I can appreciate that it rather difficult to self-promote, especially for many artists.  It seems either pushy or corporate or uncool or all of the above to talk your music up to other folks.  The key, then, is to find ways to do it that somehow doesn’t come off this way and is real — is you.

Our friends at New Rock Star Philosophy recently stated: “Start with something that is unique, honest, and real.”  Volume 11 also wrote about “authenticity” in online marketing this past May.

John Oszajca is a musician who has experienced a good amount of what the music industry has to offer – getting signed by labels, putting out albums with those labels, getting dropped by labels, and then being forced to do it himself.  To put it more bluntly, he was forced to find some work to pay the bills, learned online marketing for other products, and then began to apply what he learned to promoting his own music.  He is now a “success” and also a self-proclaimed online marketing guru:

I asked myself, why do all of the things that I’m selling sell? The answer almost universally was that my products were selling because they solved problems. People needed to improve their credit, they paid for the solution. People needed to know how to cook a meal, they paid for a recipe book. If they needed to know how to be better in bed, they’d pay for that as well. But the problem with marketing music online was that music didn’t solve any particular problem. No one was waking up in the morning saying to themselves, Man, I wish I had John Oszajca’s CD, my life would be so much better.

And so it became clear that if I was going to sell music online, I was not only going to have to present my music as a solution to a problem, but I was going to have to educate the public to the fact that they even had a problem at all, which in this case was that they were missing out by not having my CD in their collection. I had developed a system for generating free traffic and a simple method that allowed me to capture the contact information of a high percentage of people who visited my site.

If you want to learn more about John’s plan you can check out his website – Online Marketing Manifesto.  But I am writing about John not to sell his service but to show his website.  Check it out.  It is pretty clear what he is trying to do to achieve his goals – get email addresses, show good pictures of himself, self-promote and sell merchandise.  Are you doing this?  Do you think by doing this he is looking cheesy or uncool?

I suppose everyone has to consider how to promote themselves in ways that are representative of them, so this style won’t work for everyone.  But the point is clear – if you want to make it you need to go after this things that matter (emails, CD and merch sales, etc), and John’s website does this.  Note that, although he clearly has a well thought out website, he still utilizes other websites for certain things like his blog page (Myspace link).

A different example is Jonathan Coulton.  What Jonathan does so well is pure campiness.  Nothing feels corporate about his set up at all.  But it too works.  He has a high level of interaction with fans, with fans uploading their own images and videos to his site on a continuous basis.  He fosters this interaction by offering things like karaoke versions of his songs for purchase.  Moreover, he offers four different RSS feeds (Shows, Thing A Week, The Blog, and User Content).  Being a fan of Jonathan Coulton means you are a part of a community.  And note that his Email Submission button is tiny, if you can find it!

So what can be learned from all of this?  First, there is no set defined path.  You need to find what works for both you and your audience. Where is a good place to start?  Think about what your best qualities are.  WHAT DO YOU DO BEST?  If you like telling jokes, have jokes on your web page and encourage interaction that way.  Write songs about jokes to augment them!  If you are witty, use twitter.  You can make goofy stuff, or even serious material.  If you want to highlight your songwriting skills, make a video that highlights and discusses some of the nuances of what you do so others can gain an appreciation of it.  Certainly there is a market for the cerebral and/or music geek folks as well.  This Imogen Heap video can be used as an example as well.

Just find a way to express the core of you, and you’ll appeal to those that are looking for that sort of thing.  This sort of honestly is what people connect with.  Then keep doing it.

In this era it is all about exposing our soul and hoping for the best.  Taking that leap of faith will be the only way to know if you are going be able to cut through the noise of every other indie musician trying to use the Internet for promotion.

I will be sitting on a panel at the upcoming 5th San Francisco Music & Technology Summit on Monday, December 7, 2009 that will be discussing topics similar to this post, although with more of a technology focus. Thus, several articles with this theme will be published this month.  Hope to see you at the SF MusicTech Summit!