Music videos require a lot time and often money to produce, so it’s a shame if no one ends up seeing them. In this piece, rapper Kosha Dillz outlines eleven different methods for promoting a music video to ensure that as many fans (or potential fans) see it as possible.
______________________
Guest post by rapper Kosha Dillz
Hey guys. Music videos are everything We invest thousands of dollars in them. We put entire days and weeks into prepping the video. We show up with models and movie sets and hire tons of people and directors and editors and special effects and boom…
How you get people to keep on clicking and clicking and clicking and clicking (insert pee-wee herman voice from big adventure for knitting and knitting and knitting)
I made a list of things to do when your video comes out, that way you can have the ultimate push when you hit the internet.-]
1. Schedule a premier with a website.
This builds hype around the actual video. Now if no one knows you, you can premier it on your own site. If you don’t know anyone, try a local site or the town you’re in. ie. If you have an epic LA video, try LA Weekly. In NYC maybe the village voice or denver. I used Culture Collide to premier my music video for Half a World Away. It def helped build up the prestige of the video 🙂
2. Have a list of 50 friends to contact. Not “contacts” but “friends”
When I mean contact, I mean there is no stigma of them helping you out. The worst is when a video has epic proportions but no interaction. Youtube is the biggest site in the world. If you aren’t being talked about, what is there to talk about? THese friends must all hit the “like” button. They must all hit the like button and write a comment!! this keeps those other people who come across excited to engage.
3. Press Release
We need a press release to build hype. around your video. make it awesome. Make it hype. Make people want to read more. IE. SUPA HOT FIRE VIDEO – CLICK HERE. No don’t write that. MC jon and flying kickbacks premier spaghetti western video for “future is now” + announce US tour dates
4. Text Hustle
The text hustle is real! You can show people your mass blast on the phone. Most people are always on the phone. Let people know you can shoot it to them. A friend named Thurzday will always shoot me a text with the new video. I always appreciate it, and I know i can go back into my text to see the new video.
MORE: Kosha Dillz Hits 6 Billboard Charts – 100% Indie, 100% D.I.Y.
5. Personal emails
Personal emails take 1 to 2 minutes if focused, and it guarantees to know that someone sees your email. Well it doesn’t guarantee, but being personal works everywhere in the world, from real life dating to customer retention to emails.
6. Do research on current acts receiving press
Sometimes when I am looking to find new website to cover my videos, I look up friends who are receiving press. So this way I can reach out and say hey with at least a reference and it isn’t a blind pitch. Just imagine blind pitches…the chance of them hitting are that of a blind person…pitching.
7. Be active on YouTube
We stay so active on instagram and Facebook and twitter but what about youtube? Ultimately, our mind doesn’t think it is as cool to be on youtube, but landing yourself to be visible on youtube is for sure. Be interactive and authentic on comment boards of similar videos. It leaves the opportunity for someone to click on your page. You can do this naturally by commenting and liking other videos of your friends and similar homies in music.
8. Never stop sending your video to people
This is imperative. If your video is good. If your video is great…no reason to never stop sending it. The video will get shared more and more and more the longer time goes on and people will watch it again and again. It doesn’t matter if they are popular or not when sending it, but ideally in the world of internet, it can only take one click to make a video big.
9. Facebook Ads vs VIROOL
Don’t be alarmed for all different ways to upload your video. You can have your video on Facebook which counts views per 3 seconds of page time vs youtube (which will have way less than that) but tagging back n forth can encourage people to click more on your material. Virool is strict marketing per click on youtube and I have used it before. It makes the views go up in genuine fashion, but massive results mean you need lots of $$ to throw in the pot. Facebook ads give you direct views on what is happening and how many clicks per $$ spent.
10. Service to Radio and Press contact blasts.
It has been in my experience that using blast services to videos will always help you in long run. Let us try using things like this. Submit-Hub is one created for Hypem blogs. istillloveher.de blasts to mainly european and american hip hop blogs. THere are also sites like real rap promo and others that service your music for as low as $50. For a few blog pick ups in your future endeavor of being on the best ones, this is a start to helping spread the music like wildfire
11. Re-upload to Facebook
Don’t be afraid to re-upload to Facebook. People forget about you. People don’t remember. They are happy to see new life. Not everyone knows that Facebook numbers aren’t like youtube numbers. It will encourage people to travel back to your youtube and see new stuff.
Is your video done? Has it been out for a while and you haven’t’ gotten the numbers?? It is ok. You have the rest of your life to show people. With that being said, my TeDX talk just came out and my music video with Matisyahu is at about 35k, and my Hangin’ Out video is at about 65 k. Let us keep on keeping on fellas. Enjoy my birthday weekend! you deserve it 🙂
Kosha Dillz is rapper and hustler. He believes that if you give up you probably sucked and if you haven’t given up yet you are on your way to never giving up ever. He believes that music is a full body career; spiritual , physical , and mental. His birthday is August 26. His album WIDADAP just hit Billboard charts and His Ted Talk Called “Freestyle Rap Saved My life” is out now. Email him at rapperfriends@gmail.com and check out his merch or website