How to Create an Online Press Kit for Your Music

You know that you need great content on your website for your fans, but there’s another crowd you need to address with your website – the bloggers, editors, and conference organizers looking to publicize your music! These people look to your website for great photos, quotes, biographies, and stories to include in their articles and write-ups. If that info isn’t on your website, they may be pulling information from a Wiki page that may not be 100% true, or, even worse, they could choose to just leave out these details, giving your music a much shorter write-up.

Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR wrote up this very detailed guide telling you exactly what you need to include in your online press kit. Here’s an excerpt, but if you want to see the full article, head over to the Cyber PR Blog.

1. YOUR BIO

Make sure your bio is easily locatable on your site and it can be easily cut-and-pasted (not in a PDF format that they can’t easily grab).

Your bio should NOT just be a “who, what, when, where, why” or a list of business accolades. Invest in having a bio written that brings out your signature story. This should be a compelling and relatable story that evokes an emotional response from the reader.

Post a long form, 250 word, 100 word and a Tweet sized bio and you have pre-delivered every possible type of bio request that may come your way (no one will ever ask you to edit your bio down again or worse, edit it for you and forget the most important parts.

TIP: Post 4 versions of your bios

Long Form

In 250 – 200 words

In 100 words

In 1 tweet

TIP: Make sure the bio can be easily cut-and-pasted!

2. YOUR PHOTOS – MAKE THEM EASY TO FIND AND DOWNLOAD

Thumbnails are great for quick and easy loading but are detrimental for use in print (if you are a speaker or attending a conference where there is a directory, your photo may be appearing on posters, flyers and in a printed conference guide.

You should always have a few downloadable photo options on your site in at least 300 dpi / jpg format. Also post vertical and horizontal photos so editors working on a tight format won’t have to resize anything.

TIP: Create an easy-to-see link that says “click here for a hi res / low res jpg.” That way, busy editors can get what they need easily. When the photos are downloaded, make sure they are properly named so that editors can find them in folders and on messy desktops!