Who doesn't like free stuff? I know I do. Still, we have all heard that the good things in life are never free. To be honest, the best way to promote your music is hiring a professional to do it for you.
Especially when you have invested your money producing a quality music video, you need to make sure it reaches the right eyes and ears. However, we understand that not everyone has that kind of money to spare.
So the next best thing you can do is pool in some extra effort and promote your music video online, yourself.
We discussed ways to promote your music online last year in our blog. Here's more: promote your Music Video Online for Free!
Not only is YouTube the second largest search engine after Google, but also the largest library of videos on the internet. Almost everyone knows about it and for many this is where the search for music begins. If you don't have your videos on YouTube, people might even dismiss you as an independent artist.
Make sure you have your own channel, with a cover design that reflects the kind of work you do. Upload a few videos on your own channel with proper keywords and use YouTube's Statistics tool to your advantage (read more about how Youtube's statictics can help your promote your music).
You can also distribute your music to curators with their own channels on YouTube who are willing to re-upload your video. Don't forget to tag and optimise your video properly for it to be discovered: the right title, the right keywords and description.
This is where people go to discover new things as they happen. People can read, comment and vote for topics that they find interesting from cat videos to music.
Even though you will need to be pretty active in discussion groups to be able to promote your music here, the results can be worth the time.
Create an original account with your band's name and upload links to your content after checking out other content on the site. Remember, the site is mostly not moderated, so people can be pretty harsh with reviews. Also look for subreddits that specialise in sharing and discussing about fresh music or indie bands.
They define themselves as a creative community that is passionate about sharing self-made videos. It's a good website to host high quality version of your videos that you can share with others via a simple link. The website is highly moderated for comments and the user community forums are quite friendly to cross-promote your music.
Another great website with a loyal user base. You can promote your original content with them or rope in their distribution service to promote your videos to other websites.
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TV Channels
You'd be surprised that many TV channels also accept video submissions from independent artists. All you need to do is contact them and then mail a copy of your video in quicktime or .mov format along with the signed contract. (Search 'tv channels accepting music videos submission' in Google, you'll find plenty of Indie Music TV Channels).
In addition to the above five, here are some other websites that you can use to promote your music:
- http://www.bugvideos.co.uk
- http://www.last.fm
- http://www.amazingtunes.com
- http://www.roxwel.com
- http://www.indie360magazine.com
- http://indiefeed.com
- http://www.remotegoat.com
- http://www.indiebychoice.com
- http://bandcamp.com
- http://igrooves.net
- http://www.7161.com
- http://www.baeblemusic.com
- http://www.iheartmusicvideos.com
- http://videos.antville.org
- http://trendymusicvideos.com/submit
- http://indimusic.tv/submitvideo.cfm
- http://www.ubetoo.com
- http://www.ukbands.net
- http://www.artistopia.com
There you have it, lots of new ways to promote yourself for free. Although you will of course invest a lot of time into making these channels work you will also know what works best at the end. So, when your music career takes off you’ll know much more about your audience and how to reach tem.
Epik music Videos - December 2013