The tricks for Promoting Your Brand Online are simple:
Getting your band’s name out into the world in as many cool ways as possible. From music videos, secret gigs that are available only to newsletter subscribers on the website, Instamatic photos, and beyond, it has never been easier for bands to find and engage their audience in a big way.
Let’s take a look at some of the most fun and exciting ways to Promoting Your Brand Online:
Getting to Know You
Promoting Your Brand Online can be done in more ways than ever before, with social media, videos, email marketing, search engine marketing, and PR all at your disposal. You can hire a music marketing company to do the graft for you, freeing you up to make sweet music, or you can take it upon yourselves to get your name out into the world.
Either way, the basic rule of promoting yourself online is this: Giving people an insight into your band and delivering the goods, i.e. Music, videos, images, and promotions. People want to get hold of your music and know where you’re playing as soon as the news is available. With social media – and by having a regularly updated website – you can give your fans 24/7 access to news, special offers, and upcoming gigs.
The Power of the Photo
Social media has evolved over the last few years into a far more visual medium than it was in the Myspace and Facebook days of the mid-2000s. Smartphones have become a huge part of all of our lives, with over one billion smartphones sold in 2013, according to IDC. The likes of the iPhone, Galaxy Nexus, and Windows Phones have enabled us to document our lives with selfies, photos, and videos, and always in HD.
Now that technology and social media trends have aligned, apps such as Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat have become a huge business and a great way for bands to promote themselves and find an audience. Celebrities and bands used to be off-limits, but with these apps and other social media platforms, you can give people a snapshot into the life of your band, which is a great way to promote yourself in 2014 and beyond.
You can use the power of the photo to promote your music, show off your clothing range, selfie your fans to death, or simply just to show your love of cats. Whatever you decide to use images for, always be true to the personality of the band and be careful what you send out into the world. These things tend to go viral!
Start Local and then Branch Out
Almost every band that has become huge over the last 50 years has dominated the local scene before branching out to world domination. The Beatles had Liverpool, The Stone Roses and Oasis had Manchester, and more recently, Kasabian have Leicester. When a band has a strong local following, there is always support for them when they head off on their great quest to conquer the music scene across the pond, or simply just up the motorway.
Oasis is a great example of a band that started off building an audience at home and then taking that audience with them on their journey to stardom. It gave them a sense of identity and ensured that ticket sales would always be in demand.
Every band that wants to make it big should always consider their hometown or city when they’re promoting themselves online: Play local gigs, contact local radio and TV stations, and use social media to big up your city and make connections with music fans in your area. Nine times out of ten, you will build a local fan base that will follow you every step of the way.
