The following article is a guest post by Emma Owens of innovating music video app Rormix.com, whose mission is ‘to bring high quality emerging music video content on demand to the eyes and ears of the listening public.’ She very much agrees with me in that music video promotion certainly doesn’t begin and end with Youtube. There are many quality music discovery platforms, apps, video-specific blogs, channels and social media options for your video, and as many as possible should be utilized. Emma takes you through a few ground rules below. For more ideas, check out my previous “17 Ways To Promote & Distribute Your Music Video” piece.
Have a quality video
Something that will separate you from all of those artists with photos to accompany their ‘amazing new track’ is a quality music video. This doesn’t mean that you have to pay a director and a producer to create it for you…be creative. There are amazing apps out there now which allow you to record retro, film style videos which look great with music. A digital SLR set up on a tripod can be perfect to create a simple acoustic video but you MUST make sure you have a mic, people want to hear you sing. And believe me, bad content is worse than no content.
Use Twitter
Twitter is a place a lot of people forget about when it comes to promoting their music – but choose your words wisely. Using specific hashtags has helped us promote videos in a more efficient way – #nowplaying and #MusicMondays are two examples of hashtags which your targeted audience actively search for. It’s also a big time saver if artists leave their email address in their twitter description so that they are easily contactable.
Be consistent
Those of you who are on YouTube and have a subscriber base must be consistent with content. The subscriber base is your biggest weapon; they’re your alpha fans – always coming back! So it is your responsibility to keep them entertained. It’s difficult to film and upload a new track/video every few days but what you can do is give little behind the scenes sneak peeks which make your subscribers feel involved. They want to feel like they are a part of your journey and you should fulfill this. Live, acoustic sessions are always a big winner, the occasional cover, anything to keep your name in their minds.
Collaboration
Put yourself out there! If you’re trying to make your music into your business then just as with any other business, network network network. If you can collaborate with other artists, whether it’s cross promotion, or a duet, it’s extra exposure and an opening to a new fan base. Remember it’s essential to work with someone who loves music as you do, because then if all else fails at least you’re both doing something you’re passionate about.
Get on a platform (other than YouTube)
It’s essential to put your music in front of a targeted and motivated audience. Utilize those platforms that are out there, such as the Rormix app, that specialize in putting quality emerging content in front of people who want to see it. At Rormix we have a user base covering 100+ countries and these users are actively interested in unsigned/independent music videos. Using platforms like this can bring new fans in daily and get people sharing your music!
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