Not only have hordes of actors, news reporters and CEOs joined Twitter, but you’ll also find a number of hip hop stars participating. Sure, current big shots like @50cent and @ThisIsLilWayne are tweeting but quite a few other rappers sport an ever-growing following.
- Snoop Dogg (@snoopdogg) – Still pretending its 2007 by ending words with “izzle”, Snoop has recently been promoting his upcoming summer tour.
- Ice T (@FINALLEVEL) – The 50+ year old is still out there working hard on both music and Law & Order. His Twitter ID represents the new label he’s pushing.
- Eminem (@eminem) – Probably the most clever use of Twitter; he’d tweet about where his followers can snag free concert tickets at various locales in Detroit. A Web 2.0 scavenger hunt!
- MC Hammer (@MCHammer) – When he’s not roaming the country at college speaking gigs and new media appearances, he’s running DanceJam.com, a YouTube collective of dance videos.
These artists have also been taking advantage of their Twitter following to promote new music for themselves and their cohorts. They understand that advertising new releases no longer works on MTV and the radio alone. Artists need to have their music in iTunes, YouTube, Twitter, Pandora, Rhapsody, Last.fm, and all other means of social media distribution.
So if @souljaboytellem (with over 600,000 followers) gets a listen to a new guy’s track and tweets his legion – that type of simple promotion can move a no one into a someone overnight.
