Promoting Music in the Age of DIY: The Best Online Tools For Independent Musicians

One could argue that finding moderate success for a musician in this age is relatively easier than in the past. While the basic tenants of promotion still hold true – creating good music and playing exciting shows – the low-cost options made available by online platforms give today’s artists huge marketing advantages over methods from decades ago.

Here are a list of great tools for promoting your music online. If you’re a musician, get to know them well and you can save your time and money on more important things… like your fourth delay pedal.

ArtistData
Upload a show to ArtistData and they’ll automatically send it out to huge number of sites and calendars.

Bandcamp
A powerful distribution and sharing site that gives you ultimate control.

Band Metrics
Measure your engagements and the spread of your music.

Facebook
Obviously. Also, since Facebook holds so much personal user info, site ads can be specifically targeted to specific demographics for maximum cost-effectiveness.

Fanbridge
A feature-rich mailing list system that works incredibly well.

MySpace
During the Musician & Promoter Workshop in San Francisco. an attendee commented that MySpace was dead and thus not worthy of attention. However, as someone who reviews music for an established publication, I can safely say that it is worth the small amount of effort it takes to set up a page. People still expect you to have one, so it’s important to have.

ReverbNation
Quite possibly the most robust social media platform for musicians. Tools include mailing lists, widgets and influence metrics across multiple online sites. Integration with Facebook makes the utilization of their services seamless.

The Sixty One
A slick site that allows listeners to randomly stumble onto new music, rate songs and recommend similar artists. As a songwriter, it’s an amazing way to share your material while seeing which of your tracks stimulate listeners the most.

Twitter
Obviously.

Sure beats the old MP3.com days, no?

How Apple Lost the iPhone 4G

Please be aware that this video, made by New York based comedy group Elephant Larry contains adult language that is often used to describe adult activities. And for the record, this is their second i-related video, check out the other one here: iPod Touch. Once again, be aware that there is some naughty, naughty language.

10 Useful Social Media Infographics

Here are 10 useful social media infographics that don’t suck. Enjoy!

The Conversation Prism (Brian Solis and JESS3)

Age Distribution of Social Sites (Pingdom)

The World Map of Social Networks (Vincos.it)

Social Web Involvement (Global Web Index)

Social Media Demographics (Ethan Bloch)

The Web Trend (Information Architects, Inc.)

The Social Media Effect (Social Reflexion)

Sharing on Social Networks (AddToAny)

Twitter Territory (HubSpot)

And of course, any collection of tech pics wouldn’t be complete without the Nerd Venn Diagram (Matthew Mason)