Providing Resources and Tips on Innovative Music Promotion for Independent Musicians

I’ve been asked by a few people recently for a recommendation on the best way to sell music online via your own website rather than one of the major distributers like iTunes. There are loads of options out there and during my research I found these great posts from Outsidetheboxmusic.com .

Comparing Music Marketing Platforms

TopSpin – A Review from Berklee to Implementation

I have personally always used a combination of different tools, Bandcamp for setting up the shop where people can download music and redeem download codes and then other tools like MailChimp to deal with emails. However I know other people have used tools like Reverbnation very successfully and I know that many more established bands are using TopSpin to manage their touring and merchandise very effectively. It really is just a matter of shopping around to find who has the tools most appropriate to the job that you currently need to do. For example, if you’re just starting out and want a place where people can buy your music without you losing a slice of commission to iTunes then Bandcamp is perfect. If you have a big tour booked and need a way of selling tickets to fans then Topspin’s annual fees will begin to be worth the investment.

I recently saw Martin Atkins from Tour Smart speak at a conference and he was singing the praises of Hootsuite as a great tool for musicians who are using Twitter to market their music and keep in touch with their fans. Hootsuite not only allows you to do things like manage several different social network accounts at once (like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, ping.fm) but it also allows you to schedule tweets. This is amazingly useful when your touring for example and you want to keep up a dialogue about where your appearing each night but are unsure about being able to find the time or signal connection to do so. What’s more, it’s free!

Other programs and websites are beginning to offer similar services, my program of choice Tweetdeck seems to have added scheduling into the latest release along with support for MySpace status updates etc. Whichever program you use though it’s worth spending some time thinking about ways to use tools like these to keep the conversation going with your fans, even when your busy doing other things.