PROMOTION GUIDE
How to promote as an underground fan effectively
The Underground Music Promotion Mindset
- Be part of the community in a positive way: show up with a bright attitude to set an example for others, come with your best mindset about things and go with the vibe. Do not join in on hateful conversations, and instead focus on building and that next level of expansion while ignoring everything else.
- It is about making meaningful connections, making new friends, supporting the art we love, and having a good time above all else.
- Do it for the love of the music and culture, not for reputation or valor.
- Give newcomers the best experience possible.
- Do not engage or partake in community based drama.
- Always share stuff you actually like and focus your energy on stuff that best reflects you as an individual, but have mutual respect for others in the underground and their arts even if it is not your taste.
Core Values for Horrorcore Promotion
- Telling the truth to ourselves & others.
- Treating others with compassion.
- Working hard.
- Being respectful.
- Celebrating diversity.
- Leaving things better than when we arrived.
- Forgiveness.
- Humility.
Expanding Your Network for Underground Music Promotion
- Constantly add normal people like fans onto your social media that are in the community, who react, share, comment on posts, and support the underground just like you do.
- It is in the artist’s best interest that you are getting new fans into the community, so you should be seeking creative ways to add people that like similar types of things but may not know about the stuff you are sharing. You can cross into communities that do not inherently know the specific niche of horrorcore underground.
- Add people on Facebook or follow people on Instagram that react with content that is like the content you wish to promote, then make high quality posts to get engagement and invite those people to your favorite artists once you are friends with them.
- Avoid spamming advertisements in DMs. If someone asks why you added them, simply explain that you're a fellow underground music fan looking to connect with like-minded people to share and discover new content together.
- It's more effective to support multiple music artists at once. You keep your page fresh by rotating in different types of content to see. By actively growing your friends list at the same time, you can rotate which artists you are sending invites to their pages every time you've added 100 different people.
High-Quality Social Sharing for Horrorcore Artists
- Do high quality posts when sharing promotional content: do not put links in the main body of the post, always put links in comments, make sure the graphics are official artist graphics or that you have taken the time to make it look really visually clean, do not stretch pixels, make sure everything is the correct resolution, do not use clearly AI generated text to represent content, and care a lot about the visual presentation of everything.
- Do not overshare a single piece of content into a bunch of groups. Do 1 group at most, and if you do not ever get engagements when you share posts into certain groups, stop sharing them into those groups.
- React, comment, and share onto your story content from your favorite horrorcore artists every time they make a post when you see it.
- React to every post of others sharing underground content.
- Create playlists you share with your friends or your subcommunities.
- Constantly stream your beloved music artists passively on your devices even if the device is AFK.
- Add to metadata available on various sources, fill out wikis with their information, and transcribe missing lyrics accurately onto lyric websites.
Physical Flyer Promotion for Underground Music
- Promote in your local communities or music concerts you attend by handing out flyers or posting flyers where allowed. You can create basic flyers here.
- Never break the law, and respect everyone and their belongings in public.
- Hand out flyers outside music events. Reaching people as they are leaving the show is more likely to be remembered because they are more likely to keep the flyer.
- Hang flyers only where they are allowed to be displayed.
- Ask local businesses to hang flyers where appropriate.
- Attend festivals and aesthetically related events to hand out promotional material. Investigate all local events throughout the year and consider whether there may be a good chance that an event-goer will check out what you are promoting.
- Create various types of flyers and promotional materials in different sizes, and try different tactics.
- Be safe in your interactions with strangers, and bring friends when you go to large events.
- Be professional and kind when you approach people. Tell them about the content you are promoting and offer them a flyer.
- Be creative, have fun, and be safe.
- Keep flyers in your car / bag ready to go while traveling.
- Offer promotion material to anyone making a delivery to your home.
- Utilize free printing at your local library / college.
Daily Underground Music Promotion Checklist
- Everyday you should be adding a handful of people on your Facebook.
- Everyday you should be following a handful of people on your Instagram.
- Everyday you should be commenting on posts your favorite artists do.
- Everyday you should be sharing your favorite artists’ posts to your story.
- Everyday you should do at least 1 high quality share on your social media.
- Everyday you should do at least 1 unrelated to another artist post that best reflects you.
- Everyday you should react to all photos of people you have added and their underground content as they post them. Do this passively as you scroll the feed, and also open pages to check out people who are consistent with your posts: throw them some reacts on the content you like. This passive upkeep will make your own engagement and retention higher, so always be mutually supportive when it comes to reactions.