It is no secret that the internet has changed the way people get access to music. As a new musical artist, you are no longer at the mercy of big label companies to get your music played and reach out to fans everywhere.

So, what are your options? We have listed the 10 best platforms for uploading, sharing, and promoting music over the internet.

1. Your Own Website

At the top of our list is your very own website. If you are truly serious about your music career then you should at least have your very own professional site.

You will still use the other platforms mentioned here in our list. But your very own website will be your very own space on the web. You can upload some of your music tracks here.

Your own musician’s website or band website will be part of your branding strategy. The site will be used for marketing and promotional purposes as well.

Here are a few success tips that might help you along:

• Use it as a professional tool: you will use your website to attract promotions, bookings, record deals, and other work. It is your way of showing your professional experience. It’s also your tool to showcase your best and most recent work.
• It must have a clear purpose: you should separate your musician’s website from your personal website. The same rule applies to your social media portals—you should have a personal social media presence and a professional one as well.
• Collect content first, promote after: during the early stages your website will be used to collate your content. Use it for showcasing your sound bites, new songs, audio clips, videos, and other content. Only after can you use it to promote yourself as a professional musician.
• Showcase only your best: your website should only contain your best work. Highlight your best songs, videos, audio samples, lyrics, and other content.
• Keep it current: as a rule of thumb the oldest content on your website should be 2 years old. Anything older should be taken down and placed in archives or some other portal.
• Advertise your service: define the services that you can provide as a musician. Do you stick to lyrics? Do you just provide songs? Can you create backing tracks? Do you stick to online promotions or do you also perform live?

Do you need to be a web developer as well? No you don’t. Remember that you should concentrate on your music. Hire a professional web developer to build your site for you.

2. SoundCloud

Other than your very own website, you should also upload your music to other music distribution services. A good example of that is SoundCloud. You can say that this is one of the oldest audio distribution sites to date.

It has been around since 2007 and they attract more than 170 million visitors each month. Now that is a huge market at your fingertips.

SoundCloud is more than just a site where you can upload your files. It is a place where you can expand your reach and even interact with your fan base.

Check out the group communities, followers, playlist options, favorites, and reposting features. The big downside here is that SoundCloud is not a place where you can sell your music. Think of it as a tool where you can promote your latest album and give people samples of your latest music.

3. YouTube Artist Hub

The sun eventually did set on Google Play Artist Hub and it paved the way for everyone to transition to YouTube Artist. This is the tech giant’s new portal for promoting music.

Some have even called this portal as the world’s biggest jukebox. Statistics show that there are over 6 billion hours of total streamed video on YouTube each month.

The site has more than 1 billion unique users each month. On top of that, a lot of the people who visit the site go there to look for new music. That includes new songs, new beats, musical tutorials, interviews with their favorite musicians, etc.

So, how do you take advantage of YouTube Artist Hub?

• Ad Revenue – you earn mainly from YouTube through ads. You earn $7.60 for every 1,000 views. The official video for Gangnam style has more than 1 billion views and it has earned more than $7 million.
• Royalties – you can collect royalties from people who upload videos that use your music. You can’t keep an eye on everyone that uses your music. The solution: you can sign up with a music distributor that collects royalties for you when people want to use your music.
• Get In Touch with Your Fans –when you setup your artist channel on YouTube you have a portal where your fans can access your music for free. Take advantage of the comments section to communicate and interact with your fans. Let them know that there is a human being behind the music—someone they can connect with. And that can help you establish your relationship with a loyal following.
• Promote your new album – since you have a huge global reach with YouTube, you can use it to showcase early releases of songs from your upcoming albums.

Some more YouTube tips:

• Collaborate with other artists and work with them to build your audience. That way you get exposure more exposure. You deliver unique content to their viewers and they deliver more content to your viewers.
• Show your face. Single camera screen shares are great but people want to see who is behind the music.
• Learn from your community from the feedback that they are giving. But don’t let them control you—take their suggestions into consideration but remember that you are the one who controls the content.
• Stay zeroed in on your content but don’t be afraid to experiment. If you’re mainly a synth pop artist you can experiment and do some acoustic videos. Give your audience different musical flavors as it were.
• Create gifs to create more exposure. You don’t always have to record live videos. You can create gifs and memes of your previous performances. You can even create behind the scenes clips, bloopers, and add other off camera stuff that will make your audience laugh.
• Don’t forget to watermark your videos. Remember that they can get quickly remixed, stolen, and copied.
• Create a publishing schedule. Your fans will want consistency—well most people do. If you’re the weekend music guy then make sure to come up with that video or clip during the weekend. If you’re the morning rush hour video guy on Monday then make sure to have one up and ready by then.
• Focus on the sound quality first video quality second. Your audience might forgive the few glitches on your video but since they’re in it for the music then don’t skimp on sound quality.

4. CD Baby

Earlier we mentioned that you need to sign up with a music distributor so that you can collect royalties on your music. One of the biggest music distributors that serve independent artists is CD Baby.

They’ve been around since 1998 and they have helped thousands of independent artists to produce and earn from their music. Here are some of the benefits of signing up with CD Baby:

• There are no annual fees to pay. Annual fees can become a major cost center especially as you release more music.
• They help you tap into different revenue streams such as music publishing administration, sync licensing, direct to fan sales, CD an vinyl distribution, YouTube monetization, and digital music distribution.
• They even provide you with tools that will help you promote and sell your songs.
• They provide you with analytics and trend reports to help you see which songs and tracks get the most attention from your audience. You get real time data from iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, and other streaming services.
• They help set things up so you can get paid on a weekly basis as muh as possible—that will depend on how much sales you’re getting through your music.

5. Spotify

Spotitfy is one of the biggest if not the biggest streaming service in the world. They currently have a streaming war with Amazon, Apple, and Pandora—and it looks like they are winning, well, likely to win unless the competition comes out with guns blazing.

What does that mean? Competition between these streaming services is good for you as a musician. That means they will all want to give you their best offers.

That means you might want to consider What Spotify has to offer. First off they are offering to provide artists with access to user data. You’ll find out who is listening to your music (i.e. you’ll get a general idea of your fans’ demographics).

They are currently developing tools to help you connect with your fans. They are also gearing towards monetizing your music.

Here are a few tips to help you along:

• Make sure that your music is on Spotify (obviously) but you should also make sure that it is also distributed through the competing channels platforms mentioned above.
• Make sure that you’re a verified artist
• Create your own playlist
• Ask your fans and friends to follow you on Spotify
• Try to get into other playlists especially the bigger playlists
• Promote your music through social media
• There are times when you want to release several single EPs instead of a full album (experiment and figure out which works better for you).

6. Apple Music

Apple Music is a huge music streaming service. It has survived its share of upheavals partly due to the rise of other competing services but it has survived and is perfectly in stride.

Note that they have more than 240 million subscribers. Note that this is not a figure to you can brush away. Why? Well, that 240 million represents actual paying subscribers.

Sure, YouTube may bring you more viewers and subscribers but how many of them are actually in it to pay for your music? If you’re seriously considering how you can earn from your music then iTunes and Apple Music is one giant that you shouldn’t pass up.

Here are a few tips:

• Use Apple Music Connect – use Apple Music Connect to manage your profile (i.e. your artist page), connect with fans, share photos, post videos, and of course share your music.
• Master your recordings – people are already paying for your music right? Then it is only fair to get your recordings digitally mastered.
• Release albums and EPs – again, there are times when releasing an entire album will be great idea. And there will be times when all you just need is to release a single. Check the user data and find out which one works best for you at the moment. Sometimes it is all about timing.
• Get a UPC number if you’re releasing an entire album/single.
• Partner with a distributor. Note that Apple Music doesn’t deal directly with artists directly. The sheer number of artists will be too overwhelming even for them. The solution is for you to partner with a music distribution service. We have already mentioned CD Baby, and we have Tunecore below. But there are other distributors that you might want to consider as well such as Distrokid, ReverbNation, RouteNote, OneRPM, Ditto Music, and lots more.

7. Tunecore/Amazon

Just like CD Baby and the other music distributions mentioned above, Tunecore works with independent and up and coming musicians to get their music to the public. Tunecore has some pretty great offers in case you want to sell your music through Amazon.

So, how do sell your music to Amazon via Tunecore? Here’s how:

1. Upload your music to Tunecore after signing up for an account.
2. Upload the cover art for your music.
3. Fill out your release information
4. Choose the streaming partner where you want your music to be distributed – that should be Amazon. You make your songs available for pre-orders by having it available for advance distribution earlier than your stated release date.
5. Tunecore then distributes your songs to Amazon (and other music streaming services and online music stores that you selected).
6. You get paid each time your music gets played or downloaded. 100% of your earnings get paid directly to your Tunecore account.

8. Tidal

Tidal is making a lot of waves (pun intended) in the music industry. At first you might think that they aren’t offering anything unique to everyone. It’s the same old music and video streaming service.

However, the fact that a lot of big name artists are signing up with Tidal is a clear signal that the have something to offer. Tidal offers high quality streaming, which is why some major label artists are jumping in.

But this music streaming portal is not just for established artists. They actually have things setup for new up-comers as well as indie musicians as well. Check out Tidal Discovery and Tidal Rising.

9. Dozmia

Dozmia is a relatively new music streaming service for mobile devices. You can access its services via the app and yes they do have their own web portal as well. But if you want to listen to handpicked music then the app is the go-to place for you.

Now, Dozmia is all about helping its users to discover new music, which makes it very friendly towards new artists and musicians. Their discover page immediately puts your latest music immediately as soon as it is uploaded.

Your music also gets promoted along with mainstream artists that sound similar to you. They promote music based on music quality instead of popularity, which kind of evens the playground for everyone.

10. Pandora

Pandora is a popular radio platform, which offers great opportunities for new musicians and indie artists. The goal is to get more exposure for your music. Pandora is currently waging a streaming war with Spotify and alike, so expect to see better offers coming from this music streaming giant as well.

They have an open submission system, which is a great way to self-publish your music. Of course, your music will be up for review.

If it gets approved then you can add that song to your very own Pandora station. Pay attention to the reviewer’s comments in case your music doesn’t get approved. That way you know where you need to improve.