6 Tips For Musicians: Rapidly Grow Your Instagram Following

This article originally appeared on the Sonicbids Blog

With 500 million active users, Instagram is a great visual social media platform to build your online community. Instagram allows you to give your fans a peek into your world through your photos and videos. While funny memes, quotes, and viral videos may get attention, building a community of fans for you and your music requires the right strategies. Here are six tips to grow your fanbase on Instagram.

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The Complete Guide To Email Marketing For Musicians

This post was written by Jon Ostrow and originally appeared on the Bandzoogle Blog.

While social media continues to dominate the focus of online marketing discussions, there is no question that email has, is, and will continue to be the key to success for musicians. With a strong email list and a proper email marketing strategy, comes long-term success.

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4 Online Marketing Mistakes Musicians Make

This article originally appeared on the Sonicbids Blog

The internet has allowed artists to reach millions of fans and grow their careers with a click of a button. While, for some, the web has been a boon for music promotion, many musicians make pivotal online marketing mistakes that prevent them from breaking out and building a successful career. Here are four of the most common mistakes to avoid. 

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Entrepreneurial Muscle Building: A Musician's Go-To Guide

You are an artist. You make music that can make people dance, smile or cry. This is your gift. For good or for bad, though, there is another layer to the music industry that defines whether or not your music will be heard. Business is an undeniable truth of the music industry and it is in your best interest to develop some solid entrepreneurial skills that will get your music in front of the biggest and best audience possible.

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Music, Marketing, Me

Music is one of the few things that comes quite naturally for me; I don’t know why I love it, but every day I wake up and know that I am excited to keep writing, recording and singing. It’s been that way for a while now. I spent most of my gangly, awkward childhood listening to my father’s old Led Zeppelin CDs, stumbling through piano lessons, and waiting until my family left the house so that I could practice shout-singing My Chemical Romance songs. Though my tastes have changed, music has always been at the center of my life.

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10 Reasons Musicians Fail On Social Media

This post was written by Joy Ike ​and originally appeared on the Bandzoogle Blog.​

Social media. Whether you hate it or love it, it’s there and it makes the world go round… at least the world of entertainment. And if you want to be on the same level as all those other artists, you have to use it to promote your music.

But, simply posting on social media isn’t good enough. Here are 10 reasons why some musicians are dropping the ball with their social media marketing.

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5 Tips To Increase Your Chances Of Getting Press

Most music writers will agree: we get way too many press emails to actually read every single one. In fact, some are never opened. What can you do to make sure yours is seen? How can your band stand out in so thick a swarm?

Honestly, there are tons upon overwhelming tons of unread emails from publicists in my inbox. My freelancing schedule falls somewhere between part- and full-time, and I always say I’ll make time to read every one – but there are days when the best I can do is skim the subject lines. It’s unfortunate; a lot of music I’d probably love is overlooked entirely or discovered too late to for a story to make sense.

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9 Ways To Build Your Mailing List (And Sell More Music Online)

This post was written by Jon Ostrow and originally appeared on the Bandzoogle Blog.

Question: which is more important: Facebook or email?

Believe it or not, your email is not only more important than Facebook, but also any other social network. Email marketing has been shown to be as much as 40 times more effectivethan Facebook and Twitter combined.

So it is the most important marketing tool you have to keep in touch with your fans, and to make more money for your music career.

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Yeah, Only 13 Year Old Girls Like That Band

I am a muscian who recently read this article on The Guardian about musicians who scoff at their young female fans.  Even before reading it, though, I’ve heard many people elude to it: musicians having young female fans takes away some sort of credibility.  I even accepted this to be true as a teen girl myself, while listening to a song on repeat for hours, obsessing over every word and its possible meaning, and becoming entwined with the music and personal life of the artist.  It seemed that any musician on a poster in my room instantly and undoubtedly became laughable.  

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5 Steps To Creating An Effective Music Marketing Plan

This post was written by Jon Ostrow and originally appeared on the Bandzoogle Blog.

Whether you’re a brand new musician establishing yourself online for the first time, or an already established band with a dedicated fan base, there is one thing that love it or hate it, all musicians will have to do. That, my friends, is marketing your music.

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8 Effective Strategies To Sell Your Music Online

For the average artist who finds it difficult to sell his/her music (hint: this is most artists) in the age of Spotify and Pandora, any attempts can often feel like a waste of time.

Below are 8 effective ways to make the most of your online merch store, digital music presence, and your relationship with die-hard fans. The following tips are not only useful, but when done right can lend themselves to a significantly greater income, a larger online presence, and stronger engagement with your fans.

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5 Old-School Marketing Tricks For Your Next Show That Still Work

This article originally appeared on the Sonicbids Blog

Think you’re doing everything you need to do for your next show by creating a Facebook event invite? Close your laptop and think again. While the internet is a powerful tool for promoting your band, traditional marketing tricks for promoting your shows still work wonders, especially for creating real fans with a real interest in your music.

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10 Rules Of Effective Delegation: Increasing Capacity And Getting The Best Out Of Your Team

I meet many very talented entrepreneurs who are great at what they do. Often I’ll hear them using that common phrase, “if you want it done right, do it yourself”, and upon further discussion they’ll almost always reveal that they struggle with the act of delegation. It can be an incredibly hard concept to embrace sometimes, and I can surely empathize. We entrepreneurs want to own our output and are often very independent by nature.

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The Best Way To Make Money As A Musician Is Not With Music

The acclaimed NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton is a must-watch movie for anyone in the music business. Many of the struggles that artists (particularly young artists) continue to wrestle with are powerfully depicted in the film. However, there is one minor theme in the film that resonates deeply in the current music climate: the fact that the best way to make money in the music business is rarely the creation of the music itself.

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