Marketing Hip-Hop Online

As seen on Craigslist (NYC):

HIP HOP WEBSITE/BLOG MANGR NEEDED (Midtown)

Good Day,

Popular Website That Has a strong presence in the hip hop community is looking for someone to come in & help establish the corporate aspect of things to the website.

We I say help establish corporate aspect, I mean get clients for advertising on the site, do follow ups, close the deals etc.. Help form structure for the organization,

We had to strike while the iron is hot. And now is the time. Our alexa/quantcast numbers are strong. And now it’s time to profit. It’s A Hip Hop Community website with over 50, 000 members.

This is a commission based job.

Please Just don’t send resumes. Please Tell us something unique and different about you. And why you’d be perfect for this opportunity?
Also please send your myspace,facebook pages etc.. you must be knowledgeable of social networks as well

**PLEASE INCLUDE EVERYTHING, WE ASKED, IF YOU CAN’T FOLLOW DIRECTIONS. THIS OPPORTUNITY IS NOT FOR YOU**

Hmm.

Well, it’s a badly written ad, so a bad first impression. I’m not sure that the kind of talent they need will be willing to come work for what appears to be an amateurish site, and for “commission only” on top of that.

Several issues.

But I understand, start-ups and such, no capital to invest in talent, etc. Ok, but…

You represent a blog, an online PUBLICATION! I’m sorry to be so blunt, but the writing in this posting is horrendous! Is anyone who is remotely talented or ambitious enough to want to try a commission-only sales job, taking you seriously, based on that posting?

Advice: Look, even if someone does respond, in order to attract top talent, your company must represent itself better. If this post in any way represents the company, or the content, would anyone looking think you had a product worth trying to sell ads for? Maybe you do, I can’t fully call it unless I know the site we’re talking about, but if you want someone who can attract and close deals, function competently in the social media space, all of this for commission, good luck. It sounds like you are underestimating what it means to succeed in such a saturated and competitive online media world. If major media entities can’t get it right, what makes you think you’ll find a savior for commission-only, who will only be able to work on social media endeavors while selling and closing deals?

It’s clear that you do need some corporate up in there, but I just seriously wonder what kind of talent you will attract with that ad.

I love a hip-hop underdog, but guys, your posting just screams “we have no money, and maybe a crappy product.” Which again, may not be the case. 50,000 members is not too shabby a number! But remember, presentation, representation of your brand, at all times, even when posting anonymously, is a Commandment. And to attract someone who might be respectable enough to make things happen for you, you could stand to look a little more respectable yourselves.

But that’s ok. You admit you need some help. That’s cool. But then being a little salty with the “follow directions” comment, really isn’t necessary. Anyone worthwhile who was to come in and bring a little “corporate” up in that piece, really shouldn’t be taking directions from you in the first place.

I mean correct me if I am wrong. You’re asking for a business development, sales, social media maven, to help establish the corporate structure you are lacking, to do it for free commission, and to be ready to only follow your direction.

Personally, I’d require base salary or project based-compensation, as well as creative control, to perform any of the tasks you are asking for, as I am a professional who gets paid to do such things. So I’ll pass on replying to this opportunity, but I wish nothing but the best to you and your endeavors, and anyone who does join your movement.

Your organization could probably benefit highly from a successful corporate mangr like myself, but as it stands, since I totally didn’t follow directions, this opportunity is clearly not for me.

Nicely written piece by DJ Xplosive (XplosiveWorld.com) with an impressive take on Hip-Hop music, industry and adaptation that can easily be applied to many different industries, companies and marketing strategies.

A couple of excerpts:

I’m proposing a stimulus plan that calls on some of hip-hop’s most powerful names to start releasing the music they have been holding back (and, by the way, do it for free). Dr. Dre, we need you right now. Jay-Z, let’s start getting those tracks from Blueprint 3 out to the masses. This message applies to everyone who is holding back gems because they are waiting for the climate to improve. I’m here to tell you the climate for releasing an album is never going to get any better. Hip-hop fans need to be hit by a barrage of new music that reminds us of why we fell in love with this culture to begin with. Our morale couldn’t go any lower.

and

I believe that getting fans excited about the music again is the first step in revitalizing hip-hop culture. It would provide a renewed sense of optimism among hip-hop fans, which I believe would improve conditions throughout the industry. Much like the stimulus plan recently passed by the Obama administration, the results of this stimulus also may not be immediate.

This stimulus plan involves improving our psyche, rather than serving to benefit anyone financially. The money will come, but that’s not what is most important right now. We as fans need to love hip-hop again. Improving the quality of music and providing the industry with something we can truly be excited about will most certainly lead to a revised plan from the hip-hop community as a whole. While sales may not improve, it will actually encourage people to start thinking of ways to become profitable in this new age of music whether it’s from becoming smarter in tour packaging to creating new online revenue streams. The desire to fix the problem will grow stronger once the overall morale is improved.

Right now everyone is dumbfounded, looking for a solution to the problem of the internet. In case you haven’t noticed, the internet is anarchy. There is not going to be a solution, formula or even a game plan that works because we can’t control an environment that evolves through unfettered innovation. The best the industry will be able to do is quickly adapt to change. That means if your label, management company or agency isn’t staffed primarily by a bunch of internet geeks that are able to identify trends, stop on a dime and shift gears in the way they’re working, then you’re fucked.

I’m also working with a client in the journalism industry, trying to convince them to embrace, adapt and adopt new media strategies, and what jumped out at me after reading this posting, is the similar message. Creating excitement. Without the people evangelizing your brand, or your industry, they will undoubtedly succumb to the naysayers and gloom-and-doomers, dragging you down with it. Today’s industries, especially those dealing with different forms of media, MUST NOT WASTE TIME wondering when and if and how. They must plunge in, feet first, and become a part of this new wave of industrialism or they will simply be left behind. No one knows the answers yet, so get in there and figure it out as you go along like the rest of us. Don’t wait for the next company or entity to figure it out. BE the next company or entity.

Good post Xplosive. Read his whole post here.

After receiving this unsolicited tweet:

Bigstevegee Bang it out my dude!! Black Rob – Jumpin’ Like Whoa http://www.zshare.net/audio…

and noticing that Bigstevegee’s last 20 tweets were pretty much the same thing to 20 different people, I tweeted:

Manny Faces Dear Music Promoters: Spam is for email accounts, not Twitter. Spam me there. Here, it’s like jumping into a conversation. Rude.

I got a couple of replies, giving me e-dap:

djdimepiece @MannyFaces LOL, I soooooo concur! PLEASE RETWEET!
shawtyslim @MannyFaces amen to that… Twitter is like the “last place we got left”. If this turns into myspace, I’m giving up
WILLIAMGONE @MannyFaces good point! stop it vlad!!!

(LOL @ that last one). So, I’m not alone.

I wasn’t targeting Vlad obviously, but @Bigstevegee, a DJ/mash-upper/remixer apparantly down with AV8 records, the “are-they-still-around?” label that releases white-labelish singles, remixes, extended party breaks and such.

Now, a “reply” normally implies that you are “replying” to something I wrote in general, or wrote directed at you. Big Steve Gee apparently disagrees, and decided to t-spam not only me, but a slew of tweeple with variations of the same message (see image below).

Bigstevegee, we may even have communicated in the past, and my apologies if I don’t recall you off-hand. But I too am a remixer/producer cat (www.mannyfaces.com). I think most would say I’m pretty nice, skills and marketing-wise, and as such, I have had nearly 2,000,000 downloads of my remixes, got thousands of MySpace friends and email list recipients, and most importantly to this issue, more than 7x the amount of followers on Twitter than you do. I occasionally tweet links to my remixes and blog posts, etc., but I make SURE I tweet other interesting, relevant, irreverant, humorous and useful stuff at least 9 times out of ten. It is what has make me #5 in my region with a 99.4 score (source: TwitterGrader.com). So here’s some advice on how it works:

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AListRadio.net

Maybe I’m not normal. In my living room, I don’t have a radio. I do have a little office area, with a desk and a computer, and a nice amp/speaker setup to go with it. So tonight, I was playing on the Wii with my son (and by playing, I mean losing to), and then eventually, I played with my woman (and by played, I mean finally felt worthy because I won).

Anyway, just before I had left the desk area to play Godzilla Unleashed, I got an IM from alistradio on AIM. See, one time I was tracking down DJ Bobby Trends for a possible feature on one of our client sites, Birthplace Magazine, and I came across AListRadio.net, an online “radio” station where Trends has a couple of shows. I got on their IM list and they always shoot an IM when it’s time for a new show. So I logged in, to jam a little while I got my head served to me by the Prince of Nintendo over here.

Basically, ALIstRadio allows DJs, some very well known, others moderately so, to rock a show for 2-hour timeslots, with live audio and video streaming to the net. The night I first listened, I checked Bobby Trends show and he had on Uncle Murda and Mickey Factz. The combo of these two alone was something you wouldn’t normally get on commercial radio, and the whole AListRadio structure struck me as an interesting experiment in the internet radio world.

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OK, so not necessarily Hip-Hop related, but relevant nonetheless…

[As seen on HipHopPRWire.com]

Now, I am twitter-acquaintances of some of those involved with this publication, and applaud anyone attempting the VERY difficult task of launching a PRINT mag these days. But ladies, please accept a couple of quick thoughts:

1. The day after it happened, I noticed the launch party being twitted about. To be fair, I’m not sure by who exactly, but they mentioned the B+C launch party. Because I like to keep up on new ventures, especially in journalism, I clicked the twitter profile of the poster, who was obviously a part of the mag. No info about the mag, no hint as to the full name of the mag, and most noticeable, no website link! My split-second span of curiosity was gone, and I moved on.
2. Today, when looking through the press wire, I saw the headline of the press release. Not sure why I opened it, though I suppose it is a curiosity-inducing enough headline. I read the release, and realized that this was the same mag. But again, no website. Not even a “coming soon” page with a quick email collection link “to be alerted” when the mag is available.

Advice? Remember that EVERY touch with someone must be thought of as a potential grab of attention. Twitter profiles must have some indication of your venture, a website address, etc. Twitter is a swirl of bits of info, but those who would “overhear” your conversation with another, might be interested enough to check in on you, but not interested enough to contact you directly. These folks are called ‘lurkers’, who observe more than interact, but their attention is as vital as any others.

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