In order to maximize the success of its artists, a good record label will always be keen on ways to promote them.
Promotion is important because:
While record labels often help with promoting an artist, bear in mind that you don't necessarily need to have label representation in order to successfully promote your music and brand as an artist.
In fact, many items in this guide are things you can do yourself, if you have the drive and time of course.
Here are some ways that record labels promote their artists, as well as some explanation as to why each tactic is important.
When an artist is just getting started in their career, one of the first moves that a label will take is to promote the artist via industry websites and music blogs.
Music blogs are potentially THE best way to for a new artist to showcase their and brand. Getting featured on the right music blog can not only help artists earn a fan base, but can also ensure that there is material online for interested fans to read when they search your artist name on Google.
Most artists don't bother with this kind of promotion without help, because it can be hard to reach out to blogs yourself if you don't have any connections.
With that said, there are plenty of services that you can use to get blog coverage for yourself.
If you have yet to get noticed by a record label, you should consider using a service like Promo Panda to help spread the word about your music to readers all over the world.
That is, they tell artists how to develop their online presence, helping them choose a platform and secure a social media account.
If artists have more than one official social media account, it’s likely they have at least one that’s operated by the label itself.
And as soon as a major label official gives the go-ahead for an artist to launch an account, they may or may not even contribute to it.
If the artist sends out a Tweet with a link, labels will usually provide a label-branded social media plug-in to post it.
It's unrealistic to expect that, as an artist, you have time to not only make & perform music but also worry about posting on social media across many accounts (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
Don't be afraid to accept the label's help if you need help with promoting yourself on Instagram or any other platform.
While social media is inherently a "personal" form of media in which fans feel like they can connect with you directly, the reality is that it takes a lot of work to run multiple professional accounts.
Keep this in mind if you're doing your promo yourself!
Any professional record label will help their artists book shows and concerts.
Whether the label has an in-house booking agent, or can help find the right third-party agent to help book an artist,The reality of finding shows to play is a full-time job onto itself.
Labels take care of a lot of this work by finding the right people who can get you solid shows to play.
This type of promotion helps in a few different ways:
Firstly: if you're selling tickets, the shows themselves are going to net both you and your label income.
Secondly, shows are a great way to build up your fanbase.
It tends to be easier to make a real fan out of an audience member than it is to make a fan out of some random person who stumbles across your Instagram profile, for example.
While promoting yourself through live shows is something you can try to do by yourself, this is one promotion type that is very difficult to pull off, even with online services.
Unfortunately, it still takes a human to book shows most of the time, and unless you are willing to spend days and days finding these opportunities, it's best to leave this to a booking agent that your label puts you in touch with, or handles themselves in-house.
This one isn't an inherently exciting means a promotion for artists—the truth is that doing brand partnerships is not only a great way to promote yourself as an artist, it's also one of the best ways to make real money as a musician these days.
It can be difficult to find brands to do partnerships with your self, partly because brands expect Legitimate artist to have representation in the form of record labels or managers.
Many legit record labels are going to have access to brands that you would not otherwise have access to.
Don't think of brand partnerships and these sorts of opportunities as "selling out", because the truth is that by the time you are doing professional brand partnerships, whether, in the form of product placement, a commercial, etc., you're actually making big strides as an artist.
One final thought we want to leave you with is that these days, you don't necessarily need a record label to help promote you.
Record labels can certainly help with all of the promotion tactics that we've outlined here, but that doesn't mean that you have to work with a record label in order to enjoy the benefits of these sorts of promotional methods.
If you're lucky enough to have time on your hand (and a little bit of a budget), you can make massive headway in promoting yourself in ways that weren't possible even just a few years ago.
If you were looking to spread the word about your music, and even get the attention of record labels, consider using Promo Panda to get written up in music blogs all over the world.
