It’s a new year and the Internet is an infinite abyss of indie music, indie music blogs, pros blogging advice to musicians, musicians blogging themselves into nowhere, and a bunch of people pissed off they wasted so much money on ReverbNation and Facebook Ads last year.

And sadly, I’ve been hearing a lot more mediocre music than I feel I should be. Just because you have access to the interwebs does NOT mean you make great music.

Here’s my best advice for DIY bands using social media for marketing…

1. Make. Great. Music.
2. Keep Making Great Music while you find a balance and a social media strategy that works FOR YOU, not against you.

Investing money into your music is now a must (in my opinion). Production, packaging, and marketing/PR are all things that separate the bands who are getting heard from the bands who are not. Doing some research and seeking professional help is definitely in your best interest if you plan on improving your music as a career.

I read an article earlier about how the music industry is dying and how that’s good for us.

I am offering a couple of options…

Keep wasting all your time and/or money on social media while your art and live show suffers… OR

Spend more time creating the best music you possibly can and show us your full potential as a musician, songwriter, and artist.

• Stop thinking you are going to make a lot of money from music, specifically selling downloads. Invest in merchandise: CDs, t-shirts, stickers, buttons…
• Stop thinking the Internet will make you a rock star over night.
• Stop paying so much attention to social media and get out more. The relationships you develop offline are way more valuable than a few likes or RTs.
• Start building a tribe one supporter at a time.
• Start using the Web as a PR machine.

After Making Great Music, push it into the world and use music blogs and podcast features to allow others to tell others how Great Your Music is.

Being featured on 100 small blogs can push your awareness much further than anything I have seen bands doing on social media. Unless you have major label support, major funding, or the planets just happen to be aligned in your favor – getting your music heard, appreciated, and shared by others is a lot of aggravating, depressing, never-ending, hard work.

This year I encourage you to spend more time creating, more time performing, and more time engaging with the people who support you.

If you Make Great Music, people can and will find it.

This is one thing that the Internet has definitely accomplished for indie musicians — the ability to be found by anyone at any random time on this planet.