Using Blogs To Promote Your Music

Making music is what musicians do… but once you’ve committed your work to record, where do you go next? Music blogs can be a good way to spread your sounds around, but only if you know the right approach…

Finding Music Blogs

Depending on what type of music you make, your target outlets will vary considerably. If you are a death metal band, there’s no point sending your latest single to a blog that specialises in country & western lullabies.

A good starting point for finding music blogs would be elbo.ws or the Hype Machine – both provide a searchable index of music blogs, and are a good way of discovering new music as well as finding bloggers who might be interested in yours.

It’s About Them, Not You

When writing an unsolicited email of any kind, the first thing you need to do is overcome the ‘spam barrier’. Music bloggers get a huge number of emails every day, each one demanding attention for an unknown musical opus.

Although your music might be the most important thing in your life, for the blogger it’s just another email. DIY Musician and CD Baby are currently offering a free ebook download which provides some useful tips on how to craft a good introductory letter.

Of particular importance is to make the first paragraph about the blogger – don’t just plunge straight in to talking about how amazing your music is. Show that you’ve taken a genuine interest in them, perhaps by making a positive comment about one of their posts (refer to a specific post to show that you actually do read their blog). This will help to draw them in and create a real interaction.

Make It Easy

Once you do introduce your music, make it easy for them to listen to your best track(s). One or two is plenty – don’t overwhelm them with your entire back catalogue. Provide a direct link they can click on, either to a track hosted on your own site, or to dropbox/soundcloud.

Once they’ve listened to your track, make it easy for them to write about you (if they like what they’ve heard, of course) – give them permission to post your track on their blog, and provide them with links to band images in a variety of sizes (thumbnail to large).

And if you don’t hear back, send a polite follow-up email – there’s no guarantee that they actually read your first email, and if they did, they could have put it in a to-do list they never got around to. A gentle reminder can work wonders if approached with the right attitude; just remember that they don’t owe you anything, and are always more likely to respond to someone who shows a sense of humour, humility, perspective and patience…



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