New to Last.fm, or just want to make sure you're doing everything you can to promote your music? This guide should help!
Upload all Your Music
Uploading as much music as you can to Last.fm is a great idea, and as all tracks have an equal chance of being played on our streaming radio, this makes your back catalogue just as important as your current release.
Listen to (and Scrobble) Your Artist’s Music
Making sure your artist is being scrobbled is a good first step towards making an impact on Last.fm. Ask your fans to download the Last.fm software and listen to your artist’s music, and make sure you do the same! Certain features on Last.fm work better when you have reached a certain amount of listeners, so this is important.
Tag Your Artists, Albums and Tracks
A way of making sure your artists get streamed on the radio and discovered by users is by tagging them. There are buttons to do this on artist, track and album pages, as well as in the Last.fm players themselves. Tags can be genres, moods, personal notes, anything really! Get as many people, to tag as many things, as possible.
Make Your Songs Available for Free Download
On Last.fm, your songs will automatically be streamed on the radio and made available for 30-second preview. However, offering tracks for free download can give your artists a real promotional boost. Doing this means that your artist will become more visible and more accessible on Last.fm as we promote free content more vigorously than everything else.
Make Your Artist profile Rock
Make sure you upload artist images and album images as well as writing a bio for your artist. You can use Factbox tags in the wiki to highlight relevant info including band members, location, and official website. You should also set Featured Tracks to appear at the top of your page, within the Music Manager under Manage > Catalogue > editing the artist. This way if someone ends up on your profile they won't be confronted with an empty page, and may well have a listen.
Spread the News
If you have a blog on your website or MySpace, or a Twitter feed, you can add the RSS to your artist page so your fans can see your latest news straight away. You can do this within the Music Manager, under Manage > Catalogue > editing the artist.
Treat Yourself to a Boost
Purchase a Powerplay campaign, this can kick start the whole process of getting a first small listener base, and will only target users who are likely to enjoy your music. You can do this here; http://musicmanager.last.fm/promotion/powerplay/
Get Involved!
Last.fm is a huge community of music lovers - join them. Please read the main site FAQ and have an explore, to understand Last.fm, its features, and its users better.
How to: Make the Most of Last.fm