Reconsider the strategy. Besides, there are usually giant opportunities right in front of your face anyway.

This note made a claim to be the first in doing something when it clearly wasn’t first. Now the mistake may have been an innocent one but that shouldn’t absolve the claimant from taking even a few minutes to research on Google or Bing to fact check.

The headline and claim certainly is catchy. It also sounds impressive. Personally, when my credibility is on the line… I want to make sure my facts are straight.

1. Email a press release or other submission with no proper introduction or even a greeting. Don’t hit the “forward” button on your email to send your press release.

Why? It looks like spam to people like me and gets treated as such. Deleted.

2. Posting your links or advertisements on peoples Facebook profiles and pages.

Why? It’s called social media for a reason. Nothing social about bombing up a bunch of pages trying to get noticed. You’ll get ingored far more than you’ll get noticed. The last thing you want to do in marketing/promotion is be annoying to people.

3. Make it difficult to figure out how to cover your stuff…

Why? If it’s easy, you’re going to have far more success. Following our submission instructions makes it easy for us to help you. Not doing so, well…

4. Don’t look for beat production on Craigslist. Are you for real Josh? Yup. I’ve seen it.

5. Twitter http://ht.ly/4XKZr

6. Don’t add your connections to invitation email lists for stuff like Linkedin without their permission. Even worse, don’t add people you have no relationship with.

7. Don’t automatically add people to your email list service like Reverbnation without some sort of relationship and/or permission. I get added to about 20 of these every week and 19 of these people have zero relationship with me. Think us media/radio people like that?

8. Tweet at people who run websites or radio programs to go buy your record.

9. Don’t hit someone up to tell them to hit you up. What? Spill the beans son! Being direct is helpful. I don’t have time to do the work you should have done yourself.

Their response to my email removal request was good but I haven’t heard back from this email. Here goes…

Hey [name removed],

It’s all love here… don’t cry

Do NOT just add people to an email list. It ain’t cool nor is it effective… at all. You’re emailing the customer service line for our online shop. Not our website.

Learn how to properly contact and connect with media/radio etc. We’re all usually very busy and when I see random stuff like this, more often than not I delete it or otherwise ignore it. An email in all CAPS probably isn’t your best move. I’ve heard of you but we have no sort of professional relationship. Don’t assume that someone receiving communication like you sent will do anything other than delete it.

Find out the proper way to submit information and carefully follow their instructions. Everyone has different requirements and a different process. Respect that and do what they need if you want to have any hope of coverage.

It’s cool to be casual but only after you’ve built the relationship. Even then, I wouldn’t have done any coverage for you. All I got were two YouTube links.

A good resource is my blog. You’ll learn some do’s and don’ts when it comes to marketing/promoting yourself.

http://www.enjoyhiphopresponsibly.com

Good luck and God bless,

Josh

@sphereofhiphop
@sohhdailydl
@sohhpodcast

Check them out…

2011 New Year Resolutions for Christian Hip-Hop Artists
2011 New Year Resolutions for Christian Hip-Hop Fans

These were funny to reflect on after a few days. It was easy to see which artists haven’t read them yet. Hah!

Payola is an ugly part of the mainstream music scene particularly in radio. It has crept into media as well albeit to a lesser degree. If you place an advertisement we’ll guarantee an article or some sort of coverage. If you pay us for a “promotion” we’ll run your single 30-50 times a week even if music testing shows our listeners don’t like it.

Indies can’t compete with that most of the time. They can’t get enough face time to win over the gatekeepers in order to be in the prime spots.

All of this sucks, right? Greed takes the place of letting the best rise to the top. What people are left with is a bunch of over-compressed auto tune flavor of the moment crap.

The pay to play mentality has slowly crept into our scene. You don’t get supported unless you pay. It used to at least be about “we like and agree with your ministry style so we’ll support you but not them” in years past. Now it’s starting to become about money before service and support. Sure, we’ll support you but you gotta give us some money. Never mind how “good” your music is or the quality of what you’re doing. If you pay, you’re in. Unfortunately amongst Christians it’s easy to take advantage. People are naturally more trusting.

When did money become more important than building and supporting the scene? From my vantage point it’s been slowly creeping in for a few years. For the record, I have challenged a few people I’ve seen doing this. Yes, I do understand that “stuff” costs money. Fair enough but I think you have an idea of what I’m talking about.

This reminds me of why I got involved in our scene and it’s reinforced my passion for doing it the right way.

Sometimes the best things in life really are free.

6% of all internet users are “heavy clickers” and they account for a whopping 50% of all ad clicks.

This got me thinking… are my ads conveying enough information to appeal to only the 6%? Am I completely missing on the rest? Do your ads all say “click now”?

In hurrying to get information out on what you’re doing as an artist… you’re forgetting the very people you ought to be serving info to first – media. Somehow (almost always without permission = bad form) I end up on “fan” email lists from artists. There are a few things wrong with this:

1. You should be getting your announcements and news sent to Media first. Why? They are your lifeline to millions and millions of people who aren’t likely to ever visit your web site/Myspace/Facebook etc. You’re foolish to not take advantage of such an opportunity. Sometimes it sours me on wanting to cover an artist. It’s now old information and for how much effort goes into supporting you already, the least you could do is get us info early.

2. Sloppy. I keep using the phrase “almost always” because it fits. Presentation is pretty important even when it comes to delivering your updates to fans much less media. Clean it up and for goodness sakes hit “spell check”. It’s not that hard.

3. Relationship. Artists/labels should know this one by now. We’ve all heard that “it’s about who you know”. I’ll let you in on a secret… those artists that take 2 minutes to check in with me and personally deliver information are far more likely to find support. Those that send impersonal communication, never respond to my questions/requests and aren’t very thoughtful of providing me with material… well, you can guess the result. In the mainstream scene this is hardly an issue at all. Unfortunately in the Christian scene it is the norm.

For those that wonder and cry about being slept on… maybe it’s your fault because you haven’t done any ground work to not be slept on. Be okay with that or do something to fix it.

4. Opt in. There is a spam problem in our scene. Adding people to your email list without their permission isn’t ok. It’s annoying and a quick way to turn more people off than win them over. Set up your email lists to make it easy for people to opt in. If they want to be removed, comply right away. I’ve been hassled so many times about wanting to be removed from some Christian artists email list that I never signed up to be on in the first place!

Hopefully a few light bulbs turn on after reading this.