When completing a new track I have decided to follow a strict plan to increase the chances of a sale. When it comes to promoting music online I think consistency is important.
If you don’t follow a plan you could easily end up having some tracks here and there and thereby not maximize the potential of each track.  It takes quite a long time for me to complete a track (6-10 hours depending on the complexity), but only a fraction of that time to upload and promote – if you have a plan.
My plan for promoting stock music online
Every track is run thought this list. Revisions will probably be made in the future, but this is my staring point. When I complete a new track I do the following:
- Do a keyword search with Googles keyword tool to find a good keyword to use in my headlines, descriptions and tags
- Post the track here on the blog with a title, description and text that is optimized for the search engines. I do this by making the keyword(s) from Googles keyword tool a part of the title, description and text.
- Upload, tag, type in the headline and the description on pond5. Again I use the keyword(s) from point 1. With pond5 it is easy to fill out the information about each track. I therefore start by uploading on pond5 and afterwards copy the headline, tags and description.
- I now use the info I typed into pond5 and use it on all of the other stock media sites I upload my tracks to.
- Upload the track to my profile at soundcloud.com
- Create a YouTube video with the track and make sure it is optimized as described in the post How to get more YouTube Views
- Make a twitter update about the track that is now online.
- Make an update on (my soon to be) Facebook page
- Make an update on (my soon to be) MySpace profile
That’s it. I takes about half an hour to get though this list for each track, but in the long run I am convinced that it will pay of in dividends.
Macro Programs / automation software might speed up the process
What takes most of the time is uploading and tagging the tracks on the stock media sites. In the future i might take a close look at some Macro Programs / automation software to make it all into a more automated process.
Bonus info: a macro program records keystrokes and movements of the mouse on your computer. Afterwards the program can playback your actions and thereby complete the task by itself. This way you can automate tasks that are basically the same, but would take a lot of time to do manually.
Good luck on promoting your own stock music and if you have any questions or comments your more than welcome to post a comment below.
mmh I am a music composer too and I am only on Revostock for the moment! I think I’ll try to the same thing for each track! I’ve been on Revostock since March but only sold 3 tracks..
I think it’s a really good idea to have a strategy for promoting your tracks. There are so many tracks in the big libraries and l therefore think you have to do something beyond uploading and tagging the music to really get noticed. Especially if you don’t have a big portfolio (150+ tracks).
The more places our music is exposed the better are the chances of a sale. I have success with selling on pond5 and productiontrax, you could try them out as well.
I just started on pond5 and your advice is incredible 🙂 Thank You
Here are my tunes > http://www.pond5.com/artist/CalvinMorrisMusic
Do you think they are commercial enough?