Promoting your hip hop music to Reddit is one of the most effective things you can do for yourself as an independent artist or producer. Reddit is known as the “front page of the internet”. Reddit is a massive community for thousands of communities. From cat loving communities to conspiracy theories, Reddit features loads of user driven content that are voted upon within each community.
The reason why Reddit is super effective for gaining exposure for your music is because there are plenty of hip hop communities that thrive on new music. Even if you are a beginner, there are communities on Reddit that love giving feedback to aspiring artists and producers. There is only one catch. You HAVE to be a part of the community to post your music there frequently.
Now, I understand it may not be in your interest to become an avid Reddit user. Many rappers and producers are too busy to spend much time on Reddit, and so we are going to go through a fast-track guideline on promoting your music on Reddit.
Build Reddit Karma Fast
Before you post in these communities you need to build up “Karma”, which is Reddit’s point system for contributions. To make a quality contribution you must post a relevant link or post to the community. Many communities have minimum “Karma” requirements so we need to gain “Karma” fast.
Browse Trending Communities
On Reddit’s front page you will see a sidebar that contains ‘Trending Communities’. These are communities that are hot with traffic and so this will be a good place to gain Karma. How do we make relevant posts to unknown communities? Easy, you search memes for that community on google images, and post it on there either by link or by a image post. This will surely make users laugh within that community.
Join ‘Ask Reddit’ Community
Ask Reddit is one of the biggest Reddit communities and it is a perfect place to start growing your Karma. The community is based on asking and answering interesting or provoking questions. You simply ask a question that will get traction and people will go wild on answering your question. You may also gain comment Karma by coming up with a witty response on other questions.
Share and Alternate Your Links
After you sign up on Reddit and grow your Karma, you will be able to join and post in the communities. Since you are an artist or producer you may like to join hip hop communities like hiphopheads, hiphop, makinghiphop, and listentothis. Make sure you follow each communities’ rules before posting and also make sure you have the correct title format for each community. After you confirm all of this, congratulations! You may now start posting your music in all of these HUGE communities.
Alternate Your Links
To avoid spam, Reddit will block any user who continuously posts links from the same channel or source. For example, Reddit can tell that you’re self promoting if you are constantly posting videos from the same YouTube channel. Therefore, you must post a variety of sources for each community. A good rule of thumb is to post 5 other links that are relevant but not in connection with you. After you post 5 other links in the community, you may post one of yours. Now Reddit will not classify you as ‘self promoting’.
Common Reddit Mistakes
Reddit has been known to be the best anti-spam platforms on the internet. They are so good at getting rid of spammers that many people who try to promote their music on Reddit will end up getting blocked within days. This is why it’s IMPORTANT to NOT make these common mistakes when sharing your music.
Not Following Title Format Before Posting
When submitting a link to a Reddit community, there is a sidebar on the right that shows the community rules. While each community has their own rules, most hip hop Reddit communities require a specific title format for all links. The most common format is: Artist – Song [Genre] (Year). If you do not use the correct format, the community moderator will automatically remove your post. This is one of the first things that frustrate beginners.
Posting The Same Link On Multiple Communities
It is a better idea to strategically post on certain communities at different times. If you start posting your link on multiple communities with a short time frame, it will alert the Reddit moderators and again might result in a ban. The best way to avoid this is to post at different times, maybe hours apart.
Posting Without Having Karma
Reddit has a point system called “Karma”. This point system is a collection of votes on your contributions to communities. For example, posting irrelevant content in a community will make users downvote your post. Thus, lowering your “Karma”. This matters because some communities will not allow you to post unless you have over x amount of “Karma”. Therefore, it is important to make relevant contributions into the groups you choose before you post your own links.
Conclusion
Reddit has proven to be one of the most effective sources of expanding reach and exposure for artists and producers. Although this is a great source of exposure, the barriers are great and tedious. But after you get the hang of being a community member, you will learn that this is a gold mine. Any other ways you guys use Reddit for promoting your music?
I’m a independent artist so im will say Should help a lot independent artists out