Promotion?

[petrie182]

hey guys
i don't know if anyone else has had trouble with this
but i'm just starting off and i'm finding it incredibly hard to find fans!
any serious suggestions as to finding more fans online?

[MacyCakes]

Are you in a band or doing a solo thing? Not that its really important, promotion is promotion. Do you have some decent recordings done?

Start small...get your friends involved. They're the easiest ones to convince, whether they like your style or not, real friends are going to support you. If you've got some recordings done, get yourself out there on the internet. Myspace...add a crap ton of people, even if 1 out of 10 kiddies add you and like your stuff, you're essentially opening up the possibility for that one fan to spread your music to 10 more people, then maybe a few of them will like it and tell a few more, ect. ect chain reaction. Make a facebook page for your project and whore it up (nicely though). Get yourself on all music-based websites you can. Got any friends in other bands? If so, get on board with that band, fans of them will relate to you atleast somewhat if that band supports you as well. Networking with other bands is pretty important. Any influences in your music? Go after those influence's fan base..."the whole if you like ___ then you just might like me" thing. This is pretty obvious stuff, figure it might spark something in your mind again though, got a link to your stuff?

[petrie182]

i'm doing solo music! and i record at home, but i would consider the quality decent.

i just started a facebook fan page, and so far it's looking pretty good! i'm trying to convince people to invite all of their friends. i'm going to look all over the internet for music-based websites. i've also been going to the myspace pages of different bands that may sound similar. good advice though, thanks for your help!

http://www.myspace.com/aaronpetrie

[SStignei]

I'm not a musician but a comic and promotion is the hardest part. Writing good jokes or songs in your position is the easier part, getting someone to listen to it is the hard part :).

[rorykills]

write damn good songs and it's easy. peoples standard of "good" is much lower than it used to be. there are still bands that write amazing music that stands way above the rest but it's harder to find them. they usually don't have an issue getting much attention. the basic myspace promotion goes a lot farther if you have the music to back it up.

think about it this way: there are bands that sound like shittier versions of every other band... when they add 50 friends on myspace maybe 5 - 10 of them give a fuck. then there are bands that stand out and have true talent. they add 50 people and 20 - 30 of those people respond and tell other people.

it's much easier when you write better music. so just do that. AND GET A MYSPACE BOT :)

[ninthandash]

AND GET A MYSPACE BOT :)

really? really?
I sincerely hope that's sarcasm.

[we are cured]

record. tour. read alex burton's thread and blog. make as many friends at shows as possible. don't be a douchebag and don't pay any attention to douchebags, this is all just a waste of energy. repeat.

[chrispompey]

record. tour. read alex burton's thread and blog. make as many friends at shows as possible. don't be a douchebag and don't pay any attention to douchebags, this is all just a waste of energy. repeat.

This

[paperplanes_xo]

record. tour. read alex burton's thread and blog. make as many friends at shows as possible. don't be a douchebag and don't pay any attention to douchebags, this is all just a waste of energy. repeat.

wisest advice ever written. All hail

[DSmolken]

Look at how successful "small" bands promote themselves online - the likes of Dot Dot Curve or J.Bigga who managed to gain some exposure without a big promotion budget. You can learn a ton by seeing how they use Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, whatever. It doesn't matter if you hate them, what matters is that they figured out the promotion thing for themselves. You can learn the most from the biggest attention whores, to be honest.

It is tough, and you could easily spend 20 hours a day online and still need to do more. It's really incredible how much effort some of these people put in.

[DSmolken]

don't pay any attention to douchebags, this is all just a waste of energy
I don't think that's true online. True in the real world, but online people who really really hate you seem much more willing than your fans to forward your links to their friends.