More expensive doesn’t always mean better or more effective, especially when it come to music. Sometimes knowing who your audience is and targeting them can be much more effective than an all-out broad-based promotional assault.

If your music is more niche than mainstream, there are several music-based social network sites that enable artists to target fans of a particular musical genre. So if you front a retro ska punk band, go to a site like last.fm or mymusicstream and upload videos or mp3s of your band. The purpose of these sites it to allow consumers to find new music and to enable performers to target the audience they are trying to reach.

Among the mainstream social networks, MySpace remains a valuable free online tool to promote your music and to connect with your fans. While music is what drives the band or performer, the personal connection to fans is just as important in creating long term loyalty. Regularly update your MySpace page so it becomes appointment browsing to see what’s new week to week. Use the site to let fans get to know you aside from the music.

Use Facebook to make the power of friends work for you. If all your friends, tell all their friends and so on about your upcoming gig or if they pass along an mp3 for others to hear, it doesn’t take very long for a viral online community of fans to grow. In addition to your personal FaceBook page, create a page specifically for your band or if you’re a solo performer, a professional page to complement your personal page.  Read more...