Mainstream Marketing

 Musicians in today's economy market themselves through a variety of media sources.  Musicians can utilize social media and the Internet to promote their music.  Social media sites like Facebook and MySpace are popular sites for musicians to market their music and brand.  One of the biggest sites that musicians can find fame is through YouTube. Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube by the famous musician, Usher.  Artists like Usher, Christine Aguilera, Cee Lo Green and others are seeking out no name musical artists through shows like the Voice and American Idol.  These artists are getting instant popularity and free marketing.  According to Billboard, in its first ten years, "Idol has spawned 345 Billboard chart-toppers and a platoon of pop idols, including Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Daughtry, Fantasia, Ruben Studdard, Jennifer Hudson, Clay Aiken, Adam Lambert and Jordin Sparks.

     Other ways of getting your name out or keeping your name out there is by teaming up with other musical artists.  For example in the 1990s bands like Aerosmith and the Beastie Boys collaborated with Run DMC to create a new brand of music and started to erase cultural and racial divides by bringing Rock and Rap together.  This opened doors for future musical artists to follow suit and created the development of songs featuring a top selling artist with another well-known or a not so well known band.  To remain popular and get popular a musical artist needs to be out there in the spotlight, shining above and beyond the rest of the crowd.  It’s also coming down to technology and whoever can use it the best has the upper hand in the industry.  There are thousands of great bands, artists, and songs out there; the key is getting it to the ears of the people.  Competition is fierce and chances of being discovered become smaller and smaller as thousands of artists everyday compete on Web 2.0 for that once in a lifetime chance.