Building a Digital Empire: How I Scaled Lil Wayne’s Social Presence From 10 Million to Over 100 Million Followers

In today’s fast-paced music industry, having a strong digital presence isn’t just a bonus—it’s essential. Over the last decade, I had the opportunity to help shape the online presence of some of hip-hop’s biggest icons, including Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and the Young Money brand. What started as managing Lil Wayne’s Facebook page evolved into creating a vast digital ecosystem that now spans over 100 million followers across multiple platforms.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how we built this digital empire, and why it matters for artists and music marketers alike.

From Facebook to TikTok: Growing With the Platforms

When I first began, Facebook was the king of social media for artists. Lil Wayne’s Facebook page grew from 10 million to an astonishing 50 million followers, making it one of the top 50 largest pages globally. But the game has changed. We adapted by expanding to Instagram, growing Young Money’s profile to over 1 million followers in just one year. Twitter followed, expanding from 100,000 to 415,000 engaged fans.

Recognizing the rise of new platforms, we launched Lil Wayne’s TikTok account and grew it to 3 million followers in just 2 months by producing native, audience-focused content designed specifically for TikTok’s unique style and community.

Viral Moments and Content Series That Keep Fans Engaged

A key to maintaining momentum in digital marketing is not only gaining followers but keeping them engaged. The rollout of the Carter VI album announcement is a prime example. By creating relatable and shareable short-form videos, the announcement video amassed 10 million views in less than 48 hours.

We also developed recurring content like Weezy Wednesdays and tour vlogs, giving fans exclusive access to behind-the-scenes moments. These content series helped build loyalty and foster a deeper connection between the artist and fans.

Powerful Brand Partnerships That Amplify Reach

Building a digital empire isn’t just about followers—it’s about converting that audience into meaningful partnerships. We collaborated with major brands like Spotify, Samsung, the NFL, EA Sports, Apartments.com, and Bumbu Rum to create campaigns that aligned with Lil Wayne’s brand and connected authentically with fans.

From product launches to Super Bowl commercial promotions, these partnerships expanded the artist’s reach beyond music and into lifestyle and culture.

Real-Time Engagement at Live Events

Live events such as Lil Weezyana Fest and the Drake vs. Lil Wayne battle provided prime opportunities for real-time social engagement. By delivering up-to-the-minute content and immersive fan experiences during these events, we generated spikes in impressions, ticket sales, and follower growth.

Why This Matters

Building a digital presence with over 100 million followers isn’t just about vanity metrics. It’s about creating a sustainable, engaged community that supports artists through every release, tour, and brand collaboration.

If you’re an artist or marketer looking to build or scale your digital footprint, it’s crucial to focus on authentic content, platform-specific strategies, and partnerships that enhance the fan experience.

music marketing strategy, Lil Wayne social media growth, digital marketing for musicians, entertainment brand partnerships, TikTok growth for artists, hip hop social media campaigns, artist fan engagement, digital content series, music industry marketing

The Data Behind Film Marketing

I feel like analytics gets lost in digital strategy. When running campaigns, I can't stress enough how important it is to analyze the data. So, this is how "Shiva Baby" went on to stay at #1 at Quad Cinema for 4 weeks and also wound up grossing $1mm in combo with the TVOD campaign. "El Planeta," a debut foreign language, black-and-white film, stayed at #1 at the IFC Center for SEVEN weeks.

It has to be more than guts and feelings. So, let's break down some film marketing campaigns. It also helps that these were, in fact, very well-done films!

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The first part of the campaign was the general trailer launch and organic posting. It had to be launched in various sizes. I wanted a placement for Stories, Feeds, YouTube, Video Feeds, etc. I also wanted cutdowns of different lengths, from 90 - 60 - 30 - 15 seconds. I also wanted enough lead-out time to get some data on the organic posts for two weeks. These would prove to be important down the line and also helped to determine which assets got the most engagement to use in ads.

Now, it was time to test them against multiple interest-targeting audiences, including people who engaged with the film's social media pages, the film distributors, and the talent in the film. People who liked a post over the past 30 days, for example. People who were cinema lovers, people who might be more casual cinema fans but fans of the talents' other work or similar work, or more general lifestyle fans, such as fans of Variety, Vogue, etc.

After this, it was important to look at View Rates -- who was sticking around to watch. Which versions of the trailer garnered the most engagement, and in which demographics/age groups? Also, where were they most engaged? Which exact locations? Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn? Lower East Side? West Village? Maybe East Village? Did it make sense to target the financial district? All important questions, and yes, a lot smaller/cheaper ads to test this.

As it turned out, the 90-second trailer was good as the intro trailer. Then, people disengaged. The shorter videos were much better at driving clicks at a lower price to ticket landing pages, particularly the 15-second video. Also, the vertical videos proved to do well. And, despite Instagram being "the younger audience," the younger audience clicked through more at a higher rate on Facebook's Feed.

Now, I could switch on the go-to ad for a few days, leading to a show in the exact zip codes I wanted to target.

Trust your gut, but follow the data.

Let's talk for a minute about Geo-Targeting and Marketing

Let's talk for a minute about Geo-Targeting and Marketing. Recently, I came across the above post on Reddit. In the post, he is asking whether or not he should target locals for tours and his music.

And the answer is not only you should, but yes, you absolutely 100% can. My experience targeting locally, even down to the zip code for tours or for your music, is extremely helpful because that helps you build a local fan base.

Now, naturally, you want to sell tickets in a certain zip code because that's where you're performing, and you can do that even by radius, such as 20 miles out, 30 miles out, etc. How far do you think people will drive or travel to see your show?

But to take it a step further in terms of building your audience, if you target your music locally, then all of a sudden, you have many people who know your music, who you then might be able to retarget to promote a show.

So now you're doing two things at once, right? So, to summarize, you should definitely look at targeting not only by country and not only by state but also by city and zip code.

If you think about Manhattan as an example, you know that there are multiple different zip codes just on the island of Manhattan itself. And someone in the financial sector might not be going to a show on the Upper West Side.

So you can even get granular like that if your city is like that. So yeah, definitely think about targeting locally whenever you're marketing your music or content. It is 100% very helpful. 

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Why Music Artists Should Never Work With a Marketing Agency That Playlists Their Songs

Recently, I came across a post on Reddit about an artist getting his music taken off of Tunecore and Spotify.

That's because he said he partnered with an agency that promised them Playlisting. Now, as has been noted, Spotify and DSPs are starting to take botting and playlisting very seriously. Many of these playlists that these fake marketers use are full of bots, just to juice numbers to make it look like they're successful and know what they're doing.

In the past, it might have worked because Spotify and other DSPs weren't really doing much about it, and this went on from small artists to even big artists. However, Spotify is now taking action, and you, as an artist, will pay the price. So if you ever talked to a marketing agency and they say they'll playlist your music, do not walk or run away.

That is not how you market your music. Playlisting happens organically, the real organic way, or it gets discovered through the algorithm, and therefore, people will then add your music to their playlist if they like it. That also exists in a gray area called payola, which means essentially paying for streams. So, the way you want to do it is to promote your music on social media.

And you can also use ads to do that because you're just promoting discovery to a landing page. From that landing page, people can choose to listen to your music or not listen to your music. It's up to them. But if you target the right way, they should. And then, through that targeting and those clicks, your music starts getting a little bump in the organic algorithm.

And from there, people discover your music. So once again, if you ever come across an agency that says they're playlisting your music, run away quickly.

5 Ways I Helped Clients Reach 2 Billion People On Social Media

5️⃣ Tips To Get You On Your Way 🖐️

Managing a growing and engaging social media platform is not a straightforward or easy task.

It takes dedication and hard work. Even if you have a well-built page, it takes an equal amount of hard work to keep that engagement going.

That is why I was inspired to start this newsletter.

I wanted to break down some tips on some easy starting points and strategies for people with existing pages to use for social media platforms. These things kind of apply across the board. I do think there is a common misconception that social media management is simple and that once you build it, all you need to do is post content, and the engagement and followers will come pouring in. If you have tried your hand at it, you will know that is most definitely not the case.

Sure, not everyone has a social media page with the intention of building it up to create a brand, but that’s not why you’re here, and if you want to do those things, it is a skill you learn and perfect over time. And if you want to take social media management seriously, you shouldn’t expect results immediately or expect that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow. Starting from ground zero and maintaining an audience is almost like running in place at times.

It all appears simple, but trust me, it takes time to learn. Unlike the movie “Field of Dreams,” where Kevin Costner builds a baseball field in a cornfield, and everyone just shows up, social media doesn’t work like that. Just because you build it, they will not come or keep coming back, and that is why I am here: to show you how to do this all more effectively.

The first tip and thing that any social media manager wants to do is to maintain growth and engagement. How to do that? The answer is simple, but the process is not. That is because the first thing you need is content and a concept for what you want your page to be and continue to be. Sometimes the content does well, sometimes it does good, and sometimes it does absolutely nothing. Pay attention to that and keep testing. The content you post and create is where organic engagement and growth will come.

So, first, establish that baseline. Figure, based on the size of your followers, it would be ideal to see at least 3% - 5% of your audience engaging with your content. Trust me, algorithms are paying attention to that rate, as well as how long a user watches a video or when a user Likes a video at some point during a video. That’s a good place to start. You have your benchmark.

Now, keep tweaking, pay attention to trends, and try new content. Maybe one of those videos will pop off, and you will see something like 75% engagement based on your audience numbers. There you go. You have something special going on now. So, take a step back, analyze, and see why it did so well. Was it the topic of the content? Did you capitalize on a trend? Was it the way something was filmed? Perhaps you tried something different with the editing. And you know what? If numbers don’t improve or something fails, don’t be afraid to criticize yourself and toss that idea out.

Read the full newsletter here.