Marketing and social media lessons from hip hop artists

My idea for this blog post came from this fabulous interview by Dan Zarrella, with Nah Right. His question at the end of the post, ‘What are your favorite marketing lessons from Hip-Hop?’ spurred me to write a post answering this, but relating it back to small businesses.

You may be thinking, “What in the world could I possibly learn from a hip hop artist?” Well, that’s what I’m here for: to tell you that you can learn a few social media lessons from hip hop artists.

• Find Facebook applications that can cater to your products. Jay Z and Kanye West produced a “collab” and promoted it on a Band Page via Facebook. It was easy to find the one page, rather than bounce between both artists’ fan pages.
• Engage your fans via multiple platforms, and offer sweet incentives like concert ticket upgrades, which is what Diddy is doing. Diddy has a splash page on his website where it directs fans to create videos, Facebook posts or send TwitPics to win ticket upgrades at his shows. Talk about being plugged in!
• Update your fans on how life is going- even if it’s from prison. Ok, hear me out on this one. Lil’ Wayne sent out regular updates to his fans, keeping them updated on his next album release. Of course he had help with this project, but providing regular updates [and a convenient countdown to his prison release] kept his fans engaged and interested. Even if you don’t think you have exciting things to share, your customers still want to know what you’re up to.
• Make it easy to purchase your product by utilizing QR codes like Lupe Fiasco. He projected a massive QR code on a building in San Francisco that enabled people to preorder his new album and other sweet swag. Not a bad idea to promote your products on a mobile device- and build a little intrigue into your business.
• Have a business that’s been around a while? Celebrate your history by asking customers to Tweet their favorite memories or experiences, similar to how fans of Jay-Z tweeted their memories and opinions of this music mogul.
• Finally, there is no such thing as being too old for social media. If MC Hammer can use social media and still be slightly relevant in pop culture, then surely you can find a way for your business to utilize social media.

If there’s one thing to take away from all of this, it would be this: no matter who you are, what kind of notoriety [or lack of notoriety] you have, or amount of money, social media is an easy and effective way to promote your business. Get creative. Try something new. In the immortal words of Ms. Frizzle, “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!”

My philosophy is always this: who knows what will or won’t work, but you never know until you try. And you might hear some new music that you never knew about or thought you would like!

Did I miss a great example of a hip hop artist using social media? Or has something worked well for you? I’d love to hear your story!

 

 

Kanye and Hip Hop photo credits

This entry was posted in Social Media. Bookmark the permalink.