You may disagree, let's talk about it

Trek NB

Trek NB

New member
Hey everyone,

I recently had a conversation with a pal of mine on music promotion and marketing,, we agreed to disagree on the subject, his take was pro-internet oriented.. me, having dealt with promoting my music and streetwear line for a year on the side,,

I had a much more pessimistic take on the whole thing.. anyway, the convo sparked the following post on why I stopped using social media and internet in the first place to promote myself: Why I Stopped Using Social Media, Switched To Limited Products & Won't Suck A Socialite D*ck - TREK'S WORD

In the near future I'd like to go in details of some of the marketing solutions I tried, some of which gave OK results, others who tanked miserably,, so keep in touch..

Peace
 
I'm on your friends side, I think the internet is amazing at promotion, you just need to be good at what you do or otherwise you will get no where. I understand why you think the internet is useless though, they are all very fair points, but what are the alternative promotion strategy's you would use? Even though you think it isn't effective, there's no point just ditching it all together because you will be bound to make a couple of REAL followers every now and then who you can then update on the new content you are producing which will retain their interest in you. That's my opinion for you.
 
Psalm said:
I'm on your friends side, I think the internet is amazing at promotion, you just need to be good at what you do or otherwise you will get no where. I understand why you think the internet is useless though, they are all very fair points, but what are the alternative promotion strategy's you would use? Even though you think it isn't effective, there's no point just ditching it all together because you will be bound to make a couple of REAL followers every now and then who you can then update on the new content you are producing which will retain their interest in you. That's my opinion for you.
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I appreciate your input. I will be posting about what I've been testing so far as regards internet marketing and the things that I've found out.

At the moment I'm focusing on offline advertising, trying to get a hang of it. I'm convinced that there's a lot of benefits to be reaped from going old school in your marketing efforts. I will be documenting what results I get with that too.

What have been your experience of social media and internet promotion?
 
I get your point, but does keeping up means that one should simply jump on every new waves? My gut feeling is that unless you're an early adopter you're bound to get stomped out of the competition either way. When social media isn't that fresh anymore and everybody catches up with it, the appeal just disappears. I love the Internet, I just don't see it as a Wild West anymore.
 
Trek NB said:
I appreciate your input. I will be posting about what I've been testing so far as regards internet marketing and the things that I've found out.

At the moment I'm focusing on offline advertising, trying to get a hang of it. I'm convinced that there's a lot of benefits to be reaped from going old school in your marketing efforts. I will be documenting what results I get with that too.

What have been your experience of social media and internet promotion?
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To be 100% honest with you, I haven't tried to harness the full potential of the internet for promotion as of yet, but I definitely intend to. The main reasons are because I only have a couple years under my belt as a producer and I'm really lazy too lol.

My previous comment may seem irrelevant to you now but it shouldn't, I have seen other producer's/artist's followers and overall success rise heaps once they start actively promoting themselves through twitter and the like. Youtube is the biggest one though, the people who interact with their audience and talk to the camera, do give aways and competitions etc. gain huge subscribers real quick! I eventually plan to do that once I get a camera and gain the confidence to actually do it.

I only have a soundcloud and twitter, I have had soundcloud for a year or so now and only really recently got twitter but through the Soundcloud account I have worked with a lot of people and am getting some positive feedback and reposts and I really havent done anything to produce any traffic to my page other than by 'liking' and commenting on a few songs (songs that I actually like, not just liking every song I see so people will come to my page).

It's not very impressive but without it, the only person who would have heard my music would have been two of my friends who are (very mildly into hip hop). I live in a relatively small town in Australia where hip hop is not very popular at all.

I appreciate you actually having a discussion about this instead of just attacking people for disagreeing with you.
 
Psalm said:
To be 100% honest with you, I haven't tried to harness the full potential of the internet for promotion as of yet, but I definitely intend to. The main reasons are because I only have a couple years under my belt as a producer and I'm really lazy too lol.

My previous comment may seem irrelevant to you now but it shouldn't, I have seen other producer's/artist's followers and overall success rise heaps once they start actively promoting themselves through twitter and the like. Youtube is the biggest one though, the people who interact with their audience and talk to the camera, do give aways and competitions etc. gain huge subscribers real quick! I eventually plan to do that once I get a camera and gain the confidence to actually do it.

I only have a soundcloud and twitter, I have had soundcloud for a year or so now and only really recently got twitter but through the Soundcloud account I have worked with a lot of people and am getting some positive feedback and reposts and I really havent done anything to produce any traffic to my page other than by 'liking' and commenting on a few songs (songs that I actually like, not just liking every song I see so people will come to my page).

It's not very impressive but without it, the only person who would have heard my music would have been two of my friends who are (very mildly into hip hop). I live in a relatively small town in Australia where hip hop is not very popular at all.

I appreciate you actually having a discussion about this instead of just attacking people for disagreeing with you.
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No doubt. I don't get the people who can argue politely. The only reason why I'm doing what I'm doing is to actually find a fool-proof, iron-clad marketing strategy that works no matter who tries it.. something everybody can benefit from. Unlike others, I don't claim to have found it yet.

I hear what you say about YouTube. I follow myself some impressive people I might never have heard about. What scares me about Google/Youtube right now is that it seems that they wanna cut out all independent artists from what I've read in a Forbes article.. it has to do with all the ****ing deals they did with majors that don't want their music uploaded by normal users.. I don't know if it means that you and I won't be able to post videos or if it only refers to independent artists with a following (i.e Immortal Techniques, JMT and these kind of guys) but it sounds just as awful and disgusting as othe social media like Facebook did with their pages (when they started forcing you to pay to show you content to your OWN fans), Twitter when they introduced promoted tweets and Instagram when they started banning hashtags and so on.. I really hate that shit, that's why I'm skeptical of social media,, these ***** have no idea of what freedom truly is..

I'm planning too to start uploading videos, I'm studying the successful people, trying to see what's their formula and come up with one of my own.. but as always, for every beatmaker with 200K followers there are thousands with 5,, and you don't know what it depends on, sometimes some cats are extremely talented and STILL have like 200 views on 4 years old videos, while pretty average muther****ers have 900K+ views on the one they posted a week ago, I still have to figure out what the **** is that about
 
Yeah that whole thing with Youtube is scary and I can't find a definite answer as to whether they are just banning independent artists like Immortal technique and all that or whether it's more underground artists as well. People will find a way around that though I think, whether that's moving over to vimeo or a similar site.

With the youtube popularity I think most of it stems down to whether or not the person is interacting with the audience the best, like talking to the camera and replying to peoples comments etc. I think people prefer watching a half decent producer talk about the beat he is making and entertain the audience a little rather than watching a really good producer just make his beat without saying anything. I definitely prefer that anyway.
 
Psalm said:
Yeah that whole thing with Youtube is scary and I can't find a definite answer as to whether they are just banning independent artists like Immortal technique and all that or whether it's more underground artists as well. People will find a way around that though I think, whether that's moving over to vimeo or a similar site.

With the youtube popularity I think most of it stems down to whether or not the person is interacting with the audience the best, like talking to the camera and replying to peoples comments etc. I think people prefer watching a half decent producer talk about the beat he is making and entertain the audience a little rather than watching a really good producer just make his beat without saying anything. I definitely prefer that anyway.
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Yeah, absolutely. I like to see who the guy is and getting to know him,, I personally don't have that style, as I don't like to be that visible,, but it's a matter of personality.

I like Vimeo a lot actually, as a visitor though, they good thing about vimeo is that it forces you to have your own content, you can't just do shitty video with pictures or other people's footage.. which is both good and bad, I mean not everybody has a budget to do a street video or a good video, but at the same time, it's nice to have a platform with the best of the best of video creativity where no shit is allowed.. they lack the connectivity of youtube but they make up with the quality of the content.. I really don't know where we go from here as regards promotion.

But even youtube didn't create as many careers as many think,, I haven't seen so many get launched into stardom because of a couple of videos ALONE,, there's always some other moves behind the scenes that are not accounted for
 
This has happened with every industry the internet is useful for. For a long time my primary source of income was as a social media consultant, just not in music. Social media is still probably the most powerful way to get business, but it's evolved into a place where the game is a profession in itself. What it all comes down to is that back in the day, you were actually taking part in the creation of the marketplace. Your competition was a handful of other producers, but these days people like me dedicate 100% of their time just to have the skills to compete.

So social media is far from dead, but you can't think it's going to be an easy way to get into the game with no budget other than your time. If you already have some cash flow, paying a professional will go a long way, but doing it yourself isn't going to pay off enough to eventually pay someone. I totally agree with the main points here in the context of someone doing everything on their own.
 
You can't sleep on social media. You can't sleep on street promotion either. If anything, they complement each other.

Diplo says his label exists on the internet and look at his success. I've seen many "internet producers" making pretty big moves, and some living in huge houses just from offering great products on the INTERNET! Don't sleep on the internet, friend. Don't sleep on street promotion either as they say the best form of promotion is word of mouth
 
To go back on the discussion a lil bit.

It's a 50/50 for me. The internet can begin to seem pretty 'weak' when using it as a tool as it becomes saturated! All the spots you deem as 'optimal' to share and promote music...you've got a million guys right behind you, using the same platforms....you end up sharing music to other people who are tryna share their music (and the cycle continues)

I dunno man. Negatives and positives to the different approaches.

Of recent, I've found 'offline promotion' to be most effective.
 
Trek NB said:
The only reason why I'm doing what I'm doing is to actually find a fool-proof, iron-clad marketing strategy that works no matter who tries it.. something everybody can benefit from. Unlike others, I don't claim to have found it yet.
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First of all, there's no such thing as a fool-proof, icon-clad marketing strategy. There are just strategies that work for one business and others that wouldn't for that same business. Try applying Googles marketing strategy to Yahoo... They wouldn't get the same results.

If you find a strategy that works for you, don't assume it will work for your readers. People are lazy nowadays so they'll come to you for answers to save time. It's all about experimentation. There are proven strategies, but they won't necessarily work for you even if you are in the same industry.

Secondly, it's interesting to see that you are using the internet to promote your blog but not your music. In effect, you ARE promoting your music on the internet through cross promotion (You have a music page and your blog on the same website). You'll find people who read your posts will then skip over to your music on occasion. The problem with it is, is that the market you want to promote to (producers/musicians)? Your a producer, so not necessarily.

Anyway, I'm in the process of developing strategies for the artists on my record label. They all have different values, and therefore different strategies. Like everyone has said, it's about utilising the tools available to you. It's also about the way you utilise them. Two of the guys on my roster don't want people to know their identity so why would they do videos on You Tube? Whereas, if you're a popular figure in high school who's doing production, sharing your views on You Tube may be a good step for you in your promotional efforts to expand your fan base.

In addition, I'm also developing a blog on my record label about general market promotion, and tools for musicians. Excuse the plug though, maybe you'll be interested in reading Trek.
 
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the best strategy is to connect with ppl make real relationships with the go beyond the internet
 
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