Today’s post is a guest post from TeachStreet, a website dedicated to providing online and local classes. Feel free to search for local Music Lessons and find a teacher near you.

The music world is extremely competitive, with thousands of talented artists competing for just one record deal. Because of this it’s essential for aspiring musicians to market themselves and their music--not to rely on others to do it for them.

Marketing oneself as a musician used to be a time-consuming (and sometimes very costly!) endeavor. With the advent of the internet, however, there are many ways to go about marketing oneself that don’t require a penny. A good start is to create accounts on social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.

Facebook, being the most popular social networking site on the planet, is a good place to start. Although facebook has traditionally been viewed as a site for friends to connect with each other, it has also become an excellent way for many musicians to promote themselves. If you’re going to promote your band or your music through facebook, don’t make the mistake of promoting it through your personal facebook page. First of all, you’ll have to approve everyone who wants to be your friend. Second, you’ll have a limit of 5,000 friends. Also, people who are interested in music might not be so interested in your regular status updates.

The alternative is to create a facebook fan page. Faceboook fan pages are an excellent way to promote your business because not only is it a handy way for your fans to keep track of the CD’s you’re selling or the tour dates you might be going on--you also have a good idea of what kind of people are attracted to your music, so that you can know the best markets to target.

Finally, facebook fan pages are indexed by Google while your personal pages aren’t. This means that your status updates on your page and all the comments by your fans will appear in search results. This can often be a source of some serious online marketing mojo.

If you’re curious on how to get started, check out this short video tutorial below on how to create a good facebook fan page:

MySpace is another excellent place for musicians to promote their music, especially because of the MySpace Music pages. Although MySpace music pages can be deceptively similar in function to facebook pages, having a MySpace page is most definitely worth it. First of all, the people who surf myspace music are on the lookout for great new bands in a particular niche, be it reggae, jazz, electronica or punk rock. If you stand out in your niche, you have a very good chance of building a following through Myspace. Also, although facebook fan pages might be good for updates in chronological order (New CD released today!), the myspace page features a playlist of your best tracks that they can play on their browser at any time.

Next is Twitter. Twitter is, according to alexa.com, the 9th most popular site on the web with millions of users. It’s a great way for fans to keep track of band news in real time.

A good way to start getting followers for your Twitter account is to start following other users who may have already signed up for your facebook fan page or myspace page. Once someone becomes one of your fans, check to see if they have a twitter account and follow them as soon as you can. The quicker your response the more impressed they’ll be, and they’ll be much more likely to tweet about you or recommend your music to their friends.

If you’re really committed to getting your music recognized, it’s a good idea to create a blog. There are many blog making websites out there that are free and easy to set up, the most popular ones being blogger.com, wordpress.com, and typepad.com. Be sure to check out each of them to see which is right for you.

The advantage to having a blog is that you have complete control of the content and the layout of your blog. Furthermore it can a great hub for all your social media pages. Users should come to your blog’s homepage and be able to know how to connect with you through Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. Your blog posts should be detailed, interesting to read, and useful so that people will have more of a reason to visit the blog.

Finally, although the internet is certainly a great way to promote your music, you shouldn’t discount your offline marketing efforts. At TeachStreet, many of our teachers have found that their students can be an integral part of their fan base. By offering music lessons an artist can develop a following of loyal mentees who are interested in learning about the same kind of music that you play. Although all the marketing techniques listed above can certainly be an effective way to promote you and your music, it should be noted that it isn’t easy. It’ll take time and hard work to get those all those facebook fans, myspace friends and twitter followers. Once you’ve got a sufficient following, however, your online fans can be one of your greatest assets for promoting your music.