A mixtape is not just a compilation of songs that you've recorded from various inspirational sources, but it has huge influential releases that creates hype and disseminates the word about your music and passion as an artist. But not knowing how to get your mixtape heard just makes it stay where it is often stored—your music folder. Fortunately for you, if you're on a journey of promoting your music online, it's a good thing that your wandering has led you here, the six brilliant ways you can invest your time to when promoting your mixtape/music.
Mixtapes become a musicians way to showcase their talent and a strong envisioned mixtape can create a numerous opportunities and open doors for an artist.
The music industry is drenched with unknown musicians and artists because, with the current age where we reach billions of people online, many artists have made strong efforts to market and promote their music through various platforms like social media networks. But, failed to reach the right market for their music.
You've put in all your efforts in creating that one perfect mixtape and you are so excited to share it to the world but you don't know where to put it and how to reach people who would actually want it, thus putting all your efforts in vain.
That's why I've created a list for you to make sure you get your mixtapes out there and reach people who'd actually listen and appreciate it.
Building a website
Of course, you need a place to put up your mixtapes and the perfect platform for you is your very own customized website. This is the perfect venue for your mixtape to reach your audience and potential customers as well.
Why it's perfect?
Your website will not only act as your sales representative but also as your intermediary in reaching new fans and customers for your mixtapes.
By installing WordPress or any blogger platform, you'll be able to create that amazing website that you'll be using in promoting and selling your mixtape. You may opt to buy your own domain for about 30 bucks a year.
Setting up your own website through WordPress is simple and you can do it by yourself. Even if you've just started and you have no idea how to set up a website, with WordPress you can just send your email and you can start your blog right away.
Build a Professional Site with Simple and Responsive Themes
@ mythemeshop
Once you've created your website through WordPress, add a theme to make it more compelling. There are numerous free themes available that you can choose from but if you want your website to be more unique, set aside a little budget to buy a premium theme.
Once you've decided to buy a premium theme, you can go directly to the theme shop, and they'll tell you exactly how to set up your theme on your site. You'll just ask to signup, provide your email and that's it. You don't have to do the coding yourself because you will just be copying the codes that the theme shop has provided to you.
Though opting for a premium theme can cost you a few bucks but it provides you more choices on to what theme you're going for with your website and since your selling your mixtapes through your website, a premium theme can very much help you in doing so.
Using a premium theme can give you some advantages and additional features in your website that could really come in handy like it provides all the buttons you need, unlike the free one that gives you just a few options for your button.
Advertising On Rap Blogs
Finally, you've already set up your very own website through WordPress, now what?
what's next?
You don't just set up your website and sell your mixtapes right away because you need to let people know that your website exists. That's why you have to advertise. You can pay for Ads, that's the simplest way to get your website out there.
You can also advertise on rap blogs.
Gather all the information you need to know what rap blog will suit you. And also to know if that rap blog is legit and could really help you promote your mixtape.
As the saying goes:
Ignorance excuses no one.
Te same goes on choosing the rap blog to promote your website and your mixtapes. You have to do your research and seek an experts advice.
Otherwise, you won't just be wasting your money and time but more of your efforts as well. So choose the right rap blog with the right traffic and the perfect reach for your mixtapes.
A tool that can help you to do that is a site called Semrush.
You can open semrush.com and test websites to see their ranking and the organic traffic that they're actually getting on a daily basis. How awesome is that!
Semrush will provide analytics like traffic sources on websites you want to test. It will help you decide on what rap blog will you choose to promote your mixtape and to make sure that you'll be paying with great results because having a great-looking website doesn't always mean it has great traffic as well that's why testing it out is a must.
Another way to advertise your mixtape is through tweet promos by popular hip-hop blogs or rap blogs.
Another tool that can assist you in deciding on which rap blogs or hip-hop blogs to get to promote your mixtape is twitteraudit. A Twitteraudit will check the social metrics of a website like what kind of followers it has, are these followers legit or are they just fake followers.
A Twitter audit will give you an idea how many is a website's real and fake followers which is really great because this will be a huge factor in deciding which rap blog or hip hop blog to ask to promote your mixtape.
You want your mixtapes to be heard so you need real people and followers to target. So choosing a legit rap blog or hip hop blog will serve the purpose of advertising through them. By reaching the right audience with the right hip hop blog and rap blog, you will be able to get your mixtapes be heard.
Creating Content Around The Mixtape Release
Now that you already have a platform to sell your mixtape which is your personal website and you've already advertised your website.
Next step is to schedule the release of your mixtape or when will you put it up on your website.
It's not just about scheduling it. To make sure people know that you create and sell mixtapes on your website, you need to create a buzz so your audience will look forward to it.
Most musicians create a team to do these things for them and also to make the process faster.
Choose a song for example and by creating content around this certain song, you will be promoting your mixtape through various platforms.
As an artist, you can film videos, share some pictures and behind the scenes or even do reviews about this one song before releasing your mixtape.
Write blogs about that one song like where you got inspiration from or the step-by-step process of creating that certain song. Just basically getting people more interested in that one song and for them to have something to talk about.
Basically, the idea is creating various content around one specific beat/music.
You can actually do a lot of things before releasing your mixtape to the public. You can even give your audience snippets of it. Another strategy you can do aside from doing an interview with a producer, you can also put snippets on SoundCloud, talk about it on podcasts or put your song for free and they can download it immediately.
Try a chrome plugin called Social Unlocker where you can put that song for free download once they follow you on twitter or subscribe to your website. Make videos about how you wrote and promote your mixtapes on youtube for example and create links to your website.
By developing this few strategies in promoting your mixtape, you will not only reach people and get your music to be heard but it will build your brand as an artist and will capture the right audience who will become your customers as well.
Mixtape Promotion On Fiverr
Fiverr is the world's largest online marketplace for freelance services, beginning at a humble price of $5 per job performed, from which it gets its name.
Hire someone to look for hip-hop blogs and connect with them. Ask for the name of the site, be suspicious when the name isn't provided. Do your research first and find out what they can offer. Do they have good promotion strategy or where they get their traffic from?
It is always a great way to outsource people to help you promote your mixtape because they can take care of those tasks that you're not familiar with or tasks that would take so much time for you to do by yourself.
For instance when you have to send intentions for tweet promos from popular hip-hop blogs and rap blogs to promote your mixtape but some hip-hop blogs and rap blogs wouldn't find your music or mixtape to be that great for them to promote or they entirely just don't like it.
As a musician or an artist, you'd easily get hurt with negative comments about your mixtape because you've worked hard and you've created that mixtape with passion and commitment and you just can't take other people being rude and straightforward with how they feel about it. HAHA.
That's why hiring other people to do it and taking care of it is a good idea so to keep the optimism going in you.
Though, this could work it doesn't always guarantee you great results and other artists have definitely proven this.
You can create the best mixtape that nobody has heard of and you might be able to hire the most hardworking freelancer from Fiverr to help you promote your mixtape but sometimes the stars just don't align.
Other factors will just affect the process but positively speaking, using Fiverr can also be effective ones you've made sure that you've requested you're specific needs in finding the right person for the job.
Also, make sure to specify a realistic time frame for them to be able to finish the job. Go after someone who has high ratings and good reviews so you're assured that this person can deliver and give you the best service in helping you promote your mixtape.
List of rap blogs to submit music to
Do check a cheat sheet on the list of rap blogs where you can submit your mixtapes. This list is definitely your ultimate guide to connecting with your ideal rap blogs where you want to promote and submit your mixtape.
There are also blog posts available that is linked there for you to figure out how to approach the rap blogs on the list.
It is always a courteous way to follow rules and guidelines of those certain rap blogs to build a strong foundation for your future business relationship with them.
This cheat sheet is not only a list of over 700 rap blogs that you can use to promote your mixtape online but it also has a detailed information about each of the rap blogs on the list.
It's very convenient and saves you a lot of time doing individual research on which rap blogs to approach and submit your mixtape.
You can also edit this list if you want to update it and to be in accordance with the kind of marketing that you need in promoting your mixtape through a spreadsheet.
Leveraging Popular Rap Music
Another tool you can use to help you promote your mixtape is a game-changing tool for online marketing called Sniply. Basically, this tool allows you to add your custom call-to-action to any page on the web, letting you engage to your followers through every link you share.
For instance, you can attach a button page that links to your own website so that people can see you while they read. Anyone clicking on your links will see the content along with your call-to-action inside. Now, to make you more organize and see conversations easily while making high personal connections online, you can use another chrome app called HootSuite.
Add your call-to-action on any page
Share links and drive conversions
Monitor engagements and track results
With HootSuite, you can change your Sniply link automatically and auto schedules your messages, engage with your audience and lets you to conveniently manage your social networks like Twitter for example.
By integrating Sniply with HootSuite, you can use Hootsuite just as you usually would, while sharing Sniply links rather than those simple, old, dull links. Once you've installed one of the Sniply extensions you'll be able to see Sniply embedded straight into the sharing option.
With Autosnip feature, it will immediately Snip any specific links you share using Hootsuite. It's amazing how this feature can let you count up Sniply messages to all your Hootsuite content without even going back to return to Sniply all the time!
A great example would be sharing interesting content using Sniply. Like for instance, a popular and trending post about an artist like Drake having an interview. People interested with Drake and his followers will be drawn to this interesting news and will click on the link. You can add your promotion at the bottom as well so that people clicking the link will discover you also.
You can schedule snips and let it pop every 20 minutes or anytime you desire. You save time doing these things repeatedly and allows you to be more productive with other marketing strategies you need to do to promote your mixtapes.
To wrap it up
There are tons of ways to reach a wider range of audience for your mixtapes and to be able to promote your mixtapes. There's advertising, publicity and even paying influencers. It all depends on you and where your budget can take you. Use this tips and incorporate them into your current marketing strategies and you will definitely be closer to getting your mixtapes out there.
Every musician or artists wants their mixtape to be heard and there's isn't a way to make a living out of it if no one's listening right? Now, it's not enough to just put your mixtape out there and just upload it to different social media sites. Well, it could work but stop believing that your mixtape is so good that it'll be trending immediately and will go viral organically because let's face it, it happens rarely.
Instead, take every opportunity to promote your music or you can even make opportunities as well by incorporating these tips and ideas for you to promote your mixtape. Take advantage of free networks and spread your mixtape through avenues like social media networks. If you are struggling with music marketing click this link to read our monster music promotion guide.
Be it sharing or selling your mixtapes online, always remember that success doesn't come easy and is not driven by mere luck. You need to work hard and with strong determination, you will be able to reach your goals and attract future customers of your mixtapes.
