Getting Your Music On Internet Radio

[BuildMyBand]

Internet radio is so important I can’t stress it enough. It will expose you to new fans, increase your relevance, and help you gain national recognition. For example, one of our clients has over 400,000 streams on his last release and Internet radio has helped him grow his fan base tremendously. Now, this won’t get you rich, but if you’re in it for the long haul (and you better be), Internet radio should be a huge part of your marketing plan. Below I will discuss a few important Internet radio stations, and you should put your music on ALL of them. I don’t give a shit if it takes a long time and is a lot of works, just do it. And as a final note, MAKE SURE YOUR MUSIC IS GOOD QUALITY. SOME OF THE STATIONS (i.e. Pandora) WON’T TAKE IT UNLESS IT SOUNDS PROFESSIONAL (i.e. no basement recording studios unless you have a master behind the board).

Spotify
The easiest way to get on Spotify is by using a music aggregator. Now some of these guys offer merch as well, but I promise we are higher quality and less expensive. But nonetheless, you still need to know how to get onto Spotify and we are here to help. Simply join a music aggregator on the link below, and follow their instructions.

“If you are a self-published artist or small label that does not have an existing delivery partner or platform, then we would direct you to https://www.spotify.com/us/work-with-us/labels/aggregators/†– This is straight from the Spotify website.

Pandora

Now this is a little trickier and takes more time. You need to create an Amazon store to sell the CD (you need a UPC code to sell on Amazon). Then you need to send Amazon a physical copy of the album. You only need to mail one physical copy. It’s a pain in the ass, but you have to always have at least one physical copy for them to send to someone if they purchase it. Then submit your two HIGH QUALITY songs to Pandora, and start reaching more fans.

To submit music or comedy to Pandora, you’ll need these items:

1) a CD of your music/comedy
2) a unique UPC code for that CD (To obtain your own UPC code at a low cost, click here. If you already have a UPC code for this particular CD–for instance, through your record label–use that one).
3) this CD to be available through Amazon as a physical CD (and not just as MP3s)–and for the name of each track to be listed in the Track Listing section on the page for that CD
4) the legal rights to your music/comedy
5) a standard free Pandora account, based on a valid email address, that will be associated with this submission
6) MP3 files for exactly two tracks from your CD
Note: It is only possible to submit one CD at a time to Pandora
Once you have all of these items ready to go, you can submit your music or comedy to Pandora for consideration here.

Other Major Sites:

Sites like ITunes, Rhapsody, and a couple more can all be done using music aggregators. So just bite the bullet, pay for one, and get your music out there.

Some sites you may now know:

Grooveshark
Grooveshark is a great place to upload your music. It is a lesser-known site, but it gets a good amount of people on it. This is by far the easiest site to upload music to and it’s free. Just go to this link http://help.grooveshark.com/customer/portal/topics/3916-grooveshark#2
for instructions on how to get your music uploaded. Follow them, and you’ll be on your way. It takes about 24 hours to get your music uploaded and ready for listeners.

Jango

Jango is a radio station that strives to connect fans with musicians. You have to pay for spins, but it might be worth it. In our past experience, paying for Jango airplay has been hit or miss. But give it a try. It’s not too expensive, and Jango has millions of active users.

Blip.fm

Blip.fm is another very active site that plays music. And the best part is, it’s FREE to get your music on. They draw in a large crowd from outside the U.S. (which is good and helps expand your reach to new potential fans). They get a large draw from the Netherlands, Canada, UK, Philippines, and Poland. This is definitely a site to get your music on.

Instructions from the blip.fm
“In a perfect world we would have every song from every band ever, and we’re working on that, but for now there’s a chance that your music isn’t in our database. If you have music that you would like to make available for others to blip, you can save URLs to music otherwise not hosted. First, create an account (or log in if you already have one), then click the “Settings†link in the top right corner and click “Music†(link: http://blip.fm/settings/music). From there you can enter in as many urls to songs as you would like and we’ll save them for you and they will be accessible from our search. If you are an artist or label and would like us to host your content (e.g., because your content isn’t hosted anywhere else), you can fill out our music manager request form on the same page linked above. NOTE: It’s a good idea to make sure the ID3 tags are in order, we plan to use them quite a bit.â€

Above, I outlined the most important sites to get your music on. It may cost a little bit of money, but it’s worth it. Not only will you see more people sharing your music, but you will start to see a little bit of money too. Keep pushing, get your music online, and build your fan base. It’s the only way to become a career musician.

 

Get Shit Done!
The BMB Team

 

[independentmusicpromotions]

Great post. I would add in Earbits and Underground.fm to the resource list:

 

www.earbits.com/‎

 

www.undergroundmusic.fm/‎

[Oasis196]

Internet radio is a marketing tool...people hoping to make money via these channels directly will be disappointed.  But they can serve to build awareness.

[Svetlana]

as a variant, why not,

thank you for information!

[Joanna]

So many things to add to my to do list. Thanks for the helpful advice!

[Alistair]

Box of Goats, my old band, got played on our local radio station once after I sent them a demo. The DJs spent a good two minutes discussing the song and the band name - they thought Bag of Owls would be better - which was almost as much of a compliment as playing the record. The song in question was Inescapable Truth which is on my Soundlcoud site at the link below on the Box of Goats playlist. The DJs thought it would make a good UK entry for the Eurovision song contest - which I did NOT take as a compliment!

[MikeRobinson]

Threads like this one are, nevertheless, great for reminding people that "there's a planet out there."  You do need to "mind your [legal ...] P's and Q's," as with everything, but there are no barriers to entry if you're imaginative (and thorough).  No one's printing plastic disks (or vinyl ones).  No one's packing heavy boxes full of these heavy(!) disks and shipping them anywhere-at-all.  Your "cost of goods sold," literally, is:  "zero point zero-zero."

Edited January 10, 2014 by MikeRobinson

[HP Radio]

Hey,

 

I'm a producer myself and I found it hard in the beginning to promoted my music and get it played on the radio.

So an idea came to mind. Internet radio!

I've made an internet radio from producers, for producers. 

We play a lot of unknown artists like myself and we got a bit of an audience for new producers.

We wanna build out are network so we can promote our artists better.

 

Everyone is welcome to send in his songs, mix tapes,.... 

We listen to every song so you got a good chance of your song being played on our radio!!!!

We don't do it for the money we are not making money with the station atm. it is jut to help people further with they're music.

 

Check us out and be so kind to like and share our network so we can give our artists a greater audience and more chance of being noticed.

 

http://brancogijsels.wix.com/homeproductions

 

and 

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/HP-Radio-Home-Productions/245662068928627?ref=hl

[Cameron]

Thanks for the info! I kinda feel like this was an ad though! Maybe I'm just retarded lmao! 

[HP Radio]

yea maybe a bit, just thought I trow it out there

[Brad Barnett]

Not enough bands even think to do this.  I hope you post inspires a few to change their minds!