Rap artists today have a wide range of possibilities in promoting
themselves, especially online. But that means you must compete with
other rappers to gain an online presence. There are four key steps
in online marketing to gain a successful start with promoting your
music on the internet.
Submit to Directories
1. The
first step is to submit. Submit to directories, online radios, and online magazines – anywhere that plays or features rap and
hip-hop music. The more places that play your track, the more
people will hear and recognize your music. Thousands of people
listen to free online radios daily and most of these stations allow
artists to submit their music to them. Similarly, directories
permit you to add your website with a brief description, which is
then added to the directory site. An even better idea is to make a
friend submit your site or music for you so you are not always
pushing your own music.
You
must be careful when submitting to sites, however, because search
directories like Google will downgrade you if your incoming links
look unnatural. This means that when someone performs a search for
your site, it will not show up in the top search results because the
search engine is punishing you. Try submitting your site or music
to a couple sites weekly with various anchor texts. For
example, the words “an
awesome rap blog” are the anchor text to the link
www.eastcoatcriticsarebiased.blogspot.com. Also, do not always
submit your site with a link pointing to your homepage. Sometimes
submit your site with a link to the secondary page of your website
to make the links seem more natural.
Give Away Music
2.
Secondly, offer your music at no cost. With the
plethora of options available to users to download free MP3s, strictly
offering your music for purchase hurts your online status. When a
listener gets your MP3 for free, he or she has a greater possibility of
returning to your site to hear more music by you if they liked what
they heard. Only after listening and liking your music will they
purchase your album. You have to be sure not to give away too much
music, though, because the listener will have no reason to purchase
your album if they can find everything for free.
Adding a podcast or MP3 to your sites also allows users to hear your
music without paying anything for it. The hardest part in adding
music to the site, however, is the recording, so start by focusing on
a quality recording of your music. To add music to the site:
a. Find
a computer with audio input capability and an easy to use audio
encoding application. This is easy if your music is on CD, just rip
it with iTunes or a similar application. If it is in some other
analog or digital (mini-disc) format, it gets a little harder, but
applications are freely out there.
b. Then
with MP3 file in hand, you can upload the file to your web site and
link like you would link a web page or other media/image file.
c. From
there, there are more complicated ways of doing it so it is more
"presentable" with a nice embedded player, etc.
Make Business Friends
3.
The third step is to build professional online
relationships to boost your online presence. You know a lot about rap
music, so comment on it. Look up blogs related to rap music and add meaningful comments to help
others reading the blogs. Most of the time the comment box asks for
your URL, which is a great way to promote your own website or blog
while helping others by posting comments.
Blogger ethics state if one blogger comments or links to another’s
site, the other blogger will comment or link back. This is a great
way to build an online relationship and promote one another’s music.
An additional option, besides just commenting on their blogs, is to
help them out somehow. When you find online rap radio stations to
submit your music to, compile a list and send the list to them. They
will in return promote your music to thank you for your help.
Besides commenting on blogs, creating a blog can prove very beneficial
in online rap and hip-hop music marketing, too.
Utilize
Social Networks
4.
Connect yourself to tons of different social networking
sites. YouTube, Yahoo Video, and Google Video allow you to post
different videos onto the site at no cost, like the Soulja Boy video that was very inexpensive and still receives
views daily. Post all your music videos and add links to your website
to these videos.
MyBlogLog allows users to share different sites and build a
community based on various interests. You can also add your site to
your profile and view who else has your site as their favorite.
Although just over a year old, MyBlogLog is quickly gaining
popularity, which presents a great way establish yourself early in the
community. Similarly, Ning allows you to create a social network for any topic.
Joining and commenting on various rap music networks and creating your
own network for group provides the best methods to get the most out of
Ning.
Finally, joining the additional social network sites like LinkedIn,
Facebook and MySpace are all necessary in promoting yourself. Finding
friends and friends of friends can boost you music and be helpful in
additional ways. Network as often as possible both online and
offline.
These three simple steps provide a great way to start
promoting your music online. Remember to submit, give away and
comment. Online marketing is a continuous process you must constantly
work on, but it pays off in the end.
