Marketing Hip-Hop Online

These girls are actually not hip hop, but the theory is the same. Their name is Kemistrie. Not Chemistry. Not even Khemistry or Kemistry. It’s Kemistrie. Here’s why I think that is bad.

I find that often, I hear about a new group or artist by name, and interested, I attempt to go to their website, or Google them. Sometimes, I run into the problem where I don’t know how to spell their name. This happens a lot in hip hop, due to the (over)use of intentionally misspelled names.

You know. Cuz it’s cooler.

But what happens, in my case anyway, if after a few tries, I can’t find them, I forget it and move on.

Think about this when you choose the name or moniker you go by these days. Remember that this is an internet/search/Google world we live in, especially as entertainers trying to make a mark. And while Google’s oracle-like genius will “suggest” what you might have meant, their clairvoyance is helped by there being a lot of entries online with something near to what you typed in. If you are very new, or there are websites with even more closely matching spelling, you won’t come up.

And then eye myte mis yor intyre webb syte, wich wuld suk four yu.

If your song is new, and you are sending it around to DJs and bloggers and anyone else who might listen, because so far, it’s not been on the radio, not been played at clubs, not appeared on any mixtapes and not had a video circulating…

It is not a “SMASH HIT”. It is not an ANYTHING hit. It is not a hit. A hit, can’t be a hit, until it is a hit. If the DJs and bloggers you wish to reach, have not already heard of it, and their role is to know about the hits, why are you telling them it is a hit? A SMASH hit at that? They know it’s not. You sound like everyone else who claims their fresh-out-the-frying-pan song is a SMASH HIT. Kinda dumb.

Hype is good. Good copy writing is one of the cornerstones of promotion and advertising, but stop with the SMASH HIT, CERTIFIED BANGER, HOTTEST SHIT IN THE CLUBS, hyperbole.

Convince me, without making it obvious that you are just talking shit.

We briefly mentioned this in a prior post, but it REALLY bears repeating.

Name. Your. Tracks. Learn about ID3 tagging. Do it now. Please.

If I get your song emailed, or I download it from a filesharing site, or I rip it from your mixtape, and the name of the track is something like, “Track 03″, I am not going to listen to it. At all. Ever.

You are asking people (not just me but ANY person) to take 3+ minutes out of their life to listen to the result your craft. To wade through 43,589,348,689,464,032 other songs at their fingertips at any given moment. To spend 3+ less minutes with their child/loved one/job, and you are too lazy/careless/amateur-minded/uninterested to actually somehow attach the name of your song to the file?

Not to mention of course, that if your song was to wind up in the hand/computer/iPod of someone who could actually make some kind of positive impact on your fledgling rap career, and this was all they had to track you down, guess what wouldn’t be your ticket to potential stardom?

Track 03.

UPDATE: Look! Someone agrees, and even gives some advice to help! It’s your lucky day.

GrindEFX.com notes a fairly inventive move by Mos Def, and highlights some problems with the idea.

Mos has teamed up with LNA Clothing to bring to the public the first “Original Music Tee”. The t-shirt will feature the cover of the album on the front, the track listing on the back, and a download URL on the tag.

I think this is a great idea, because not only will people be buying the album, but they will be promoting it by wearing the t-shirt in public. Free advertising is every artist and label’s dream! That is of course if people buy it, which brings me to some reservations I have about the idea.

Read the rest of the post here.

Mickey Factz

Recently, Honda enlisted up-and-coming artist Mickey Factz to endorse their Honda Accord. The resulting commercial is displayed below.

AdAge suggests that this is a smart marketing move on Honda’s part, and a great way to authentically incorporate hip-hop into their marketing. They say,

Hip-hop’s decade of bling is popping, and it looks more like the housing bubble than a champagne cork. So why, at this point, would anyone take financial cues from a culture marked by conspicuous consumption? Honda Motor Co. thinks it has an answer.

and

“We wanted the balance of having style, a cool look and a cool lifestyle, but doing it in a way that’s sensible for the times,” said Barbara Ponce, manager-diversity advertising at Honda.

Woooha.com’s Scott Yeti is quoted as saying that he “isn’t sure the campaign will keep hip-hop fans engaged”:

“It’s still too early to tell and maybe Honda has some more tricks up their sleeves with this campaign, but I don’t know if the hook there is strong enough to maintain a strong consumer base that will keep coming back.”

We’ll all have to wait and see. The general murmuring around hip-hop business circles is that it’s a good look personally for Factz, but may not be as effective for Honda, or engaging for hip-hop heads, as Honda would like.

Thoughts?

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.

Jadakiss in Letter to B.I.G.

According to Gawker.com, not only is Coogi aware of the affinity the late Brooklyn rhyme God had for it’s sweaters, they used this connection to their advantage by compensating Jadakiss for the brand-drop in his tribute song “Letter to B.I.G.”

As we have seen in movies and TV, there has been a huge increase in product placement in recent years, the act of integrating a product or brand within actual programming. This practice has been rising exponentially in TV in particular to combat TiVo-like recording, where one can fast-forward through commercials.

As evidenced by Forever, the Chris-Brown-sings-a-four-minute-jingle-disguised-as-a-hit-single deal last year, this practice is increasingly finding its way into the music business as well.

Questions:

1. Is this kind of arranged, corporate-sponsored lyrics going to backfire at some point, as even the most naive-minded of audience members realizes they are constantly being duped and that there may be no “real” music anymore?
2. Should Jadakiss be “called out” for accepting corporate dollars in a song supposedly dedicated to a deceased friend (assuming the rumor is true)?.

As a personal commentary: Between this, and the Vince-McMahon’ing of hip-hop, I am getting very, very disillusioned by the music business, very, very quickly. Even more than before. And before was a lot.

Interestingly, MTV News quotes Jadakiss as crediting “stylist Groovey Lew (Groovey is also credited with giving B.I.G. his first Coogi sweater) for coming up with the idea”, that the idea for the song initially struck Jadakiss as “corny”, but that in the end resulted in a song where, “it’s nothing fabricated on there. It’s gotta be all real on there. Everything was personal.”

Now I think Jada is probably one of the top-5 lyricists out there, and I respect his work and work ethic, but as the Gawker post so eloquently said, “Maybe save the product placement for normal, non-memorial-to-my-deceased-friend songs?”

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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Michael Steele

Michael Steele, you are a jigga-jigga-genius!

The recently elected token president of the Republican Party states that he wants to “convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings,” with a plan to implement a PR campaign to update the GOP brand that will be “avant garde” and “will surprise everyone – off the hook.”

Steele believes that “Republican” is seen only as the party of the deep-South and red states, and that to turn around their catastrophic failures in the last few years, they simply need to “reach beyond” their comfort zone, out to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings” appealing to “young people and moms” and the all-important voting bloc of “one-armed midgets” (yes, yes he did say “one-armed midgets”).

Doing so, he reasons, will show “who we are for the 21st century.”

He’s right! After all, the Republicans chose a totally unqualified and out-of-touch woman to be their VP candidate, probably simply because she is a woman, to counter the enormous effect that women voters had for the Democrats, thanks to Hilary Clinton. That candidate went on to embarrass herself and her party with her nonsensical statements to the press, proving not only her own ignorance, but the stupidity of the Republicans for putting her there in the first place, and fueling the suspicions about the ulterior motives behind her nomination.

It’s the same party that chose a totally unqualified and out-of-touch black man to be the GOP leader, probably simply because he is a black man, to counter the enormous effect that black people had for the Democrats, thanks to Barack Obama. That party leader went on to embarrass himself and his party with his nonsensical statements to the press, proving not only his own ignorance, but the stupidity of the Republicans for putting him there in the first place, fueling the suspicions about the ulterior motives behind his nomination.

Oh wait. That second one was Michael Steele. [More]

Vibe Magazine

According to Gawker (via ByronCrawford via NicoleBitchie), Vibe Magazine may be in financial trouble.

This, of course, is not surprising in the grand scheme of things, economy, publishing biz, etc.

But a commenter on the Gawker story had a very interesting viewpoint.

Chartreuse says:

Here’s the deal.

The audience who would read VIBE are all on the internet reading sites like Allhiphop.com, worldstarhiphop.com, NecoleBitchie.com and the like.

Their online execution has been awful.

Well, that actually makes a lot of sense. We see others in the online hip-hop world discussing whether blogs/sites are preferred over magazines these days, and in general, advertising dollars continue to drain from print and heading online, which can quicken the demise of print properties (and hip-hop sites do seem to be increasing their viability, and advertisers seem to notice… Check NahRight’s recent Mickey D’s ad takeover!). Could this increase in e-street-cred that these sites and blogs are receiving help put the nail in the coffin for Vibe, The Source, XXL, and the like?

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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XXLMag.com

Interesting post taking a look at Warner Music Group’s action to remove YouTube videos of artists on their label. Equally interesting comment response from “N DOT C”.

Excerpt:

In late December, Warner Music Group asked Youtube to pull all of its artists videos from the popular video-sharing site. WMG’s argument was that they wanted to see more money from licensing their content to Youtube. In statement at the time, WMG said:

“We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide.”

A month later, I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve tried to find a video on Youtube, not even knowing the artist was on Warner, until I get the “this video no longer exists” message. Which sucks, because if you just google anything, the youtube link that used to exist is what comes up as the first result.

Check out the whole post here

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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So Koch Records, Koch Entertainment, et. al., successful noisemakers in the independant record business, announced that they are being rebranded, in accordance with their parent company E1.

The name change was “effective immediately” as of Jan. 23, 2009.

Interesting that the Koch websites don’t reflect this, a full four days after the announcement. There is no also no apparant E1-branded website to match, although www.e1entertainment.com has a “coming soon”, and seems a possible candidate.

To me, this just seems like a sloppy transition.

Advice? When changing ANYTHING (your name, your logo, your website address, your phone number, etc.) do it swiftly and across all channels as simultaneous as possible. When completely altering the name or logo or conducting other drastic changes, it a good idea to keep the old AND the new during a pre-determined “grace period”, before finally shutting the door on the old. This will allow visitors to acclimate to the upcoming change, instead of potentially causing confusion by the simple flipping of the switch, so to speak.

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