Over the years, the Nigerian music industry has seen significant development, competition has been a tight one
Breaking out as an artist seems to be tricky and difficult even with the advent of social media. The amount of talents waiting for a chance to break out is quite big, if you think you’re super talented, witnessing someone else’s talent will make you question your own abilities.
In today’s world, talent is not really enough to have a breakthrough, you need some extra spices to give you an edge over others, something that would serve as a catalyst to speed up the breakthrough process.
Nigerian artists have been beneficiaries of music promotions, it has helped their music reach a large audience very fast and also convince people to fall in love with their music.
You can be talented but if your name ain’t included in conversations or you’re not in people’s faces, there is a high chance that you will be forgotten very fast and your music might fail to reach its full potential.
The advent of social media has facilitated the growth of Nigerian artists, they get to connect with their fans easily and capitalize on their large numbers of followers across different social media platforms to promote their music.
Many years back, promoting music was straightforward, no hidden tricks, follow the guidelines and you have a 70% chance of success but nowadays you need to do the extras, put your creative team into work, do more than the basics and you are still not guaranteed 50% success rate.
A method used to promote artiste A successfully might not be effective when used to promote artiste B, every artist has a unique sound and finding a suitable marketing strategy to grow the audience can be a huge task for an artiste’s PR strategist.
If we are being real, music promotion is quite expensive, not every artist can afford to subscribe to promotion packages for their music. Day by day, music is becoming more expensive to make, with the number of money artists spend on making quality music, adding promotion packages to that amount is something many artists cannot afford.
The number of promotion packages some artists subscribe to makes other artists think they are not doing enough, while some go through the normal channels to promote their music, some go through the backdoor to buy streams and appear successful to their fans.
Social media is a tool Nigerian artists can use to promote their music easily but only a few Nigerian artists make proper use of it, amongst them is Blaqbonez.
Blaqbonez has made a name for himself on social media, he understands how expensive music promotion is and the kind of music he does, he knows it will take a lot of effort for Rap music to sell in Nigeria.
Talk about creativity, Blaqbonez is one of the best creatives in the music industry, he forged a path for himself on social media, came up with different ideas to make people fall in love with him and his music. It would be hard to visit his page without seeing something to love about him, his video contents are always spot on.
One of the things some Nigerian artists don’t pay attention to is branding, Blaqbonez created a relatable brand for himself, the rapper made random Twitter users trend his songs without chasing clout.
When he drops a song, the kind of energy he puts in using social media to push his song is something of note, he comes up with fun creative videos, he makes sure people get to see his kind of person, how fun he is to be with through his skits.
As the day passes, Blaqbonez is building a fanbase that would stand in his defence and push his music, a fanbase that would stand the test of time, he calls them “Blaqforce”.
When he dropped HABA last year, he made sure the whole Twitter NG was aware he dropped a song, he subtly convinced people to stream his song, the song spread like wildfire across social media platforms, his fans littered the whole Twitter NG with hashtags, you could barely scroll for 5 mins without seeing a tweet with the “#StreamHaba” hashtag. This campaign paid off eventually, HABA made it to Apple Music top 20 charts.
He also took to the street to spread the awareness of his song, even if you had no intention of listening to his song, Blaqbonez will definitely convince you to do his bidding. He has built himself a place in the hearts of Nigerians, whenever he wants to drop a song, everybody rallies behind him and support his music.
When Blaqbonez announced his Album “Sex over Love”, people went crazy about it on Twitter, it was beautiful to see that people can actually look forward to a rap album, not from an established rapper, but from a rapper that is just establishing himself in the industry.
He dropped a single “Bling ft Amarae & Buju” off his album a few weeks ago, people expected the normal Blaqbonez type of push, but he came up with a different and impressive strategy, he tweeted something that looked like a reply to a deleted slander on his craft, but it was instead a link to his new single “Bling” with a specific caption, the moment you click on what looked like a deleted tweet, the link to his song with the caption appears automatically in your tweet box, he knows Nigerians love gist and violence and he used that to his own advantage.
His album “Sex over Love” entered the top 5 on Apple Music Nigeria chart with just 3 songs released, that’s an incredible feat for an artist of his calibre, many artists couldn’t even get there with the whole album released.
Social media is a tool Nigerian artists should make use of often, the toxicity on social media can be hurtful truly but they can get a social media marketer that would help them oversee the buzz around them on social media, they get to stay offline and also get to be active on social media at the same time, it’s a win-win for them.
Fans love to interact with their favourite artists, it makes them feel connected to their favourites, they love getting updates from their favourites first hand instead of hearing something from different sources.
However, the only way to make fans fall in love with their favourite personality is through social media, they get to love the artiste’s music and his/her personality, whether the artiste drops music or not, they will always be there to support their favourites.
Blaqbonez understood this and he took it upon himself to engage his fans, joke with them and even banter with them just to make the fans feel connected, the path he forged for himself can only lead him to the top.
One of the most admirable things about him is that he doesn’t miss a chance to promote his music, his hustling spirit is top-notch, he pushes his music like an unknown artiste trying to find his ground, he always drops the link to his album under every tweet he drops, you don’t buy this kind of spirit in the market, it’s built-in.
Source:- Musicfro.com
