In this instructional video, the presenter explains why real‑world street teams remain essential even in the digital age and outlines a step‑by‑step system for running effective promotional tours. Artists travel in a branded van that serves as a moving billboard, stopping at high‑traffic physical locations such as hip‑hop gear shops, flea markets, malls, college campuses, high schools, clubs, and large events like homecoming football games. The talk covers how to select target markets (e.g., Tampa, Jacksonville, Norfolk, multiple Alabama cities, Atlanta), hire local street‑team reps, and employ a seasoned road‑manager who pre‑books venues and creates social‑media itineraries. Budgeting is kept lean—about $200 per day—with a minimal entourage (one vehicle, two hotel rooms) to reduce costs and logistical friction. The presenter also recommends building online or college‑based street teams, rewarding charismatic reps, and continuously feeding fan‑generated photos and videos to social platforms to amplify the tour’s reach. The video concludes with scheduling details for live Q&A sessions and posting cadence.
Chapters
Hi guys, thanks for coming back. So tonight— it's dark out tonight, and I know you're seeing this in the morning, most of you are if you're subscribed— we're gonna talk about street teams and A couple of you had pointed out that in the video that Tony and I did about social media, we talked about the importance of the real world and hitting the streets as well as the internet. Um, and that's very much the case. And quite a few of you asked about street teams and how to beat the block. So that's what I'm going to talk about tonight. Um, I know that this topic seems a little bit old school to some of you, um, because back in the day before the internet, we only had the streets. But I have found for my clients that hitting the streets is really necessary because the internet gives you a feeling for somebody's music. You can kind of read about them, but you don't get the opportunity to really interact with them the way you can in real life. See them, touch them, feel them, take a picture with them. So what we do is we send our clients out, the artists out on promo tour, and we usually put them into a van. We usually wrap the van with the artwork for whatever single we're working or the album that we're working, and we send them out into you know, a 5 to 7 state radius from where they're located. And what the artist does when they go out onto the road is they wake up in the morning, they hit any hip-hop gear shops that are in the area, they hit the flea markets. Um, this is if it's a weekend. Um, they hit the malls. Um, if school is in session, if it's a weekday, they'll hit colleges and universities, the campus, especially around lunchtime and dinnertime. And, um, high schools, when they're getting out, they'll usually hit the high schools. They usually park across the street from the high school because a lot of high schools don't allow you to, uh, promote on their campus. They get a little upset. So most artists, what they do is they pull up across the street right before school lets out, and then when the students come out, they they naturally gravitate over towards the rap van. There's usually music playing, you know, the back doors of the van are usually open, and, um, the artists are giving out music, they're giving out download cards, they're giving out t-shirts, you know, whatever your budget allows for. Um, at night you're going to go to as many of the clubs as you can. If you have a larger budget, you're going to do a DJ listening party in that area. So basically you're going to do whatever you can do to reach as many people as possible. If there's an event going on Um, I love the fall because there's a lot of homecoming football games, so there'll be like an extra 30,000 to 100,000 people in an area like Auburn, Alabama. And you can go into that area on the Saturday of the game or even, um, the night before to the clubs and perform. If you offer to perform for free, that's a wonderful thing if you're not known yet. Um, but it's a great way to reach a lot of people that are in a happy party mood, and they're there from all over, you know, the area, so that when you're passing out music, they're taking it back to their respective areas. It's sort of like giving you the opportunity to hit a couple places all in one day or all in one night with the amount of people that are there. Um, we still hire street teams for our artists. I don't hire them in every market the way that I used to back in the '90s or the hundreds. It feels so stupid saying that, hundreds. Um, but in certain areas I do hire street teams. Tampa, Florida is an area. Tallahassee, Florida. Jacksonville. Um, Norfolk, Alabama— excuse me, Norfolk, Virginia. All of Alabama, um, from Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham. Um, Atlanta, I still have street teams. I still hire street teams. So there are markets where it still makes sense to have somebody that lives in that area and knows who all the key players are representing you for a month or 2 months, especially right before you come into town, so that people in those areas, um, know who you are when you come into their area. I also hire a guy out of, um, here in Atlanta, and he goes out on the road with almost all of my clients. And when they go out on promo tour, he, he goes with them because he's got great relationships in all of these different markets, especially in Alabama, Georgia, Northern Florida. Um, he's been doing it for so many years— North Carolina, South Carolina— he's been doing it for so many years that he's just got relationships with everybody. And he calls people and says, hey, we're coming into town on Wednesday or Thursday or whenever. And he sets up ahead of time, he sets up exactly what the artist is going to do, and then he supplies that itinerary so that we can then make flyers for Instagram and Twitter and Facebook that says where the artist is going to be, when they're going to be there. And that way, if the artist does have a little bit of a following, he can start really interacting with his social media fans in those marketplaces where they live. And then of course, the artist is gonna reach additional fans when he or she is in town just by, you know, the fact that the wrapped vehicle is a moving billboard. So you can really see that the artist is there. But yes, we still use street teams. They are extremely effective. The promotional tours are probably the most valuable thing that I do for my clients. I make sure they get out and about. Amongst the people. Um, you definitely need the internet. I look at the internet like it's another market. I don't look at it as it's taking over the market, so taking over all the markets. So if I'm sending my artist out into, um, into like maybe 30 different cities or towns over, you know, a 30 or 45 day period, I want to make sure that I'm hitting the internet at the same time so that people in other areas can see exactly what the artist is doing. And it kind of makes the artist look larger than life that they're out there on a tour. So, um, and we name the tours, you know, we, we do it very professionally. We make sure that we make really good use of time. Um, we end up spending, um, roughly $200 a day, um, doing this to go from market to market. We keep the entourage very small At the most, I want to have 2 hotel rooms, never more than 2. I only ever want to have 1 vehicle. Ideally, it's an SUV, um, but if we have to rent a van, I've, I've done that before. I don't appreciate doing that. The more people you have out on the road, the more expensive it gets, and also the more personality clashes you have. When you've got more than 2 or 3 people, um, it takes longer to get going in the morning. It takes longer if you're at the club, you know, to round everybody up. It just becomes more of a hassle to have a lot of people with you, and then there's more opportunity for people to do dumb shit, because they will. Um, so that about wraps up street teams. Um, I also think that it's very smart— I don't do this, but I think it's very smart to organize different online teams if you're somebody that, that's really good at structuring and organizing, and you can bring people together online, maybe set up online street teams, you know, coordinate in different markets and have college reps in different areas that are, that are key to your career. You know, appoint somebody as your college rep, and that person is the person on campus who gets to promote you Definitely you want to use somebody that's got a lot of charisma, and you want to make sure that they're getting something in return for the work that they're doing for you. You know, even if it's something as simple as bringing them backstage when you're performing, or inviting them to shows, or giving them, you know, special gear to wear. You know, you want to, you want to pay them somehow. You don't want to just completely pimp them out. But that's definitely not a paying position. That is something that somebody does because they just really love your music and they want to spread the word about you. So, um, it's very much like running a political campaign. You just got to get out there and shake hands and kiss babies and take pictures with people and post those pictures on your Instagram and your website. Let folks go to your website to find the photograph of them, of themselves. They can print it out or they could save it to, you know, to their computer or to their smartphone, however they choose to save stuff. And you also want to make sure you post as many of them to your social media. You can't post all of them, it's not realistic. You would just— your feed would be going off constantly and people following you would get really annoyed. But you definitely want to have— wow, my dog's going nuts in the background, can you hear him? But you definitely want to have some interaction on your feed because you want people to follow you back, even if it's just to see themselves on your site, right? So that's Street Teams. Thanks for tuning in. Um, we answer questions live every Wednesday night at 7 PM, and, um, I post these videos, um, at 11 AM Monday, Wednesday, Friday Eastern Time. Okay, y'all, thanks for tuning in. Bye!
