Leveraging the digital space to promote your music is one of the best things you can do to boost your musical career in the 21st century. This is because the internet offers everyone a platform to not only express themselves but also showcase their talents and advertise their businesses. Therefore, promoting your music on a platform that now serves as a second home to almost half the population of the entire human race, if not more, would undoubtedly be of huge importance.
However, the question on the minds of many young creatives, especially musical artists, is often how to promote their music online and, most probably, how to earn from it while attaining fame in the industry, as these are considered some of the factors upon which musical career success is measured.
In Nigeria, for instance, several artists have made their way into the limelight via various media, some of which include the utilization of online platforms. A certain musical artist named “Jipo” once became popular after his cover of Ayra Star’s single, "Rush,” went viral on Instagram and other social media platforms such as TikTok, X, and Facebook in 2022. Since then, the singer has become well-known among music listeners, especially in Nigeria. This justifies the significant role the online space plays in uplifting young artists’ bids. Thus, there are myriad ways to promote your music online and yield positive results, especially if you make good music.
They include:
Inform your fans of your forthcoming release
Only artists like Drake have ever attempted to release a brand new music album without prior notice to their fans and achieved significant success. But that was because the American rapper was already well-known and established in the industry. As an upcoming artist, you owe it to your fans to let them know about your forthcoming release while employing subtle strategies to keep them in suspense. You must convince them that the project, upon its release, will be very enjoyable and worth the wait.
Distribute your music across DSPs and music blogs
Distributing your song across DSPs, which stand for Digital Streaming Platforms, is currently one of the best means of earning from your music. Distributors such as Distrokid and Tunecore, amongst several others, help position your music on DSPs such as Audiomack, Apple Music, Spotify, Boomplay, Tidal, Deezer, Youtube Music, and many others, from which you can earn depending on the number of streams your music can garner. Similarly, contacting bloggers like Afropami or Ojapiano, to upload your music to their websites, helps to make your music available for music listeners who visit their sites.
Run social media Advertisement
Because the Google algorithm may not favor your posts enough to take them around the world as you would want, it is profitable to launch advertisement campaigns on Google or on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and X to make your content visible and accessible to more people.
More people like to receive gifts than give them. By giving, you are likely to win the hearts of many more people who can be converted into listeners and eventually into fans who will support your music and career for the longest time.
Connect with your fans via live video sessions
Thanks to Meta for introducing Facebook and Instagram live sessions, which enable music artists to connect with their fans virtually. The importance of this is that it gives your fans a feeling of equality as humans with you and also sends across a message of how you consider them. It could either make or mar you as an upcoming artist, depending on how well you can relate to your fans and even tolerate some of their excesses.
Start up a contest with your sound
As a strategy to promote your latest song, you can start up a contest for your teaming fans with a prize attached to it. The contest must be related to the music being promoted and have a direct impact on the popularity and overall success of both the music and the artist.
We believe that employing all or some of these strategies would yield positive results for any upcoming artist who can go against all odds to invest even the littlest reasonable amount of finances in promoting their music because the music made without anyone listening to it can be considered self-pleasure to the singer.