If you're an up-and-coming musician looking to promote your music without spending a ton of cash, then there's no one better qualified to give you advice than Cameron Reed (aka Babe Rainbow). The dubstepping Vancouver electronic artist recently got signed to the UK's prominent Warp Records and has had his music covered by publications such as Pitchfork, Gorilla Vs. Bear and, yes, us here at Exclaim!
How did he do it? In a recent interview with CBC Radio 3, Reed explained that he works a day job Internet marketing - something that has come in useful when promoting his Music Waste Festival - and offered up some useful advice on how to get your music out there and how to get it heard.
Here are a few of Reed's tips for success:
- Record it, make it available for free online, send it to blogs. Take videos from YouTube and chop it up on iMovie and sync it to your music. Make animated gifs for your songs. UStream a band practice. Start a blog and post things that inspire you. Start a Twitter and give people access to converse with you. DO NOT JUST WRITE ABOUT YOUR BAND! Every social channel you use should have a personality.
-The only WRONG way to promote your music online is to think you need to spend money on it. To think that you need to have someone write you a press release. And to think that people shouldn't have free access to your music.
- Most importantly, don't be all promo-y about it. Just be yourself. Bloggers, no, everybody hates getting long ass press releases about how your band met. Just say hi and give them your music.
Below is a YouTube video for the song "Celebrate," which is presumably one of the self-made iMovie projects mentioned above.
How did he do it? In a recent interview with CBC Radio 3, Reed explained that he works a day job Internet marketing - something that has come in useful when promoting his Music Waste Festival - and offered up some useful advice on how to get your music out there and how to get it heard.
Here are a few of Reed's tips for success:
- Record it, make it available for free online, send it to blogs. Take videos from YouTube and chop it up on iMovie and sync it to your music. Make animated gifs for your songs. UStream a band practice. Start a blog and post things that inspire you. Start a Twitter and give people access to converse with you. DO NOT JUST WRITE ABOUT YOUR BAND! Every social channel you use should have a personality.
-The only WRONG way to promote your music online is to think you need to spend money on it. To think that you need to have someone write you a press release. And to think that people shouldn't have free access to your music.
- Most importantly, don't be all promo-y about it. Just be yourself. Bloggers, no, everybody hates getting long ass press releases about how your band met. Just say hi and give them your music.
Below is a YouTube video for the song "Celebrate," which is presumably one of the self-made iMovie projects mentioned above.
