#DearArtiste™

This is not a sales pitch! It is disheartening to see a label executive or an artiste share a hulkshare link of his or her artiste's music. That should be left to the blogs and pirates!

The music industry has gone digital and so should the money. free music is possibly the best form of promotion but it is beyond having the most popular music  blogs put it up , after having it on a file sharing platform like 4shared or hulkshare.

Megaupload, limewire are down, that should give you a hint about hulkshare's future, even with their swift response to copyright complaints.

A certain artist told a fan who asked for the download link to his music to GOOGLE it. Shoot the artist! Music is your trade, you should have a link to all your free music or a link to buy your music.  even a D'Banj doesn't have the right to ask a fan to google  his music. A website has its purposes, but be smart and take it beyond that. In all honesty, your dotcom website alone can't do it, you'd still need the digital store widget to sell on your website and bunch of other stuff.

Here's an advise, Dear Artiste run an active Reverbnation or MyTruSpot account where after release to blogs, you upload every track from you and push that link instead.

 We can say the blogs have their audience already, (never take a blog posting as an achievement. This is not to say you should stop asking them to publish your material, and appreciating it after they do or burning the bridge if it doesn't meet their 'standard').

Then take it to Twitter, Google+ and Facebook to build a followership on these platforms.

 If you are consistent in doing this, it would reflect on the reception of your music on the long run. With Reverbnation and MyTruSpot, you provide a one stop, mobile compatible portal where fans can your catalogue, video, photos and events. Do yourself and your fans a favour, give your  MyTruspot.com or Reverbnation.com page the priority you give the blogs putting up your song to mark its release.

This is a critical step in the digital promotion for your career!

 Dro Ameh is a long serving blogger, writer, web and TV content developer for a pan-African cable TV network as well as a partner at the 'Digit-all' company - GBTH Company

FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER @dirtyhiphophead

Before I get into this, and before i tell you why I even bothered writing about it, I will briefly explain what a hashtag is, and what it is used for.

“A hashtag is a word or a phrase prefixed with the symbol #,a form of metadata tag. Short messages on microblogging social networking services such as Twitter, Tout, identi.ca, Tumblr, Instagram, or Google+ may be tagged by including one or more with multiple words concatenated,   e.g.:  #Wikipedia is an #encyclopedia

Everybody and their grandma is getting on twitter these days, likewise so many upcoming artistes, and industry people. Like I usually say, the social network for you as an artiste is a raw material than can be transformed into a promotional instrument free of charge. Here's how to use twitter to the best of your advantage:

With Twitter being the big buzz word all over the MSM, blogs and just about everywhere you look, it seems like everyone is jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. And that's not a bad thing at all. But most people don't know how to 'use' it or don't understand how it can be a great tool meet new people, manage lots of conversations, track buzz, and help your career and your business. While there's no one RIGHT WAY to use Twitter, the 'What Are You Doing' moniker is just the tip of the iceberg. Here's 10 ways to Be Useful on Twitter:

Internet music promotion entails these two things – getting reviews and coverage on music and entertainment blogs and internet magazines, and your own promotion work that involves interacting with your fans, usually using social media. 

Breaking into the music industry has changed, and artistes no longer need to rely on getting record contracts before making a career out of their art. Technology has made everything so much easier. Electronic media distribution as well as social networking has taken over the industry in a big way. In this article, we will focus on how social media can help you break into the industry with ease.

Facebook, Twitter. We all know that social media marketing is the way forward. But if you're involved in music, there is one social network you should not be absent from. YouTube is booming in popularity - 3 billion hours of video are watched every month – so if you're not sharing videos, you're missing out. Whether you're a musician, mogul, or marketer; your music business should have a YouTube Channel. It's free to sign up, easy to fill out your profile, and you can get sharing video content in a matter of minutes. Sharing your content with audiences the world over has never been easier.

It's my guess that now days the average person is one who has a social network membership or page of some kind rather than not. Which do you have, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or maybe that Google plus thing that I've still yet to figure out? Of course there are many more and I'm sure most that I haven't heard of yet. Let's say you are in the category of average and you do have a social network connection, these social networks can be an amazing journey and even a tool for many who want to get their message out to the masses. However, if you don't have any social network site or page of any kind, you can be assured that I'm somewhat envious of you. You should also know that you are considered to be behind times now days. Lucky you.

If you are an artiste considering online promotion, you need to pay attention to this. Too many of the same stories over and over again about how naïve unsuspecting and ill informed upcoming artistes have been scammed by the recent crop of “online publicists and PR” people, I think it’s time you get educated about this.