A recently leaked email suspected to come directly from a dance music blog's executive reveal the massive underground marketing service where artists can buy social media promotion as well as editorial coverage in order to market their works.
The leaked email was obtained by Thump and claim that it was send late in July 2015. The email was sent to an unnamed North American DJ. The email was sent by EDM.com's sales and marketing director Dayna Young.
Based on the leaked email, Young presented various options on how the DJ can get his music videos get proper attention on EDM's website and other social media outlets.
One of the option presented by Young to the DJ includes a fee of $1,000. This will get the DJ's music videos significant marketing presence on EDM's Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Another proposal costs $350 and this entails sharing the DJ's music videos on Vine and Instagram. Finally, if the DJ agrees to pay $600, his works will be posted on EDM's Slingshot program which is a recurring playlist that is published on its social media accounts and website.
Based on the leaked email, the $600 Slingshot proposal reads, "We would like to suggest that you consider both a house and electro channel slingshot for the track. Song would remain hosted on your s/c and EDM.com would support across those two channels to help awareness for, and fan engagement with, the track."
According to Complex, this kind of practice in the music industry is known as "payola." It is defined as the practice of secret payment in order to secure the promotion of product or service.