You know you need it. That sweet free music promotion, those raving fans, that awesome audience.
You will need a small audience to start with, especially when you are a beginner at music promotion.
After you have set up your YouTube Music Channel and posted some music videos, it is time to promote it online.
There are a lot of free ways to get your YouTube music promoted, but to keep it short, here are the top 4 tips.
Tip 1 – Share your music with your friends and family.
OK, this is a pretty easy one, and can be a little tricky at first.
They might have heard your music, and they like or don’t like it.
Whatever the case, your friends and family are the people that are close to you.
So starting a conversation about your music can be easy.
You can also ask them if they have friends or colleagues that might be interested in your music.
They might even subscribe to your channel! That is one way to get your first 101 subscribers 🙂
If they are part of a music-related Facebook group, they can share your song there, which can lead to more exposure!
Ask for feedback
After you have shared your first YouTube song on other social platforms, it is time to ask for some feedback.
The more people you will get answers from in those first days, the more you learn all about free music promotion.
The interactions, shares, and likes are something that (hopefully) will occur more often after days, weeks or months.
Chances are, the interactions are from people that you do not know.
Asking them for feedback can be a little trickier (but not impossible :).
Ask them everything that you want to know about your music, your post, and your artwork. Does it meet their expectations?
Is the sound okay? Do the lyrics make sense? Are the visuals high quality enough?
Learn from your feedback!
Collect all that information, try to filter out personal preferences, and learn from it.
That is what free music promotion is about.
You learn from your previous posts and work until you get the highest engagement on every post and song.
That is how you are going to make money in the end. Engagement is key!
(So don’t buy Facebook post likes 🙂
Tip 2 – Make a Facebook fan page
The second step would be a Facebook fan page.
It will make it easier for you to share your YouTube music.
The best way is to embed the original video file and add a YouTube link in the description.
YouTube and Facebook are no friends. They want people to stay on their own platform, so you have to get creative when sharing your music there.
From your fan page, you can share the post with everyone that needs to hear it.
Make sure that the page is as high quality as possible, attractive and represents you as the musician that you are.
If you don’t have the design skills yourself, do not worry.
This will be the perfect moment to contact a designer to help you with the graphics and layout.
A picture says more than 1000 words.
Sure, a designer masters the creative skills to make some great artwork for your music.
But they can also help you with an objective view of your music and the message you want to share.
Share your music with your designer and tell your backstory.
What do you want to achieve with your music on an emotional level?
A good designer can translate that into some great artwork. It should represent you and your music in the best way possible.
This will help with your free music promotion, because you will have something visual that matches your music.
If you match the style of your Facebook Fan page with your YouTube Music Channel, your new fans will know they are in the right place.
Once you have created your visuals, it is a good practice to use them on all other social pages that you have.
And last but not least, add them to your website.
It should have the same look and feel as all your other social pages.
Tip 3 – Do you have a website?
The one thing that every musician should have is a decent website.
The better your website is in terms of quality, the better it represents you as the awesome musician that you are.
When new fans arrive at your webpage, they see what they can expect from you.
Your color scheme should match your music style.
But you should also add some great pictures of your music project, band and/or live shows.
Do you have images or videos from behind the scenes or some studio recording footage?
This is the place where you want to showcase them.
You can share a couple of songs for the “new fan experience”.
But hold on! Don’t give away your music for free, just jet! Free Music Promotion does not equal Free Music Download!
Let’s talk about that…
Tip 4 – Create an email list
One of the last things your free music promotion needs is an email list.
Giving away your music for free should give you something in return.
A very valuable thing that will be helpful for your future music promotions is that email list, where all your fans are collected in one place.
The best way to get people on your email list is by giving away free content.
What is your best content? Your music, of course! People want to hear your music. So when you give away your latest single or a medley of your best songs, they only have to give you their email address.
No music to give away?
Another great thing that you can give away for free is a booklet with the lyrics of your songs or a discount for your next live show.
I have even seen people giving away free access to an online live show. How awesome is that!
If you find something of value for your future fans, they will be happy to give you their email address.
When you have more music to promote, you can send out an email to all the people on your list.
That way, you know that your music is getting heard by people who are already familiar with your music.
You can also share updates, tour dates, behind the scenes stories. This is a good material for when you don’t have any music projects that you are working on. You want to keep your audience as engaged as possible. That way, they won’t be surprised if you sent out an email after months. They should remember you!
What should you send your fans?
When sending out emails, remember to send out various content. Instead of sending the same song over and over, send out similar content that your audience might like.
Talk about an awesome experience you had on one of your live shows. Tell them where they can find you on social media. Ask them what they expect from your next live show.
Be creative with this and keep your fans as your number one guideline.
By sharing your Spotify or iTunes links, you start earning small amounts of money with your music.
If your music is not on Spotify or iTunes yet, you can sign up on RouteNote for free.
They will add your music to all online streaming services, and you will be able to make money from it.
This is a crucial step if you want to make your music into a sustainable income.
With these 4 free music promotion tips, you will have a great start on your musical journey.
If you need more, check out the posts below!
As always, keep making awesome music and share it with the world.
Maurice from Music-Mindset.com
