Why You Need Music PR

Music PR is a key piece to the band promotion puzzle that I think a lot of people ignore. However, it is crucial to getting featured on sites like this one. For those not in the loop, a PR person is essentially the guy who goes out and pitches you to various blogs for coverage. It’s crucial if you want to get people writing about your band.

This is important for a few reasons. First and foremost, it lets you get in front of the eyes of your audience. Beyond that, the improvement to your overall web presence is amazing (in more ways than you would think!) and, of course, it just gives you more ways to build connections and expand your brand. Let’s break it down.

Getting In Front Of More Eyeballs

It’s crucial to get more press, because you want to be able to get in front of more eyeballs. The music press is where the music nerds go to learn about the cool new bands. As it turns out, the music nerds are the people who are likely to be early adopters of your band. Getting in front of these early adopters is a huge part of why you should hire PR.

Furthermore, if you’re lucky, these outlets will post about you on their social media, and if you’re early in the game then odds are they have a much bigger presence than you do there. This is another amazing way to grow and one that is extremely underestimated in the broader scheme of things.

The Improvement To Your Web Presence

This works in a few different ways. On the most obvious level, it gives you a bunch of cool stuff to post, and it ensures that when people google your band’s name they see a bunch of coverage. That’s an awesome opening salvo and initial way to start learning about things. It can be dramatically helpful to get you moving.

Beyond that though, when there’s more internet buzz about you it benefits other things. Most interesting to me is that Spotify is constantly crawling the web. They track if you are being talked about. If they see a bunch of articles about you – guess what? They’ll put you in a bunch of algorithmic playlists! As a general rule, the more articles about you, the more various algorithmic tools will actually go in and help.

Building Connections

This is a big one that people don’t think about. If you really take advantage of a PR campaign and engage with journalists, those connections end up becoming very valuable. Why? Because journalists know a lot of folks in the industry, and frequently journalists are folks in the industry. I know a ton of label employees who moonlight at cool magazines, for instance.

Additionally, having good articles written about you helps to give you that sort of added credibility, and that makes people see you are real. Which band seems more legit? The band with the premier at Metal Injection or the group who you can’t seem to find any press coverage on at all? Yeah, I thought so.

So in summary, PR really matters and is crucial to getting you over that next hump. It’s the way that you are able to really start to get in front of more eyeballs, improve your web presence (and benefit from that in auxiliary ways), and naturally build relevant connections. These steps are crucial to reaching the next level with your band. So yeah, hire PR. It works.

Matt Bacon (IG: mattbacon666) with Dropout Media is a consultant, A&R man, and journalist specializing in the world of heavy metal. You can read other articles in the series by clicking the “Bacon’s Blog” hashtag below. Matt can also be heard on the Dumb & Dumbest podcast, which he co-hosts with Curtis Dewar of Dewar PR.