Promote Your Genre

Folk Rock	Gothic Rock
Indie Rock	Punk Rock

"What colour is rock music?" That’s a hard one for me to visualise, nothing really comes to mind - maybe yellow & chrome? Indie rock is easy though, light blue with a little light fern green, so is Punk, pink & black, Gothic is black, purple & red, and Folk rock is browns, burgundy & moss green. I wonder if my colour perception of music is the result of looking at too may bands’ websites and album covers?

My inquisitiveness gets the better of me, I log-on and head to Google image search, and look for punk music/rock/band/s, and I repeat the search using AltaVista, nothing jumps out at me and I’m not really satisfied with the results. So I open up Photoshop and create a new image. Then I copy and paste the first three or four most relevant images (filtering out the dross) from each of the search results into the new image file. Blend a little, resize, pixelate and crop… Wow! Bingo! The image feels right. I repeat the process for folk, gothic, indie and the big one, Rock. The images have the feeling of their genre (they do for me anyway). What does your genre look like?

Before you set out to promote your genre, you need an aim and a strategy, you don’t need an elaborate and convoluted plan. Find out who your fans are and work out what is the most appropriate promotional mix to connect with them. Don’t concentrate on your website in isolation to everything else, however, it is important that your website is a part of your overall promotional strategy. Be aware of the different time scales - a lot of UnsignedBandPromotion’s tips are short term, but You also need to think about the long term and the bigger picture.

A note about branding: it’s not just about getting your name out there, it’s about getting your brand out there! You do this by creating a strong, positive and unique identity within your genre and by promoting it at every point of contact with your fans.

Rock

Genre Promotion Tips

1. Not many independent bands put much effort into identifying their niche in the marketplace, branding or promoting their genre, so it’s an easy prize for those bands that do.
2. I think that it is important for a band to define their genre before they start promoting themselves, just like it is important not to promote your website too soon. Nail your genre as soon as possible - I wouldn’t be a trailblazer by inventing a new one, just keep it simple!
3. Use the search engines to find out what other bands of your genre are doing and to keep an eye on the competition. The top five search engine results will normally be well-connected authority sites (as per usual). Some worthy bands are:
   • folk rock band first band listed: HEDGEPIG [Google #5 Excellent Result]
   • gothic rock band first band listed: THEMIS [Google #4 Excellent Result]
   • indie rock band first band listed: THE LAYAWAYS [Google #20 Good Result stiff competition]
   • punk rock band first band listed: CODE 415 [Google #7 V.good Result]
4. The easiest way to promote your genre from your website is to write it into your website’s title tag i.e., "post-rock band" V.simple. Also works incredibly well when joined geographically i.e., "post-rock band farnborough".
5. Using Meta tags is not a secret ingredient, however, you could give the Genre Meta Tag a whirl!?
   <meta name="Abstract" content="(’http://www.your-url.com/’ Genre: punk rock)">
6. Team up and get involved with websites that fit-in with your genre and lifestyle - from a fashion house to a plant food supplier to a motorcycle dealer!
7. Reflecting and defining a band’s genre:- your name, your band’s name, the brand’s name, URL, logo, avatar, slogan, website design, colours, graphics, images. Your sound, techniques, styles, context. This information should be on everything and everywhere.
8. Promoting and marketing your genre, style, image, aura and brand simultaneously through your website, can have a powerful effect.
9. Get yourselves a Website Co-ordinator / Designer.
10. The most effective way to promote your genre from your website is to fill your website with relevant and spellbinding content - blogs are good for this.

[Ed. note] Just because UnsignedBandPromotion happens to be #1 in Google for MySpace Band Promotion I get a few bands asking if I can "get their name out there". No. I do not get hands-on and help bands to promote MySpace, PureVolume and profiles in general, or FreeWebs, Yahoo! GeoCities, LYCOS.tripod and other free webhosting type of pages - You Need A Real Website.

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