Part three of my interview with with Kevin Ehlers, one half of the duo behind upcoming DIY indie label Lemon Drop records.

5. What’s the best advice you could give to a band looking to promote themselves online?

Get yourself out there anyway you can, be nice to people who have taken time out of their lives to support you, and make connections. I realize that’s a bit cliché and you’ve heard it all before, but honestly, the internet is the single greatest thing to happen to music in our opinions, and we believe in it so much we went and started a record label to prove our point. Social communities like myspace and facebook are obviously key, but you can’t just be passive with those either. It’s easy to just click approve to your friend requests, or send a simple “thanks” message back to a fan who has sent you a myspace message, but you’d be surprised how much stronger a fan’s support for a band gets if they feel you truly care.

There honestly should be no reason my blog is as big as it is currently, but I took the time out each day to personally write anyone that commented me that day and thank them for it. The bigger the blog gets, the less likely I’ll be able to continue that, but I always offer the chance to contact me personally and usually end up talking to someone on aim who went out of there way to contact me for a good 30 minutes. That conversation leads to daily ones and now that person wants to support my blog and read it over ones that most likely are much better. I took that approach with my music as well. Right now, my music consists of live youtube video of me playing all my songs, embarrassingly low quality mp3’s, and live shows in Springfield. But, since I go out of my way to thank anyone that leaves a youtube comment, put my new songs on my blog for all my readers to hear, and use word of mouth to get people to my shows, I’ve ended up developing a small little following around the country without having ever recorded an album.

The last thing you may want to do is either contact bloggers like myself and get them to know you, or hire one of the numerous online promo companies that I work with through my blog. Among them are Sneak Attack Media, Potboiler Productions, Filter Media Group, and so many more. It’s a new part of the music industry that is growing exponentially at the moment and these guys promote anyone and everyone, whether they’re signed to a label or not. Do all of the above in your own way and you should be fine. Always be nice to people and it’ll come back to you, because no one likes a band who could care less about you supporting them, so make sure you let fans know personally your appreciation and you should be golden.

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