The only thing very difficult in making a song is not actually making the song itself; in fact the hardest thing to do is the promotion or marketing aspect which will play the role in transforming your bed room song to a billboard Hot 100 #1 single. In my years of experience, I am still learning to find and help ways for writer’s song to be discovered, it is like searching the elixir of life. Experience helps a lot as well as doing “trial and error” and most importantly facing rejection. Therefore below is the list which I find works a lot in promoting and exposing your songs with the widest coverage possible while not losing your targeted audience.

a. Think very local and stick to your local genre if you can. Write songs targeting to it. I live in Cebu, Philippines where commercial FM radio stations are very willing to play songs only if you write to local audiences. These include writing songs in Cebuano language with realistic/catchy lyrics that depicts the life of the common masses. If you match it with some solid rock-hook melodies, these songs can be very compelling to the public; it is why radio stations are eager to play because it can improve some of their rating.

b. If you write high- end songs (songs which may appear targeting to modern audience such as the mainstream, not to the local masses), this is will be difficult or impossible as commercial FM radio stations seems to deal only with the major recording labels radio promoter and ignoring independent artist/writer. In this case, you can tap the internet. Join my space, find friends in Face book with similar interest, do some networking. Join broadjam.com, as well as a lot and lot of websites to expose your songs. Other alternatives include college radio.

Photos by Helios.nl
Remember that the more you expose your songs to public, the higher chances it will be discovered and be commercially exploited.
c. Join You tube and expose your songs to the public. Think of the public as a “critic” and “potential fans” to your songs. This will not only expose your talent but measure your songs potential. A lot of artist has been discovered doing this. The only requirement is that you write quality songs targeted to You Tube audiences and the video/audio should be in superb quality. You can invest buying some quality camera equipments for these purposes.