I read an article today on a music marketing website that had to do with finding new fans online. It basically said not to wait for fans to find you, but to seek them out by looking for similar artists to yourself on websites that you have your music on, like Reverbnation or MySpace. The author said to "reach out" to these other artists' fans.
While I see the importance of marketing yourself and your music when you're a performing artist or in a band, I do think that some of this can backfire on you if you don't know how to go about it or when to stop. As an example, I had a songwriter who emailed me a month or so ago about a song that he had placed in some kind of online contest. He wanted votes for his song. Now, first of all think of this: if you are trying to get people who don't know you to vote for your song, what if they don't like it? I mean, that is a possibility! They might end up voting for someone else. There's a backfire right there. So solicit people that you already know like your music. That's the first step.
I did not go to the site to listen to his song because I basically didn't have time at that point. So I pretty much ignored his email, which was generic in nature anyway. In other words, mine was in a long list of emails, he didn't email me specifically. But even after I ignored it, he didn't stop at that. He emailed again, presumably to the same number of email addresses saying that he had reached a semi-final with his song and he needed votes again. And then I got a third email, as he was still looking for votes. So this time, I politely emailed for him to please remove me from his email list.
