J. Space: Marketing tPC's Mixtape on MySpace

J. Space of tPC: the People's Choice recently wrote me about some of their marketing activities and I invited him to expand on his email for ProHipHop:

With your focus on marketing, I want to point out the approach my group tPC: the People's Choice has taken to promote our newest release, Welcome to the World [zip download].

First, Welcome to the World was created as a traditional mixtape; and when I mean traditional, I mean "blended by a DJ with turntable skills", rather than "compiled by a DJ with Pro Tools who then does some drops with too much delay".  We worked with DJ Solo, Muggs's protege at Soul Assassins.  He brought a real hip-hop edge to the project that we feel is missing in a lot of the mixtapes out today.

Given the crowded market, we were not sold on the idea of putting the mix out as a hard copy CD, competing with DJ Warrior, Aphiliates, etc. etc.  Instead, we focused on streaming it as many times as possible directly from our MySpace, via a WebJay playlist. Once we hosted our music through the web, it was extremely easy to set up the player, as Webjay offers an easy code generator for MySpace.

Secondly, we recognized that international hip-hop fans are often quicker to accept progressive, new hip-hop artists than American ones.  So with the help of our trusty MySpace FriendBot, we aggressively added friends around the globe.  After all, the mix is called "Welcome to the World". We found that a lot of overseas heads are a lot less jaded about MySpace than Americans, and were very quick to hit us back with positive feedback.  The bot can get you in trouble with MySpace, so you have to use it wisely.

Lastly, since we are using a non-Myspace player for Welcome to the World, we added a World Visitor Map, courtesy of MyMackSpace so that industry types could get a sense of the reach of our project.  Just as a note to all you MySpace rookies, when you add outside content like the World Visitor Map, strip it off the included ad tags. They can interfere with other design elements on your Space, including Top Banners, aka Mastheads.

The map shows right away where our project has gone in only three short weeks.  At present, we have been heard on every continent, with particularly good Australian and European response.  Compare our World Map with many other artists, and you will see the difference our approach has made.  In fact, we are probably better known in Sydney than in San Francisco.

I do not know if commercial success is guaranteed to us or not.  But, the truth is, many aspiring artists will waste years of their life starving for American attention. I do want the States to show us love, but I made music for people to HEAR it, not to be worshipped as a pop culture icon.  I think our marketing efforts will do more to establish tPC in the long run as global act that can tour and market our brand worldwide.  We feel that by giving them the music for free, other commercial opportunities will present themselves, given that they continue their support.

By J. Space of tPC: the People's Choice