With all the buzz and popularity surrounding different social networking mediums, it’s nearly impossible to ignore the impact these websites make in today’s music scene. Your information, updates, releases, photos, and thoughts can be broadcast across the internet for millions to see, effectively conveying news to old and new fans alike. Even better, all of this promotion is essentially free with the cost of an internet connection, which nearly everyone has access to these days.

Enter Twitter, the 140 character posting machine capable of attracting thousands of followers and connecting you to people across the globe. Easy to use, and quickly becoming just as popular as Facebook or MySpace, this is one tool every artist should add to their repertoire for generating publicity and interest. Strangely addictive and remarkably useful, Twitter is a great method of sharing thoughts, reviews, links, and news.

A crucial aspect of utilizing Twitter to your advantage is the slimmed down length of the posting. Instead of full length blog posts, press releases, or reviews, the info is shortened, forcing you to only share the most important info with fans and followers. This helps to create succinct, flowing updates which aren’t too wordy or cumbersome to read, giving people the updates they’re searching for as quickly as possible. Becoming a skilled Twitter user can generate more followers of your profile, who will see each and every one of your musical tweets.

The advent of smart phones, especially Blackberrys and iPhones makes Twitter even more effective, as people are beginning to use their advanced mobile devices to follow social networking on the go. A myriad of applications are available for most phones, allowing you to update, view, and tweet to your heart’s content no matter where you are.

Remember, social networking sites are your friend, as long as they’re used properly. Be smart about what you write online, especially while posting personal information, but don’t be afraid to share your thoughts or pertinent info regarding musical endeavors. Over time, your Twitter followers will grow, as will the audience your posts reach, making it an effective tool which nearly anyone can take advantage of. Use keywords, witty comments, and post regularly to keep fans coming back for more.

Follow me on twitter @IfthikarAli

A career in music provides a lot of exciting twists and turns. Aside from the travel opportunities that a music career offers, it also offers the chance of being famous. Although making it in the music industry is quite difficult, most especially in marketing music, there are some helpful steps that can be followed in order to become successful.

Music marketing is one of the hardest challenges that musicians have to face in their music careers. Aside from the fact that music marketing requires a lot of determination, hard work, and focus, it also needs a dash of luck.

Music marketing can actually be likened to a business venture that requires appropriate planning and strategy implementation. The hard truth about this endeavor is that budget is needed in order to achieve all these. Unfortunately, budget is what most musicians lack or do not have; making music marketing really difficult for them.

On a lighter side though, there are some strategies for music marketing that do not actually require a lot of budget. Therefore for musicians who are tight on their budget, they can follow these simple music marketing steps:

Circulation of Demo CD’s or EP’s. If you are a musician on a tight budget, you can compile all your best songs in one demo CD and circulate these among your fans, radio stations and other forums for free. These sample demo CD’s can actually give the masses a taste of what you got, and if by good fortune, this turns out well, you can start negotiating for the formal production of your music.

Give away business cards . Like any marketing strategy, giving business cards away is one of the cheapest and the most convenient way of making yourself known. It is advisable for you to carry your business cards so that you can easily give these away when the need or the chance arises. In addition, business cards are easy to carry around and most people prefer receiving these for them to refer to in the future.

Use social media for marketing. With the advent of technology, almost everything is based in the internet; as such artists use the internet as a tool in marketing their music. The best places to market music are social media sites. In fact, most artists today use Myspace in marketing their music. Aside from the fact that a lot of traffic is directed toward social media websites, these are for free. Social media websites such as Myspace is expected to have more than a hundred million members. If you would be able to reach and impress this large audience through these websites, it would be no time at all before you start creating a community of fans.

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