 How To Release A Mixtape The Right Way
What are the benefits of releasing a Mixtape / Album and how to do it?
1) Releasing a full project makes you look more official than someone who just has 1 or 2 songs on their Social Media profiles
2) Having a full project 8-16 songs out means there is more material out there for people to stumble upon and also for anyone who does become a fan to listen to and or buy
3) Creating an entire project makes you work a lot harder.
This way you have more and more material to choose as the best singles for release. You won’t just make 1 song and think it’s hot and drop all your money and effort into promoting that song.
I am going to mention again. I recommend, YOU spend, at least….. a year of hardcore writing and recording, building your voice and style. Before you even consider releasing a song to the public.
This way you can half finish 100s of songs and have no pressure on you. Later when you want to make the tape, you can just choose your favorite 15 unfinished songs and finish them. 🙂
When you show people your stuff for the first time, such as friends and family, you want to impress them and them to encourage you. You DON’T want them to shrug it off and not be impressed because you didn’t put the work in and build your style up.
This will really hurt your self esteem, trust me, I’ve been there.
I learned it is best to work my ass off and get something done to completion the best I can, knowing I did my absolute best before I show anyone. This way when I show someone, I know it’s my very best, there is no regrets or doubts and they will probably like it.
Lastly, Thanks to everyone who made this article number 1 in Google for releasing a mixtape!
Where should I upload my Mixtape / Album too?
DatPiff
Every time I release a mixtape on Datpiff I get top 8 of the week because of my fan base going there and directly downloading the mixtape.
I have nothing against Datpiff but I made this site to help rappers with things such as mixtape releases and to help you learn from my experience so you can avoid my mistakes and grow as fast as possible.
Even though I shouldn’t, because it might make them mad, I am going to be completely honest with you here.
I have paid Datpiff over $1,000 in total for their promotional efforts when I released a rap mixtape project for a colleague of mine and it resulted in literally NOTHING.
300 Views on the mixtape and maybe 80 downloads happened.
Those 80 people were his fans though.
So realistically it did NOTHING, AT ALL. NOTHING.
0.
Zilch.
Find a synonym of ZERO and insert it here.
They have packages that go all the way up to $35,000 and more
I’m sure their bigger packages can really help in a mixtape release campaign when combined and marketed with all the right efforts but spending money on the marketing by itself was not beneficial in my personal experience.
I won’t get into all of that though.
What you DO NEED to do is pay the $75 to Dat Piff, so that people who don’t have a Dat Piff account can download your mixtape with out having to log in.
That is the only benefit of the $75 post up. But it is completely necessary if you’re using Dat Piff and driving traffic to the site.
It’s a must if you want your mixtape up there and available to anyone publicly.
If you want to save the $75, I’ve got a better idea for you in the next section.
Because the Smart Rapper thing to do when releasing an album or mixtape is to actually drive traffic somewhere that you can retain the fans for every new song and project you release. It’s really common sense.
Why send them to Datpiff when you can send them to your Sound Cloud or Website where you can keep them coming back instantly every time you drop something? Duh!
Your SoundCloud
If you really want to know How To Release A Mixtape the right way, You can build your Sound Cloud base up by releasing the entire project on your Sound Cloud and offering free downloads of the tracks there. Tell people to follow you on there when they go down load your songs.
I am currently using this strategy for each song I release until my next album comes out. Direct them to the free download and ask them to follow!
This is WAY smarter than paying Dat Piff $75 and then having no way to retain that person as a fan. They can’t follow you or keep up with your music by going to Dat Piff, they can only download the tape.
If you drive them to Sound Cloud you can build your fan base up WHILE promoting the tape 🙂
 Put your Sound Cloud links in your Youtube Videos descriptions
Your Website
A website is a great place to release a project if you have your website fully optimized for some sort of campaign.
Since I am assuming you don’t have a website that costs thousands of dollars to optimize for a campaign, I’ll just skip this part in this mixtape marketing article so you don’t have to read 5 paragraphs on the subject.
If you would like to know how to build your own jaw-dropping website and build and grow your fan base using it, look at this amazingly good article I took a while putting together for you.
It shows you how to build a website from scratch and start growing your e-mail list that allows you to stay in touch with fans and sell them your mixtapes, albums, merchandise and market to them at a click of a button.
https://smartrapper.com/How-To-Make-A-Website-For-Rappers
Your Youtube Channel
1 Video At A Time
You can slowly leak your new project out on your Youtube and start gathering views and subscribers that way.
One song a week on the same day every week so people are excited for that day to come along. Or even one song a day depending on your plan and circumstances.
 In the description of each songs video, ask them to subscribe, but more importantly put a link to your soundcloud and say
“FREE DOWNLOAD OF THIS SONG ON http://www.SoundCloud.com/YourArtistNAME”
This way you can keep them as a fan on both sites.
Instagram Release
You can do a countdown from 14 or 7 days down to release using a picture to remind people how many days is left until it’s release.
Then you can post up videos that have snippets of your songs in them so people on your Instagram can hear them.
Then Tag everyone’s screen name you know in the comments of the video. Such as @friend3Â @friend1 @friend2
 When your project does release, make sure to put the link to it in your Instagram bio.
Do the SAME mixtape release strategy for Instagram on Facebook.
Take those same pictures and post them to your profile one day at a time so your friends, fans and family don’t forget the day is coming.
Then when you are releasing the videos to Youtube, you can post the links on Facebook too.
Then from the YouTube video they can end up downloading it at your Sound Cloud page.
Marketing a new mixtape or album is all about cross promoting and gaining fans everywhere you can.
You want everyone to be aware of you everywhere because they might not see your post on the other websites but they may see it on that one website that reminds them.
If you don’t promote on all the websites you are missing out on a potential music fan buying your new music project.
You can do the same thing on Twitter that I recommended for Instagram.
Pictures daily! Entertain your audience and keep them in the loop with what is going on with you.
Make sure your bio is optimized so people want to click your link and of course have the link be to your music in your Twitter bio.
Also make sure that your Instagram, Soundcloud and Facebook name are in your Twitter bio.
How Do I get my Album/Mixtape On iTunes and Spotify?
Before you release a mixtape or album it is always a good idea to make sure that it is up on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Amazon MP3, Pandora and every other place that a fan can potentially buy your music.
Even if 10 fans buy your music you are still making nearly $100 that you wouldn’t have made if you didn’t post it up there.
Be smart and post your new mixtape and album to iTunes.
Yesterday I updated the article on how to sell your music on iTunes and other online stores.
It is a step by step guide with pictures + a step by step video that shows you every single thing from start to finish.
The website allows you to distribute your music to any of the major streaming and online store sites you desire for your rap mixtape.
You’re welcome 😉
Now your next question may be… but… can I even sell my songs on iTunes when I’m using beats I found online?
What are beat leases and how does all of that work for me?
It’s cool, I got you there too. Check out this article on beat leases and how you can sell your music on iTunes with no problems.
Beat Leases And How They Work From Beat Makers
Use the promotion tips in the next level for promoting individual songs and full albums.Â
There you have it ‘How To Release A Mixtape The Right Way’
[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_34]