops for Labels as well. Perfectomundo!

"Well good for you" you might be thinking, "but why bother us with your tales of Ecommerce?". Well I wanted to make sure nobody else ended up settling for mere paypal buttons as I used to, or the STUPID shop that your web provider think is a good idea to include in your package which you CANT EVEN DECIDE ON A DESIGN YOURSELF!

Ok, deep breath, I'm back...

Bandcamp provides an accessible, thorough and FREE service, which I'll wager would rival any paid service you could find. You get your own .bandcamp domain, or you can host your store on your own website. The store is customisable, flexible, and detailed, and allows you to both track and promote your sales with some brilliant features, such as embedding your tunes on blogs and sites, and statistics on plays, downloads and purchases. What's more, the guys that run it are helpful, and have a sense of humour about the way they run their site, which is always refreshing to see.

Am I biased? No, I'm not getting anything out of mentioning this, no freebies from Bandcamp, nothing. I had such a frustrating time trying to find somewhere to sell our music - if I can save one person that effort from writing this article, it really will be worth it. Also, a music resource that's run so well deserves a mention here and there. Check them out!

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.