Having music and a vision is great, but it isn’t enough. PR, or public relations, can make or break a musician’s career. Music PR is essential because it helps spread the word of an upcoming single or album, gets the buzz going, and keeps current fans interested. So how can a musician make the most out of their music PR? This article provides 6 simple tips to do just that.
Tip #1: Have a solid social media presence and keep it up to date
If a musician is well-established on lots of social media platforms then half the battle is already won because they already have an audience that likes them! Some ways to not only grow but solidify online presence are:
- Interacting with followers by liking comments, replying to comments, and making content that followers ask for.
- Live streaming – more on that here.
- Uploading consistently.
- Producing quality, engaging content.
A musician’s online presence should be up to date so that fans or casual listeners can interact with the musician’s music and promos from anywhere and have it be up to date. Musicians who have a great online presence will find that their music PR will usually be well-received.
Tip #2: Solidify the unique selling point
What makes this particular musician special? If they’re just another average performer, then chances are people won’t be interested and won’t care about PR either. Worse than having no effect, this could have a negative effect and actually cause a musician to lose followers, on and offline.
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Instead, musicians should continuously work on their unique image and stick with it. This isn’t to say that their image can’t change as the musician does (just look at Taylor Swift!), but it does mean that fans/followers should be able to say “this makes sense for this artist” and be able to relate to what the musician is doing.
More specifically, what’s unique about the new music? How does it tie into the musician’s story? This should be made clear in the lead-up to the release.
Tip #3: Have a holistic story
Following the point above, having great visual content means that any PR material is easy for fans to distinguish immediately as well as understand. Everything is easier to digest when it’s in the form of a great photo or art piece. This is also a nice opportunity to collaborate with other online personalities – photographers, artists, and editors!
Tip #4: Be patient
Publicity isn’t a sprint, but a marathon. Musicians can’t expect immediate results, and the best thing to do is focus on the above two points and begin promoting music months before it’s actually released. A release date should be set and then a pre-release campaign can build excitement, grow an audience, and even convert casual listeners into solid fans.
This time can be taken to help audiences understand what the ideas were behind the music, what the inspiration was, and where the musician was when they recorded it.
Tip #5: Plan PR campaigns
Musicians should carefully put together a great bio and press release, and then decide on who they’re going to reach out to in order to promote their music. Outside sources can help with this if the musician doesn’t feel that they’re very good at writing bios or putting together press releases.
In terms of offline PR campaigns, this could be radio stations, newspapers, magazines etc., but online this could be podcasts, other artists’ platforms, blogs, and more. The specific who is up to the musician, because whoever promotes them also reflects on the musician and can help build and solidify their image.
As a general rule of thumb, in today’s day and age online buzz outweighs offline buzz. Here’s more on how to promote music in 2021.
Tip #6: Be wary when hiring a publicist
Hiring a publicist is the same as hiring a band member. They will become part of the team and should be like-minded, have aligned visions, and the same short and long-term goals. If a musician doesn’t like a publicist for any reason, they should not hire that publicist! It’s that simple. Following this reasoning, musicians should be very wary of publicists reaching out to them, because it will usually be a cash grab for them.
Additionally, with a publicist, the success of PR campaigns will depend on both the publicist and the musician. The musician can’t just kick back and let the publicist do everything and then blame it on them when there aren’t sufficient results.
PR is a powerful way of spreading music and growing an artist’s career. Gone are the days where industry professionals are in control of PR because nowadays the power of music promotion is in the musician’s hands. All it takes is some smarts, passion, and dedication!