“You have no money and you want to promote your tour,” indie rapper and music marketer extraordinaire Kosha Dillz writes, as his kicks off a tour. “Well, chances are that means the venues aren’t paying you much and you are figuring how to get out there and learn more from it! I have a tour happening right now, and now that I am getting paid a little bit more than I used to…lets us figure out a way to do it by writing it down and sharing the wealth. Don’t be lazy. Do it!”
1. Facebook Events
The simple way to promote. Make an event. Invite people. Post in it. Post at it. Tag it. You can invite up to 500 people of your friends to the events. This is inviting and not sharing. If you are not in the town, you can change your personal profile location to the city of the show, and find all your friends in the city.
2.Twitter
Searching in twitter for towns and cool things are quick ways to find active people in the market. Finding people that are active in twitter make it helpful. If you twitter “Oklahoma City” and “hip hop” and “Oklahoma University”, you are gonna find some people. Why not reach out to them? Don’t be so lazy!
Imagine not being the cool guy and following people. If you follow about 100-200 people per city that you are in, this helps a lot. The first thing I do when someone follows me is click on their profile. If I see they are playing a show, why not check out their music. You can find people in locations too, like Tucson at Rialto Theatre or Lawrence Kansas at the Bottleneck. If you follow people here, they are more than likely to come to live music concerts more than once. Now that you are on the road, it’s the time to do it. If you are not on a tour yet, there is no harm in starting the buzz now.
4. Bring someone else who really wants it too
I am tired of going out alone and doing it all by myself. This time I brought my friends @jtlbaby (instagram.com/jtlbaby ) and @devmomusic (instagram.com/devmomusic) . Having people with you builds the squad and the squad is stronger than a solo artist. It helps when you have people that want to be on the tour for the cause because they believe. Devmo has her own fans and so does JTL, so we all bring something to the table for a great tour.
5. Hire some local PR
Other people want to be involved and that is great. For our Columbus gig someone asked me to promote and pay them a bit less than my already guarantee. Just spend things like that to take over local online ads you might have take out. If someone wants to help you, it always helps to let them join the squad.
6. DIY Facebook groups.
These are places where many show goers and artists community people run to when introducing themselves to a community. Say you need local support , and most people are down to play, put up posters, and figure out where for you to stay.
7. Facebook Ads or Personal page posts.
As much posting up a $50 or $100 ad to last for a month. Ask a post to be like “what city do you want to see me in?” or “Tag two friends you want to introduce me to at our upcoming Hang out” These are gonna be the most basic posts but it helps the engagement while cities come in, making the post more visible.
8. Local marketing lists
You don’t have to hire a publicist to do tour PR. You really don’t. You can ask the venue promoter for the “marketing list” which is basically a run down of all local people they work with that cover their acts. It’ll have local radio plus print and blog coverage. Certain towns have more than others but all you have to do is mail them two weeks out and you can land something. Towns like Bend Oregon and Madison Wisconsin might have better success than Los Angeles and New York, but it all depends on your angle.
9. Make sure you bandsintown + events songkick are right.
You have people on every single app. Somebody the other day who randomly bought us two hotel rooms in Atlanta said he found us from a similar band he liked. He saw we were playing and then filmed out show for his new company. Making sure you are listed in all places is perfect. You never know who follows you on one platform or another, and I assure you there is different tastes for everyone across America.
10. Snapchat Location + Instagram location
You should still use your Snap location, because people still use , especially a younger fan abase. When you are promoting the show the day of or maybe a bit in advance, there are ways to haul in locals. A good way to keep up with you is to tweet or Instagram your snap, as fans may follow you there. This will enable you to see who is around you , and you can send a friendly reminder about the show. ” hey bro, you’re right down the street!” These people usually link up with 5. friends or more? If they buy some merch, that is huge too! This also works in similar ways for IG with stories and posts. You can’t see where they currently are, but it def works, especially in smaller cities.
11. Posters and Posters and Posters.
Make sure you club is covered with posters. Can you do that? That would be amazing. Help them out!!
12. Formulate a Street team.
You are gonna have to give out tons of new music and new merch to those who deserve it. Better you give it those who totally deserve it. Whether they are old or young, you gotta hook up the people that connect to you. If you can send 30 posters to people , that is the way to promote a show. But having them talk about you , post about, text about you, will
13. Keep releasing content
You never know what get someone to react to you . Lots of people watch and don’t comment. Lots of people comment and don’t show up to a show. Make sure you keep putting stuff out because something connects that will get them to the show.
Come Say Hello!
There are tons of the ways to promote a tour before it and during it. I am sure I missed tons of things, but I am currently on tour so I wanted to get this out so you can actually come with a group of friends to one of my shows to scream at me and mention how I left out Ticket giveaways.
But if you wanna surprise me, make sure you come to a show on my Nobody Cares Except You Tour.
Oct 16 89th Street Oklahoma City, OK
Oct 17 The Bottleneck Lawrence, KS
Oct 18 Reverb Lounge Omaha, NE
Oct 19 Vaudeville Mews Des Moines, IA
Oct 20 Ruby Madison, WI
Oct 21 Gabe’s Iowa City, IA
Oct 22 Daytrotter Session Davenport, IA
Oct 23 Beat Kitchen Chicago, IL
Oct 24 Rumba Cafe, Columbus, OH
Oct 25 Stamps Bar Buffalo, NY
Oct 27 Stanhope House, Stanhope NJ
Oct 28 Metro Gallery Baltimore, MD
Oct 29 Cafe 9 New Haven , CT
Oct 30 The Low Beat Albany, NY
Oct 31 VFW Essex, VT
Nov 1 Arlene’s Grocery New York, NY
Nov 2 Kaleidoscope Lancaster PA
Nov 3 The Smiling Moose Pittsburgh, PA
Nov 4 Northside Yacht Club Cincinatti, OH
Nov 6 Irving Theatre Indianapolis, IN
Nov 8 Fubar St Louis, MO
Nov 10 Sonic Blossom @ Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom Denver, CO
Nov 11 Kilby Court Salt Lake City, UT
Nov 12 Beauty Bar Las Vegas, NV
Kosha Dillz is an indie rapper who contributes article to Hypebot and occasionally writes for Billboard and Variety. He performed on the last ever Vans Warped Tour and currently has 24 shows left on the Nobody Cares Except You tour. Follow his dates on bandsintown and watch his journeys on his Instagram. If you’d like to reach out about coming to a show, contact rapperfriends@gmail.com. Merch is here