The only online promotion that I’m okay with

I’ve talked a little bit in the past about how not to promote yourself, but I wanted to share one strategy that might entice new people to check out your music without coming off like a spammer. Here are my criteria for online promotion of my music:

1. It doesn’t actually force someone to take any action if they don’t want to
2. It doesn’t directly take advantage of another musician’s following or platform (akin to Kanye’s “Imma let you finish, but…” moment)

Most of the time I let the music speak for itself, but there is one thing I like to do and it’s on Twitter:

Find a Twitter account or two that you think attracts the kind of fans who might also be interested in your music. See who is following that account, and start following a bunch of them.

Initially this might still seem spammy or impersonal, but here are a few reasons that I don’t think it is:

1. It doesn’t force the person you followed to do anything if they don’t want to. They can completely ignore the fact that you followed them, no harm done. This is important because I don’t want to annoy anyone. (A note here, I don’t follow people who have “private” accounts, because then they have to approve it and that seems annoying to me. I’d recommend leaving those people alone.)
2. In my opinion, Twitter is less overwhelming than Facebook and information is very condensed. So if someone I followed is interested in my account, all they know about me is a small bio and a web link. Because of this, I feel like there is a higher chance that they will click on the link and check it out.
3. If someone does check out your music, they can easily start talking to you about it. You can interact with a new fan immediately.
4. Even if a fan doesn’t look at your profile or even notice that you followed them, you are now following someone who you know you share a similar interest with. Perhaps down the road they’ll post about something interesting and you can engage them in a conversation (NOT about your music) that will be mutually beneficial to both of you. Maybe then they’ll see what your music is about, and maybe not. But at least you connected with someone new and that’s never a bad thing.

That’s it! This has been a successful tactic for me. It has led to some cool online relationships, and to my knowledge has not caused anyone to get all internet-angry at me.

In the comments below, will you please share any other online promotion strategies you’ve used that have been particularly effective?

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