Navigating in the competitive music industry can be extremely stressful. Although it may seem like a good idea to hire a music publicist to help launch your career, there are certain things that you need to do first. For starters, you need to understand your goals as well as what your brand is all about so that you can establish a good marketing plan. Other things you need to think about are your websites, blogs, and perhaps most importantly, your social media. These will be the things that the media representatives look to first when you introduce yourself to them. In other words, you need to have a strong online presence before you think about your music PR. Once you have these things sorted out, you can go ahead and get yourself into the world of music PR! This article will tell you some tips you can follow so that you can be your own music publicist.
1. Provide Working Links
The first step is to reach out to editors and writers of blogs, podcasts, magazines, among others. The majority of writers prefer SoundCloud links while others may request that you submit an MP3 file or provide a Dropbox link. You may want to reach out to writers directly by sending your files to their email. However, keep in mind that these writers are already receiving a massive amount of submissions on a daily basis, and your email will most likely go straight to spam.
The best way is to have your album or EP on SoundCloud as a single playlist. Make sure to test the link first to ensure that the writers will be able to access your music. Write a short bio to put on your SoundCloud profile to showcase who you are and what your music is all about. Also, don’t forget to include all the available links to your website and social media channels. These may include the links to your iTunes, Amazon, or Spotify.
2. Come Up With a Great Pitch
One thing you need to understand is that music bloggers and journalists hear new pitches every day. If you write a long essay about how groundbreaking your music is, nobody bothers to read it. You want to come up with the right words to describe your music in a way that will immediately grab the reader’s attention.
Start off by choosing a few genres that fit your music as well as a few artists that you think are similar to you. This will help you get a better idea of what your music sounds like. Keep in mind that you need to approach this with an outsider’s perspective so that there are no biases involved. It is easy to confuse your music style with your idol’s. Queen’s might be your inspiration, but pitching your music as comparable to theirs might not be such a good idea. You want to describe your music as accurately as possible. Otherwise, you may risk attracting the wrong type of audience, and you are more likely to receive backlash for claiming to be something you are not.
3. Write a Great Signature Story
A signature story, or a musician bio, is one of the most important parts of your music PR along with your music. A powerful signature story should be interesting and personal. The key is to create a story that will draw in potential fans who find your story relatable. The beginning of your bio should be about what your music sounds like. That is because most writers are too busy to read the whole thing, and so they can take the first few sentences from your bio and use them in the write-up. Of course, writing a great signature story is not easy, which is why you may need to hire a bio writer to help you with the task.
Promoly is a music promotion platform for musicians. If you’re looking for a music PR service to deliver music to your mailing list, get in touch to see how we can help today!
