As competition is fierce among social media companies, artists have many options for online promotional tools, many of which are free. Listed below are some of the best ways to get your music heard, get paid and maximize your online presence.
Bandcamp
Superseding the ad-heavy Myspace in customization and usability, Bandcamp allows artists an easy and direct way to share their songs with an online community. Basically allowing you to create an all-in-one website with custom images and an embedded music player, Bandcamp not only gives musicians control over the look and sound of their page, but also gives them the opportunity to sell their music via high-quality lossless FLAC audio files. Circumventing low-quality MP3 downloads, Bandcamp allows for audio files sampled up to 24 bit/ 192Khz.
Soundcloud
Featuring an elegant interface and straightforward social networking tools, SoundCloud is a free and effective way to promote your music and network with other artists across the globe. Displaying a thumbnail sized avatar for your project and a graphic waveform for each track, SoundCloud was started as a way for musicians to collaborate and get feedback on new material. Allowing members to insert comments or embed a song on third-party websites, SoundCloud is an excellent promotional tool for independent and major recording artists. With easy cross-integration with Facebook or Twitter, SoundCloud gives your tracks specific URLs for easy sharing and online distribution.
Topspin Media
Used by major and independent artists, Topspin Media offers a wide array of built-in widgets to help sell your music and expand your fan base. Featuring an e-commerce platform, product fulfillment, email-for-music widgets, marketing charts, and sales bundling for physical and digital goods, it’s hard to beat TopSpin Media in terms of sheer breadth and variety. With a proven track record for promoting major artists such as the Pixies, David Byrne, Trent Reznor, Paul McCartney and Dead Can Dance, TopSpin offers musicians and managers an unrivaled way to create a multifaceted, online promotional campaign for any musician.
Rockdex
A great way to consolidate all your online data and traffic into easy-to-understand charts and statistics, Rockdex is a powerful online application for understanding viral trends with your music. Compiling play counts, YouTube views, tweets, blog posts and regional statistics into streamlined actionable data, managers and artists can quickly get an idea of how to adjust their promotional strategy and augment their online presence.
Bandzoogle
Offering a wide array of customizable templates, Bandzoogle gives artists their own standalone webpage with a merchandise store, social media syncing, text message blasts, video embedding and embedded music players. Eliminating the need to shop for a hosting service and spend hours coding a website, Bandzoogle offers artists a way to get a webpage up and running in a matter of minutes.
With thousands of social media platforms, music streaming services and web-hosting applications available to anyone with Internet access, it has never been easier for artists to promote their music without ever leaving their home. Resources such as internetserviceprovider.net, can pair you up with reliable internet to further promote your music.