How to Get People to Listen to Your Music: 10 Ways to Promote Your Tunes

by Frederik Nielsen, May 29, 2019 . 5 min read

Making music is a reward in itself. But like many musicians, you’ve probably wondered how to promote your music and get people to listen to your music so they can recognize your genius.

Well, in this guide we’ll go over five ways to promote your music online, and another five ways to promote your music offline.

5 Ways to Promote Your Music Online

It’s all happening on the Internet when it comes to music promotion. You don’t need to invest in expensive ads to get heard, either. Here’s five completely free ways to promote yourself online.

1. Music blogs

Music bloggers are always looking for new content to write. And while they get a lot of traffic from covering famous musicians, they all want to discover the next big thing (that’s you!). 

Tip: Check out this list of music blogs that accept submissions right now.

2. Online radio stations

You’d think that radio had been completely replaced by Spotify at this point. But that’s not true. There are many budding online radio stations that accept music submissions from artists.

Tip: Here are ten online radio stations that you can send your music to and get heard.

3. Music forums

Most aspiring artists start out in very small circles of (let’s face it) nerds who care deeply about their art. You should make friends with them and ask if they want to listen to your tunes.

Tip: If you don’t already have a favorite spot, then use this list of guitar forums to get started.

4. Youtube channels

You could publish your music video on YouTube, but unless you have a decent following then it won’t get a lot of views. Instead, you can submit your tunes to dedicated promotion channels.

Tip: Here are 15 YouTube music promotion channels you can submit videos to.

5. Social media groups

If you’re not down to sign up for another guitarist forums, then fret not (pun intended!). There are plenty of Facebook Groups dedicated to music where you can ask people to listen to yours.

Tip: Here are 12 Facebook Groups for musicians you can join and promote your music to.

5 Ways to Promote Your Music Offline

Although the web does account for the majority of music promotion in 2019, there are still effective ways to promote yourself in the real world. Let’s have a look at five of them.

1. Live performances

Few promotional methods beat the old live performance technique. What better way to introduce people your style than giving them a taste of it in person?

Tip: Read up on how to promote your next live gig so you can get in front of the right people.

2. TV and film

All moving pictures, whether on the big or the small screen, use music. Some musicians have even broken through to the mainstream off the back of them being featured on TV.

Tip: Read about how to get your music featured in film and on TV to learn the ropes.

3. Local radio stations

Spotify has sidelined a lot of radio stations, and many of the terrestrial ones have been replaced by online stations. But there are still local radio programs hungry for underground talent.

Tip: This guide explains how to get played on local radio so you can build your home base.

4. Street teams

You can get by with a little help from your friends. Use Canva or Design Wizard to design some cool flyers and posters, and ask people to help you out by joining your band’s street team.  If you’re on a tight budget, Design Wizard is probably your best bet. You’ll be able to access all of their tools and features with the free subscription and get more than 10,000 free templates to choose from.

Tip: This article explains how you can build a street team to help you out with promotion.

5. Street selling

If you can’t recruit a street team, then you’ve got to do it yourself. Believe me, selling your music on the streets can be intimidating. But there are still artists making a killing from it in 2019.

Tip: Read up on the rules regarding selling your music on the street so you don’t get fined.

Ready to Be Heard?

If you try each of these ten tips at least once, then you’ll quickly find out what works best for you. Maybe the shotgun approach it best, or maybe you prefer the sniper method.

If you can’t get enough music marketing tips, then head over to How to Promote Your Music: For Total Beginners where you can learn all the basics.

Let us know in the comments which of these tips works best for you — and feel free to contribute with your own!