How Promoting Can Make You One of the Most Annoying People on the Internet

It seems as though everyone and their moms are promoting nowadays, and although it may be beneficial for that person, I don't think promoters fully understand how annoying they actually are. Now, I personally am a promoter so I feel like I have the right to bash myself and yes, I'm going to come off sounding like I'm attacking the promo-team community as a whole but try not to take it too personally if you happen to be one as well.

Free tickets and special treatment at shows sounds like a fair trade for some petty internet spam and the small chore of shoving flyers in the faces of tired ravers as they exit a venue after a show. Sure, we as promoters may not seem like we're being that annoying and if you single each of us out we usually aren't. But when you have other friends who are promoters that are doing all the same assignments as you are, that's when it starts pissing people off.

Without promoters, it would be much harder to get the word out about a new producer or concert coming up. So keep in mind we are here for at least some good reasons! We just come off sounding annoying and obnoxious because there are SO. DAMN. MANY. OF US. It's true. The only reason why we have such a bad reputation is because each company in the area has at least 50-100+ promoters on their street teams. So imagine having about 10% of your Facebook feed be about the same show coming up. I get annoyed myself and I'm part of the mob that's doing it!

Promoting an event can be grueling, but when you have an army of broke rave kids on their knees who will do whatever it takes to score a free ticket, it makes the event coordinator's job a hell of a lot easier. And they probably don't lose as many internet friends along the way as the promoters do! There is also an equation that calculates the effectiveness of an online promoter but I'm not sure how accurate it is. The objective of this score is to split your customers into 3 groups: Promoters, Passives, Detractors. They are grouped based on the rating they offer your customer service. As shown below, the net promoter score is calculated by subtracting the % of detractors from the % of promoters. You can now measure the customer satisfaction levels at any time by bench marking it against the average score.

Okay- So you've accepted the fact that your network of friends on Facebook probably don't condone the "promo life" and that's perfectly alright. You just have to balls up and prepare yourself for some immature hate messages that are usually 75% uncalled for, 25% humorous, and 0% avoidable. Here's an example that I have personally received and had to deal with (: Enjoy.

As you can see, the more invites you send out for events/pages, the more haters you'll probably attract. I just don't understand if you're not really that good of friends with someone like the charming girl I encountered, then wouldn't it just be easier to delete them altogether? It doesn't make any sense to blow something out of proportion and if you really are friends with someone and are annoyed by it then this ^ certainly isn't the way to deal with it.

Aside from online promo work, there is also the physical portion of it that includes raping street poles with posters and trying to hand flyers to people leaving the venue who really don't want to hold a piece of paper considering they probably have their hands full with their phone, water bottle, and "that" friend who got a little too turnt and can't make it out of the building on his or her own two legs. Needless to say, the majority of these flyers that actually have a lot of time and effort put into creating them, end up littering the ground after a show or festival. See all that trash shown in the picture above? Yeah, your flyers probably take up the most volume out of the total amount of garbage.

One of my personal favorite parts of being a promoter is exit flyering after a show or event. This basically involves allowing yourself to be crazy and obnoxious while shoving flyers in the faces of all the sweaty, exhausted ravers leaving the venue. Seriously though, if you aren't a very outgoing person and don't like to be loud, then this job clearly isn't for you. Nobody is going to take your flyer if you're just standing there with your arm out expecting people to want to take one from you. Instead you must be completely in their faces so that they really don't have a choice but to take your flyer just to get you to go away. Even if they throw the flyer on the ground, statistically speaking the majority of people will at least glance at the picture and quickly read through it before deciding to toss it aside. So if you actually get it into their hands, chances are they'll be aware of said event you're promoting for, and you've done your job.

That's basically the run-down of duties for a typical promoter. Our job really isn't that hard, it's just frustrating to others because it seems as though we never shut up. Sure it's annoying but it's a very effective marketing strategy in the big picture. Your timeline is filled with the same event flyer for up to 3-4 weeks before the show, every day. Subconsciously, you are now fully aware of that event and even though you may have never really stopped to read the flyer all at once, chances are you've gotten bits and parts of it as you scroll past it. Whether you know it or not, the promoters have won you over in grabbing your attention. You may never remember taking the time to look up the event, but you don't have to because all the information has been on your news feed for weeks and your brain has been retaining more and more about the event each time you glance over it.

So for those of you who think promoters are pointless spam junkies that flood the internet for no reason, think again about their purpose and you'll realize that by repetition and consistency, they have successfully captured your attention and unknowingly forced you to be aware of their event. Sneaky, right?