Dear Rap Promoters (Or "Let’s Not Pay $300 for One Tweet")

Dear Rap Promoters,

We knew this one was coming. After I’ve schooled the artist, and the people who post the work of the artist, it is only natural that I attempt to school those who push the artist. Or, you know, say they push the artist, but really what they do is recycle a couple of random tweets that are sent to mostly spam/bot accounts and do nothing but make the artist look like a complete asshole. This letter does not go out to those promoters who are part of a rapper’s team (you’ll be schooled later), or those promoters who also attempt to help the artist by giving tweets and feedback, or those who have legitimate promotion tools available. As mentioned, this is strictly for the tweet spammers masquerading as promotion companies. Everyone, pay attention throughout the end, because there’s valuable information for all within these sentences.

First, can you stop referring to yourself as promotional services? The term “promotion,” in marketing terms, is defined as anything done to:

To present information to consumers as well as others.

To increase demand.

To differentiate a product.

While this is taken from the Wiki, any marketing textbook worth their weight in salt will tell you something similar. On the surface, some of these promotional services do these three things. They can tweet out “hey check out Rapper #2710234’s new crap song “Twerk It Like Reina” to their followers. But, how is that tweet any different from “hey, check out Rapper #1842321’s new crap song “Trappin’ Fo’ My Jesus Piece?” Seriously? If they are sending similar tweets out to their followers, chances are your shit will get lost in the wave of tweets sent out weekly, daily, and even hourly in some cases. Secondly, it doesn’t present much information about the product. Yes, many of these showcase your handle and a link, but if they’re sending out a million tweets on similar products, who’s to say that your brand won’t get confused with someone else’s brand. Hell, who’s to say that the followers that the promoter has are even real? Yes, they may act “real,” but a lot of these promoter accounts have fake accounts attached to them. What you’re doing is spending your hard-earned dough on a fucking computer. Essentially, what is being done is not promotion: it’s, once again, spam. In the shape of a four-by-four being smacked across everyone’s skull–Hacksaw Jim Duggan-style.

Secondly, rap “promoters,” can we be real here? Even if you are on the up-and-up, what happens when an artist retweets his/her promoted tweet from you is this. YOU get promoted, not the artist. If a rapper retweets a blog post, even a “sponsored” one, he’s promoting himself, himself on your blog, and your blog. If a rapper retweets a promotion tweet, he’s pretty much doing the same shit he could’ve done on his own! Is it wrong? No, not exactly. Morally wrong, perhaps, but not exactly illegal. It’s the equivalent of someone saying they’ll donate record sales to charity, but donate five dollars. Technically, they aren’t deceiving you, but morally, it’s kind of fucked up. Now, me? If I say I’m donating shit from sales, I donate shit from my sales. And that’s the bottom line (because Stone Cold said so).

Doncha just wish you could Stunner some of these morons?

Third, if artists aren’t getting any sort of, you know, real promotion…can you lower the rates on that fuckery? If an artist gets 50,000 (fake) followers, 5000 (fake) YouTube fans, 1000 (fake) Soundcloud plays, and a (fake) blog post for $300 and doesn’t get shit from it other than the indignation of being a moron, couldn’t you do him a solid of charging him just $100 for it? I know, I know, you’ve got to make it look “legit” by charging more. But, at the end of the day, they’re gonna find out that you screwed them over, even if you try to make it seem like they screwed themselves.

I wish artists were smarter. That way, they wouldn’t keep feeding into the “let’s get famous in one day by spending every dollar we own on ‘promotion’ that really isn’t shit but a couple of fake tweets.” But, all the blame cannot–nor should not–be placed solely on the artist (even if they have beach balls for brains). Now, I’ll admit: I do use “promoted tweets,” but I always go for a low-risk, high reward option (yes, there is a such thing). You’ve got to do research on the followers the promoter has, their engagement rates, the engagement rates on the promoters’ tweets, don’t trust an “online A&R” if they don’t have an actual website, etc. If it seems fishy, it probably is. And if you don’t have a bunch of money to spend on a maybe-sorta-kinda sort of promotion, keep walking and build organically (as you should do anyway, regardless of promotions or what have you). Again, as I’ve mentioned, nothing is easy about music. You’ve got to be smart and know your way around a business before you just start dropping bars.

Unless, of course, you want to get screwed.