Using the Internet to Promote Yourself as a Guitarist

As a guitarist, or any kind of a musician, it is very important to be able to market and promote yourself and your music. While there are a multiple number of ways that you can do that, perhaps one of the best ways to do this is over the internet.

Before the emergence of internet, the only way for a musician to be heard was if it had the backing and support of a label. Not anymore though; things have changed in the last decade or so, and the internet has been a total game-changer!

Here’s how you, as a guitarist, or any other musician out there for that matter, can market yourself/himself using the power of the internet. As you’ll soon find out, it’s pretty cost-effective, and can end up getting you a huge amount of exposure and visibility, grow your fan base, and go from being an amateur guitar player to a pro guitarist.

Have a Website – As a musician, it is essential to have a presence on the internet for yourself or your band. The best way to do that, get a website. A personal website with a personalized domain (such as www.yourname.com or www.yourbandsname.com) is therefore essential. Register your domain (e.g. on a domain registrar like Name.com), buy a hosting package (on a webhosting service such as HostGator.com), and have a self-hosted website in place. Hire a professional to set it up for you, if you don’t have adequate experience here. Your website will allow your fans to connect with you and know where you’re playing and other information about you, so keep it updated. If your website is optimized for search engines, you will show up on Google as well, giving you more exposure and increasing your online visibility.

Use Youtube – Harness the power of Youtube (as well as other video streaming websites) by creating a channel for yourself, and uploading your video on your channel. Personalize your channel down to the very last details, and try getting as many subscribers on your channel as you can. If you’ve been using Youtube long enough, you would know that almost everyone asks for subscriptions in their videos one way or the other. This is important because subscribers are notified about your videos on their Youtube pages, as well as via email. Also embed your Youtube videos on your website, create a totally different section on your website for this (‘My Work’). Sidenote: Youtube allows you to monetize your videos by giving you money based on the number of views your videos get.

Use Facebook and Twitter – Social media is the rage right now. Everyone’s on Facebook, and chances are that you already have a profile on one or multiple number of social media platforms. Time to take one step ahead by creating a Facebook fanpage for your band, or for yourself if you’re a solo artist. This allows your fans to become your fans, and subscribe to your updates on Facebook. Alternatively, you could also allow fans to ‘subscribe’ to your personal profile (privacy might be a concern here). Similarly, make profiles on other social networks such as Twitter and Google Plus. Keep your fans updated, and use a social media dashboard like HootSuite to manage your profiles and send out updates.  

Sell Music Online – There are multiple ways that you can use to sell your music online. Firstly, you can use your website to sell CDs (and merchandise too). You can have an online store designed for your website, or if you’re using a CMS such as Wordpress, you can simply use a theme for this purpose. You can sell your music on your MySpace profile, which is still the biggest social networking platform for musicians (fun fact: Lady Gaga was discovered through her MySpace page!). Sign up for iTunes and sell your music through their distribution network. iTunes has it’s caveats though, they take a percentage of your sales, and it may take a while for you to get approved. In addition, I strongly recommend checking out CdBaby.com, it is an excellent website to sell your music.

Use Email Marketing – Email is a great way of keeping in touch with your fans, promote yourself as a musician and of course, sell yourself as a musician. You can learn all about email marketing and the various do’s and don’ts associated with it on this excellent, in-depth piece by WeAllMakeMusic. Your website provides you with an excellent source to capture email IDs of your fans. Services such as Aweber let you do this easily. Make sure that you use these email IDs to send out emails on a periodic basis to your fans – including news about new CDs, new videos, upcoming gigs and the like. Don’t spam your list by sending out emails incessantly though.