1. This is a bit slow promotiong, but very important nonetheless: create a blog around your music.
- Pick a web hosting, register a domain name that includes your band or artist name and set up a wordpress blog on it. Wordpress CMS is a blog platform and it's easy to install, maintain and update and there's tons of good looking free wordpress themes around the net (and handy plugins to socialize your blog as well) you can use in your blog.
- Put some content to your blog: write your biography, (discography if any) and samples of your music. Put up a links to your twitter, facebook, myspace profiles as well. Also, if you can, write anything music related articles (preferred to your genre): How To -guides, opinions, reviews.. anything. Social bookmark every post you make. In time you start getting longtail keyword search traffic via Google to your site. And most often visitors also look around what's more in your website and some of them check out your music as well.
- Make a link exchanges with other blog owners. That'll create visibility for your blog as well.
- Also, install a plugin to your blog (or use feedburner) to have an option to people subscribe to your blog. That way, every time you post a new content (a new song perhaps) to your blog, people will get noted through email.
- Subsribe your blog's RSS feed to various RSS directories and blog directories. Make your blog known everywhere but remember not so spam.
- And remember to comment on other artists, producers and music lovers blogs as well. Try to create a network of people around you.
This is what I've done and it's working quite good!
2. Create a channel for your band on Youtube:
- Write a short bio about you there and link back to your blog as well. Create a video for each of your song and upload. And on each video description, put a link back to your blog. The videos could be simple still images playing your music on background.
- Next, start gaining subscribers and friends to your channel. Good idea is to start commenting on other artists videos (related to your genre), subscribing to them and sending a friend requests and messages. Also, posting a video responses will help.
3. Promote your music on forums:
- This is how I got my record deal for couple of my songs. I posted a song on a forum which created a buzz and record label A&R picked it up. Most music related or genre specific forums have a promotion area where you can post a link to your musical productions. Try it out. If your song is good, it may create a buzz on forum as well and that means good things for you and your band!
4. Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.
- This is obvious. Create a Facebook and Twitter profile for your band and start collecting friends and followers, though remember not to spam. Every now and then, post a link to your latest music and also remember to mention on both sites when you post a new blog post. There's also lot of other social sites as well. Use them to your advantage.
5. Leverage P2P file sharing sites.
- Many artists and record lables to this alreayd. Upload a short preview or free track of yours to the most popular torrent sites. That's where masses of people hang around and download their music anyways. That'll create exposure for your band and music.
I agree, this is all a bit time consuming but in the end, rewarding. But remember, when you do all this: do not spam!
That's what people dont' like.Hope these helps to get you started!