With iTunes you really need to promote yourself within the walls of iTunes, and this goes a long way to help you sell and grow your fan based across other sites.

Here is a step by step process on how to promote yourself within iTunes. Please remember that this does take a lot of time, but overall can really get some great results.

Step 1 – Sign up to iTunes and Buy Some Music

The first thing you should do is signup and buy some music (your and your friends), this gets you familiar with the process of buying, plus this will come in handy when you ask your fans to buy your tracks later.

Step 2 – Create at Least 5 profile accounts

Did you know that with each credit card that you register with iTunes you get 5 separate accounts? iTunes designed it this way so families in one household can all use one card.

All profiles are kept completely seperate and not interconnected. One of the profiles will be use by you as your main account, but you can use the other 4 accounts to help promote yourself.

TIP: While you are creating these profiles: Think about your target audience – who are they? Older dudes that like prog rock, or teenagers that like Britney Spears? Create profiles that would fit the types of people who like your music. Choose a name for each profile so they each have an individual personality. Give them distinct personalities and even imagine where they might be from.

Step 3 – Review Other Artists

With each profile – individually begin to review other people’s music. You definitely want to review three or four other artists that have nothing to do with you or your genre so choose some of the artists that have influenced you or artists that you like and create some reviews.

Step 4 – Create iMixes

You will need to create 2 categories of iMixes:

1: iMixes that have nothing to do with you and your music

Examples:

• Best of Madonna
• Great local bands from your hometown
• Best of Bob Marley
• Best of the 1970’s

2. iMixes that INCLUDE YOUR OWN MUSIC

Create mixes that include your own tracks with other complimentary tracks (artists you get compared to and who you are influenced by that sound good when played next to your songs). When you create iMixes think of yourself as a DJ or a curator and piece together thoughtful lists.

TIP: Add some of the top sellers from each week in your genre and style as buyers will already be looking for the top sellers when they come to iTunes.

TIP: You should create an iMix at least one time per week per account.

Step 5 – Vote for iMixes

Make sure you vote on as many iMixes as possible. Vote for your own iMixes using all of your profiles.

COOL: iMixes that begin to pick up votes rise to the top where other buyers will begin to respond to them and purchase your iMixes.

A Note about iMix voting: People who are key users who are also heavily promoting their own music sometimes can be competitive. They may try to vote your iMixes down so that the iMixes that they have created rise to the top.

What my friend says about this: Being malicious on iTunes is awful. Don’t give other people bad reviews. Stay away from this type of negative behavior. Just focus on your own voting and contributions.

Step 6 – Master iMix Sandwiching

When you create an iMix, you want to sandwich yourself between hot chart-toppers in your genre, and add artists that already have five-star reviews.

For each iMix, make it at least 20 songs, but you can go to 40 or 50 songs. To stay on top of the charts for your iMix, you must get the most votes and the most stars.

TIP: Don’t forget to vote for other people’s iMixes so it looks like you are well-rounded.

This is where registering different credit cards and different personalities so you can actually log in and vote for yourself comes in handy.

Step 7 – Remove Unpopular iMixes & Update Them

If your iMix fals below three stars you should take your iMix down from iTunes, add some new tracks to it, and then add it again as an updated iMix.

It will take a few hours for your updated iMix to show back up into the iTunes profiles, but you don’t want to have a poorly rated iMix sitting in the iTunes system with your music in it.

How To Update an iMix: In order to update an I-Mix: Click on the arrow on iTunes. Then click on “update,” and add some new tracks,

TIP: Don’t rename your iMix

iMixes are good for a whole year, so you want to make sure that you start voting, when it goes back up. It takes between 6 to 12 hours for a newly edited or a new iMix to show up.

Here’s The Wrap Up:

For each profile you create: Their iMixes to match their personality:

1. Create then wait for your iMix to show up.

2. Log in as each of your different reviewers and users.

3. Vote five stars from each of the profiles you have created.

4. Start watching your music sell

5. Go in two times per week and create new iMixes.

6. After a while to stay in the most recent, you must continue to make new iMixes. Vote, vote and vote.

7. Remember, you must log in and submit votes for each of the iMixes with each of your separate accounts and many sepearte times. This is the most time consuming part of the process, but if you do this, the rewards and the sales will pay off deeply

8. Log in and vote for: Was this review helpful? And click yes per account. This will help your iMix move up the charts.

9. When you make an iMix, don’t only include the chart toppers, but also include what appeals to you as a listener and what the fans of this iMix might actually like.

10. Remember, you are creating a useful contribution to the iTunes community. The key is make iMixes on Mondays because on Tuesdays the new release schedule will kick in and that’s when your iMixes will show up

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Total downloads over the Internet and on cell phones totalled 118 million during the July to September period, down 3 percent compared to the same three months of 2007, while revenues grew 11 percent to ¥22 billion, the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) said. The group collects data from most of Japan’s major music publishers.

Growth was strong in the Internet download portion of the market where downloads jumped 30 percent to 10.6 million and revenue surged 49 percent to ¥2.3 billion. The relatively new music video download market more than doubled in size but was still small at 391,000 downloads.

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Overall a lot has been happening in the music industry in the last few weeks, Radiohead, Madonna (leaving her label and signing with LiveNation), Prince, NIN, etc. The results of these have fueled great discussion about the industry and where it is headed.

Chris mentions it is a big mistake to equate the major labels and their plastic disc business with the industry as a whole, and when you stand back and look at all of music, things dont look so bad.

Stats are as follows:

• Concerts and merchandise: UP (+4%)
• Digital tracks: UP (+46%)
• Ringtones: UP (+86% last year, but probably just single-digit percent this year)
• Licensing for commercials, TV shows, movies and videogames: UP (Warner Music saw licensing grow by about $20 million over the past year)
• Even vinyl singles (think DJs): UP (more than doubled in the UK)
• And, if you include the iPod in the music industry, as I’d argue a fair-minded analysis would: UP, UP, UP! (+31% this year)

Only CDs are down (-18%). They’re around 60% of the industry not including the MP3 players, but just around 25% if you do include them.

So the problem with the music labels is not that music is an industry in decline, but that they have a too-narrow view of what business they’re in. Madonna’s switch from a label to a concert promoter should be a clue.

I am not too sure if I agree with Chris that portable music players should be part of the music industry, but  the remaining facts show the true story.

I see the entire industry moving close together and the majors are slowly losing market share and overall industry dominance. The huge majority of new releases are from the independents and I can see the industry becoming a lot more cut throat thus giving greater opportunities to unsigned and independent bands and labels to make a healthy living without losing huge royalties to the major labels.

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• Radiohead’s Guitarist Shoots the Rainbow With MIDEM – January 19, 2010
• The Changing Face of the Music Industry – A Record Label’s Perspective – January 8, 2010
• Digital Piracy Round 2 – Appropriate Damages – January 7, 2010