Checklist to make the most of every song release [Kosha Dillz]

Indie rapper Kosha Dillz makes the most of every opportunity to market his music and lucky for us he’s willing to share how he does it. Read and learn:

By indie rapper Kosha Dillz

I just released a new song “Yabe Daba Doo” and with all the tools at my disposal, I wanted to give you an update on how it’s going so we can learn a little bit about what to do and what not to do.

Here is a quick checklist on how to get your song out there. I can at least tell you what I have done in the past week. 

Here is the song to get you pumped up to read.

1. Make a short link In one place you should find all links from the song.  For instance, mine is ffm.to/yabbadabbadoo . This gives you all links in one place and you can track them. You can do the same for your music video just as I did bit.ly/yabbadabbavid. This makes it easy to text and to post and DM on IG to your followers.

2. Make a few reels: Everyone knows that IG is pushing all the Reels so be sure to make a few of them. Don’t bust all your content on day 1. I gained 43k on my first reel and 11.5k on another with some comedy behind it. Get your friends to make reels too using the song. Shoot pay your friends $5 to get a coffee and make a reel.  Make it REAL! 5 x 20 = $100 and people will be having fun to your song and tagging you each chance they get.

3. Use live broadcast: Many artists such as Nojumper or PatrickCC or even T-Paini have twitch pages where they play

4. Submit Hub – I haven’t got much happening here but the basics. We got added to 60 playlists including Gary Vee’s Monday to Monday playlist with 80,000+ followers but only got 80 plays. Each small playlist gets a few more eats, content,  and runs me $80 for 100 credits. Hot or Not is a great way to get 50 authentic listens to your song for 6 credits or $5. You can also straight-up purchase a guaranteed post on someone’s TikTok or reels for as cheap as $5 to $100. This will get your song 100s of new eyeballs and ears. I am currently selecting more locations to send as we speak.

4=5. Premiered the video on Whatisnewyork Instagram page : I have had album premiers on Billboard that look awesome but didn’t do as well as I wanted to. Whatisnewyork is a local meme page in NYC that does a “finished product”  post. It shows you getting caught in the wild with my “music video” to the “final product.” The post of my music video got 43,000 likes and hundreds of new followers/streamers. I turned it into a public call to collaborate with Pitbull and Moby. Always bring it back to the video.

5. Virtual Live talent shows + Stream broadcasts- Believe it or not there are tons of talent shows on IG live where there. I have them on Instagram and on Clubhouse. Put the link in there and promote the song from the comfort of your own apartment. I rapped on Bars (wednesday) Aaron Cohen (monday), Ding Raps on Clubhouse, and Value Culture on Clubhouse. Each of them boasts dozens to hundreds of ears and eyes. I most recently got my music video played on T-Pain’s twitch channel.  I posted that clip on all my socials.

6. Facebook friends’ comments: Nothing else fails to like your true old friends and fans. I believe that before you run ads you must send it to everyone. increase the engagement and go into the Rolodex. These are people you already know. It can lead to more collaborations. More sharing. More “things” that keep it going.

7. Subway + Park Reactions: since my song Yabba Dabba Doo is filmed in the park, we are making videos of other people simply reacting and vibing to the song. You never know who is gonna vibe out. 

8. Bought an AMV from a youtube channel: There are huge youtube channels that are similar to “promoting sounds‘ which post audio-only version of songs that you must “white list” with your distribution company.. In this case, my friend Blake Banks, a rapper who has collaborated with Post Malone, went out of his way showed me his animated music video. He digs deep in the crevices of Youtube and finds channels to post music. These things are great ways to get your song heard and not make money, but also just dropped $200 on a channel to post this song. I am excited about seeing how many new listeners I get. A roll of the dice but this is exciting.

9. Twitter Video: Believe it or not I managed to grab up 2,300 twitter views on my new video as well as include the links within the post.  I have 16.9 k followers It all depends on how much work I want to put in and how much I engage with my listeners.  I have all the links in there and it. is great. tose who is who that likes and comments on your video. This.is a great opportunity to engage all those people who you have known for so long. Real humans who listen!.

10.  Ads. Google / Youtube / Facebook: I have the natural views and shares every day but nothing beats some good old fancy marketing dollars.  Get yourself a good google ad person and someone who understands Facebook marketing ads. You can always see what provokes people to engage more and share the video. 

11. GET IT TO PITBULL: Because everyone thinks I look like Pitbull, a lot of people who have had been tagging him actually got Pitbull to look at the account. hey. That is a whole post in itself right there!!

12. Email blast + direct message. There is nothing like a direct email or text message.  Send that blast off and hope people open it. If they didn’t open it the first time, we’ll send the next one this upcoming week. Then, we have the shows. Then, we play the song live. Then we always post those videos. We can also share our song in the old kickstarter, patreon, bandsintown profiles to geet it to our #1 fans. As Gary Vee says…”It goes down in the DMs”

13. Post the lyrics to Genius: Nothing better than linking the Yabba Dabba Doo lyrics to Genius.com. It is. a clean site and everyone wants to know the lyrics. My friend Justin Clancy recently made his own “genius” style interviews for his new release, “Noose.” Lyrics arent’ just important. They are everything!

I hope this gives you some insight. ideas for when you go all out are you next release. Comment below any other ideas ou may have that I missed!

Kosha Dillz is an independent rapper based in Brooklyn NYC. he has gone viral a bunch for performing in the streets as Moses or rapping. in a tuxedo in a  snowstorm. You can watch him on the internet and check out his website here. Ask him what it was like when played at Weekend 2 Coachella in 2019 as a special guest and got to dance with Kanye West’s Sunday service while throwing the first-ever Matzahchella.