Whether you’re an upcoming independent hip-hop artists just starting out or an indie veteran who has been grinding it out for years, you’ll find that the hurdles that stand in your way are usually the same – getting seen and heard by the people.
As we’ve written before about why independent artists need promotion and marketing for their music, it’s one thing to have quality product but if no-one’s listening, how do you move you career forward?
As an independent hip-hop artist, not only do you have to worry about making the dopest music possible, you also have to handle the promo and marketing side of the business – getting your music to your target audience.
You need to be able to actually get yourself spotted in the first place, and with nobody there to do it for you, it becomes incredibly important that you know how to get things up and running yourself.
However, the first thing that you need to think about is how you actually intend to promote yourself – there are many ways to do it, granted, but do you know the best ways to go about doing it?
With so much choice out there it can be hard to know the best path to go down. It’s also easy to get into something you don’t know what you are dealing with and end up causing yourself a lot of problems down the line; it can leave you chasing your tail a little bit and costing yourself valuable time and money!
If you aren’t sure on where to start with promoting yourself, we recommend that you look into the following online methods for promoting yourself. So let’s get into it, here are 5 easy ways independent hip-hop artists can promote themselves online.
Independent artists: learn how to build a fanbase and make money from your music.
Start up a blog
This is without a doubt the most effective way of getting yourself started as we’ve discussed in our article – Why Independent Hip-Hop Artists Need To Have Their Own Website.
Are you able to verbalize a bit and put your rhetoric into articles? Then you should do it. Talk about important issues and don’t hang back – trying to make a point in your music? Then talk about it here, man!
This can be the perfect way to boost you as a recognizable artist and someone worth listening to. On the upside, if you make some well-reasoned arguments and actually talk with the passion and authority needed to get people talking and sharing, you can promote yourself in a very powerful manner using this trick.
It’s a hugely useful way of getting yourself the kind of positive traction that’s needed to be heard and get people listening to your tracks as well.
Guest blog on relevant websites
Following on from above, guest blogging on hip-hop blogs is a very useful way to get you heard of. A little bit of discussion in the same name as the above about something you can relate to your tunes – and indeed just things you care about and know that others do – can be the best way to get people on your side and listening to your cause.
The worlds a messed up place so it can’t be hard to find something inside you that stirs you and makes you struggle to sleep at night.
Instead of trying to fit it all into your tracks, write up some (professional and articulate) pieces and have them guest blogged and hosted on your own blogging platform, too. This makes it easy for people to remember you as the passionate person rather than just the artist with a few tunes and no personality!
Get on Twitter
Twitter might seem like the home of inane arguments and celebrity death threats, but away from the furiously jealous mainstream rhetoric you’ve got the rather healthy dynamic of what Twitter allows; it allows connection.
We wrote in the past about 6 Ways Independent Hip-Hop Artists Can Use Twitter To Promote Their Music, but the best way to do this is to actually start engaging with people. Someone poses you a tough question or makes you have to answer something you never expected? Well, it might just be the kind of interaction that gets you remembered.
In the modern world where most people see celebrities, artists and sports stars etc. as soulless animals, it can be a good way to get yourself spotted simply answering some questions and appearing to be a bit more human than the rest of your competition. Humility and answering questions really can go a long, long way in music.
It’s all about being able to make the right impression in a lot of ways on the web, and this can make it much easier for you to actually do that – you just need to know the right way of going about it and giving yourself a better chance.
Post YouTube videos
Lots of artists are conflicted about this but why not use what is one of the most powerful media systems on the planet? There are billions of views per day so missing out on it is just crazy, in our opinion. You should really look into getting some YouTube videos up – and not just of your music.
Of your opinions, of things that relate to the music, and anything that you believe ties in with your market and the people that you are actually trying to release music to and for. This makes a big difference in adding to a very important quality in an artist – authenticity.
If you aren’t as authentic as you should be it’s hard to get spotted and get yourself noticed above the noise and the other “next contestants” waiting out there for you.
As an independent artist you will be dealing with a lot of unique things that you feel are important to you – so use that energy and passion as the basis for your videos.
It’s a great way to get people interacting and talking about you, sharing your videos, and discussing what your platform was all about and what you were saying.
Best of all, though? It opens up the gates for you to get involved with being promoted in the most powerful way; organically. They’ll want to know who the hell just told them that big quote and who had those fresh ideas, and a link to your music is the perfect hook.
Independent artists: learn how to build a fanbase and make money from your music.
