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Useful Web Tools for Promoting Your Band and Getting More Publicity

There ís plenty of debate about the online music industry, and whether it helps aspiring musicians or makes life harder for them.

Either way, digital music has created more opportunities for unsigned artists to promote themselves. You may not get paid much (or anything at all), but distributing your work electronically is much easier than lugging around a box of demo CDs. That’s why we built the Garage Band Theme, to make it easier for bands to share their music with as many people as possible.

If you’re an up-and-coming band hungry for exposure, these are seven web tools that will help you to get your music online and into more ears.

Last.fm

Last.fm is an online radio service that recommends music to its users, based on their previous listening patterns. Last.fm is one of the best places to promote your own music, because it’s likely to found by people who appreciate it.

Artists can create their own Last.fm page for free and start uploading music. The platform also offers analytics tool for tracking the popularity of your songs, and a revenue-sharing model that pays royalties when your music is streamed. You can read the details on the Last.fm artist page.

Spotify

Spotify is now available in the United States, as well as 14 other countries around the world. The Swedish music-streaming service has become extremely popular, and looks set to dominate the online music world for the coming years.

Spotify is a great place to find music, and also an effective medium for promoting your own work. You don’t have to be a recognized artist or signed with a major label. Spotify has partnerships with a number of aggregator services that distribute unsigned music. Find out more here.

GigThing

GigThing is a web app for booking shows and organizing your rockstar life. You can schedule gigs and share booking information with agents, promoters and fans. The app syncs with Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and Apple’s iCal.

You can also publish your gig calendar on your website, so you always have an up-to-date list of shows available for your followers.

Tunecore

Tunecore is a distribution service for digital music. Artists submit their work and it is sold through big digital music stores such as iTunes and Amazon mp3. You keep the full rights to your content and take 100% of the royalties from each sale. Tunecore charges a yearly fee for each song or album they distribute on your behalf.

If you’re serious about selling your music, rather than just getting it heard, this is a service worth considering.

Ubetoo

Ubetoo is a hybrid streaming/distribution service. You can upload your music directly to the site and earn a percentage of advertising revenue, or you can have your content distributed to online retailers, similar to Tunecore. The main difference is that Ubetoo charges a fixed monthly subscription fee, allowing you to upload as much music as you like, while Tunecore charges per song or album.

Jamendo

Jamendo is an artist community where people upload their music under a Creative Commons licence. All content on the site is royalty-free and available for download. The emphasis is on sharing your music with like-minded folk, rather than making money. But Jamendo does offer a Pro account option, where you can sell commercial rights to your music and keep 50% of the profit.

SoundCloud

SoundCloud is an online web service that you can upload your music to. You can upload or record tracks to the unique waveform player. Timed comments let your listeners leave comments at specific points on the track so they can tell you what bits they really love. It’s also got a vibrant community that you can use to hang out and share music with other musicians, and there are plenty of smartphone apps that are integrated with the service.

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