Top promotion websites

[csands583]

I am curious what the best promotional websites are for simply getting your music heard, money aside. I am mainly looking for music websites where I can upload a full album and have people be able to download them for free.

Does iTunes allow you to upload your music available for free downloads?

 

[zero00]

I think the mos known is Myspace, but the audio quality is horrible. But, you can put a link to the download site.

Cheers.

 

[TheTopPro]

Surprisingly my last band got known pretty well with Myspace + an app that adds thousands of myspace users a day.

But Almost half of those adds were like from other bands XD

Myspace is dead now I deleted my account, it's nothing but
"HEY! CHECK OUT OUR BAND AND BUY A CD"
"No, YOU check out our band and buy OUR CD"
"Wait, fuck your band where are all the viewers?"

 

[VomitHatSteve]

<blatant plug of services I profit from>
My company has a band site-creation system called bombplates.com. The cool thing that we try to do is syndicate your data to all your major networking sites. Right now it sends mostly to Facebook, Twitter, and any site that'll let you install a widget (including Myspace).
Why pick one promotional site, when you can pick them all!
</conflict of interest>

Seriously though, I think having your own band site as your online marketing hub is the way to go.

 

[KnockinBeats]

yo I would definitely recommend you check out CDbaby.com ,, they are real good with promoting their artists on that site

 

[dintymoore]

My sister ordered an old CD of mine off of CD Baby a month ago.

She never got it and phoned them today and they said they'd "just received the order" (she ordered it on the internet with a credit card) and she got an email this afternoon saying that the CD was being sent out immediately.

Makes you wonder what would have happened if she hadn't phoned them.

 

[glynb]

"promotional websites "

Whilst those mentioned all worth having, none of these actively promote your music. They are just hosting sites. Promotion is about attracting people who wouldn't otherwise have found you, and usually involves a lot of hard work and/or spending money $$$$.

 

[VomitHatSteve]

"promotional websites "

Whilst those mentioned all worth having, none of these actively promote your music. They are just hosting sites. Promotion is about attracting people who wouldn't otherwise have found you, and usually involves a lot of hard work and/or spending money $$$$.

I'll be honest. If I really "got" that concept, I'd be off making a $million playing music instead of jut talking about it on the internet.

 

[glynb]

I'll be honest. If I really "got" that concept, I'd be off making a $million playing music instead of jut talking about it on the internet.

Which concept? Hard work, or spending money? ;-)

(so would I by the way)

 

[dintymoore]

... I am mainly looking for music websites where I can upload a full album and have people be able to download them for free...

If you get your own website you can upload your music in WAV or AIF format and not deal with mp3's. I still don't like mp3's. You can fit lots of albums on a basic GoDaddy account. The site maker called Freeway from Softpress has worked very simply for me. I paid $50 for the program.

You should be able to get your own website for much less than $50 a year, which is pretty cheap promo for several albums. Plus you can put videos, pics and text. Then, you could run ads in Craigslist all over the world for free.

I run ads in China all the time.

 

[Precise]

Forums may be the best place to start. I plan to just keep making beats and spreading them around the internet as I find new forums to join. Here's a few obvious websites that have probably already been pointed out:

1. Myspace
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. Youtube
5. Soundclick

 

[VomitHatSteve]

Which concept? Hard work, or spending money? ;-)

(so would I by the way)

Promoting my music.

I just want to play, and I expect people to just automatically realize that I'm worth listening to.

 

[glynb]

Promoting my music.

I just want to play, and I expect people to just automatically realize that I'm worth listening to.

And why not...
Artists singed to labels in the past had an army of people to handle promotion, leaving them free to concentrate on performance, recording and writing.

Unfortunately the independent route means you've got to be jack of all trades (who said master of none?). That includes trying to do the self-promotion.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but MySpace, facebook, reverbanation et al do not PROMOTE. They merely 'host'.

Gigging is the second best way to promote. Getting on the Radio/TV is the best (most effective) way to promote.

It's a very strange thing to think about, one appearance on local Radio and you can perform to thousands though you're in a studio with just a couple of people there... how many gigs in clubs would it take to reach the same number of people?

 

[VomitHatSteve]

Man! Radio promotion is such a blind spot to me. I almost never listen to it, so I don't think to try to get played there.

 

[sonicpsyops]

Surprisingly my last band got known pretty well with Myspace + an app that adds thousands of myspace users a day.

But Almost half of those adds were like from other bands XD

Myspace is dead now I deleted my account, it's nothing but
"HEY! CHECK OUT OUR BAND AND BUY A CD"
"No, YOU check out our band and buy OUR CD"
"Wait, fuck your band where are all the viewers?"

I never understood why musicians try to market to other musicians. I mean, we're not exactly competing with each other but it's kind of like McDonalds trying to sell their burgers to Burger King isn't it?

When promoting yourself or your band on these social networking sites seek out people who are NOT musicians, BUT love music. Especially music in the genre that you perform. The only exception I would make would be to connect to the established artists that you sound like and have huge fan bases. These regular fans will see your posts on the band's page and out of curiosity pay your site a visit... Maybe.

Maybe some artists have had success with these mass mailing apps that beg thousands of people daily to buy their CD but I found them to be rather annoying. Again, most of these mass mailing went to other artists who are using the same apps. It all boils down to "I'll buy your CD if you buy mine." It's like Peter buying Paul's CD but only if Paul bought Peter's. A waste of time IMO.

I prefer a more personal approach Actually take the time to look over someone's site and make some specific positive comments about it. You'll find that they are more receptive and will actually visit your page and may even like what they hear enough to buy a download or return often. Yes it's slow and methodical but, I'm more interested in quality not quantity.

 

[glynb]

There's no harm in letting other bands know about your music. After all, as well as being musicians, we're all music fans too!

I do think MySpace spamming is pretty pointless nowadays.
Maybe if you were one of the very first doing it when it first became popular and people weren't quite so savy as to what was going on, it might have brought some attention. But that quickly died as every band jumped on the bandwagon.

There's hardly any point in leaving a genuine comment, as people automatically assume it's just a spam message.

Still worth having as a place to showcase though.

 

[BGStudios]

you can maybe also look at ReverbNation. Quite a few of my friends has bands on there and they get good feedback. It also has quite a bunch of tools to market and showcase your music in many ways.

http://www.reverbnation.com

 

[matttheaxe]

www.garageband.com

This is decent. It FORCES people to listen to your song when reviewing it.
Mind you, there are a lot of killer bands there and the reviewers can be brutal, but if you have a good tune and the listener wants to purchase the song, it will direct them to CD Baby (providing you have the song on the site for sale)

 

[glynb]

www.garageband.com

This is decent. It FORCES people to listen to your song when reviewing it.
Mind you, there are a lot of killer bands there and the reviewers can be brutal, but if you have a good tune and the listener wants to purchase the song, it will direct them to CD Baby (providing you have the song on the site for sale)

Do you still have to review ten other songs before qualifying to have one of your own reviewed?

 

[Jason_Chase]

Man! Radio promotion is such a blind spot to me. I almost never listen to it, so I don't think to try to get played there.

Hey you should try radiodirectx.com they are good for radio promotion they even have a college promotion package for any genre give it shot!