How Indie Artists Are Winning Big with Whop: Brandman Sean Breaks Down the Clipping Campaign Strategy

In today’s ever-shifting digital music landscape, independent artists face more opportunities—and more challenges—than ever before. With platforms like TikTok and Instagram now shaping the charts, getting heard often comes down to how well an artist can navigate short-form video culture. According to Brandman Sean of the music marketing agency No Labels Necessary, one of the most effective—and still underutilized—strategies available today is the clipping campaign, an approach now being supercharged by the platform Whop. “This strategy is one of the easiest ways to get hundreds of videos posted to your sound on Instagram or TikTok,” Sean explained in a recent two-part video series. “Even if you go viral on your own page, you can only reach so many people. But when you use other people—creators—you don’t have to come up with all the ideas. You create good enough music to inspire them.”

Already, major artists like Drake, Lil Baby, Ken Carson and Wiz Khalifa have tapped into this method to help drive visibility, streams, and cultural momentum. Sean predicts that by the end of 2025, clipping campaigns will be a standard part of any smart music marketing plan. His agency, which has helped drive billions of streams and countless plaques for both independent and major-label acts, is now teaching others how to implement the approach. “Those who get to it the fastest, as usual, will benefit the most,” Sean said. And for indie artists hoping to compete with bigger marketing budgets, the opportunity couldn’t come at a better time.

What Exactly Is a Clipping Campaign?

At its core, a clipping campaign is a way to distribute short-form content tied to a song across social media—at scale—by leveraging a community of creators. Sean traces the idea back to how streamers such as Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed generate viral moments when fans clip key segments of their live streams and repost them across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and beyond. But with music marketing, the approach is more deliberate: rather than waiting for fans to create content, artists can pre-select high-performing clips or even just supply the song itself and let creators run with it. “A clipping campaign is one of the quickest, most affordable, and usually the most transparent ways to take your content and get it posted everywhere,” Sean explained. “Or to inspire others in a clipping campaign to create new content which they will in turn post everywhere.”

This model taps into the power of the social media algorithm. A single clip, well-matched to a song, can drive millions of impressions overnight—especially when creators are incentivized to post across multiple accounts. In today’s fragmented digital space, this strategy also helps artists reach audiences far beyond their own followers. As Sean noted, “Even if you create viral content on your own page, you’re still limited by the reach of that page. You need to figure out how to get to other platforms, how to do it easily, reliably, and cheaply. That’s what clipping campaigns are for.”

Whop: The Platform Making It All Possible

Until recently, running a clipping campaign required a lot of manual effort. Artists or their teams had to build Discord groups, recruit creators, handle payments, and track performance. “It was the wild west,” Sean recalled. “You had to rally a bunch of people with your offer, advertise to them, track everything yourself. It was a headache, which is why most people didn’t do it.” Whop has streamlined the entire process into a single, easy-to-use platform. Artists simply post a campaign with their content and payout terms, and creators—known as clippers—can opt in. “You post it and it’s like a shark frenzy,” Sean said. “People are hungry, looking for these types of opportunities. You’re also tapping into a community of the best pay-per-view content creators in the world.”

One of the key advantages of Whop is transparency. Artists can set clear terms—for example, $1 to $5 per 1,000 views—and define an overall campaign budget. Creators are only paid for actual performance. “They opt in and they know what they’re going to get paid if their post gets enough views,” Sean explained. That model protects artists while giving creators strong incentive to post content that performs. Importantly, the platform also handles tracking and payments, freeing up artists and their teams to focus on the music and creative side.

Content Is King: Building a Successful Campaign

A consistent theme in Sean’s advice is the importance of strong content. “If you have good music but struggle to create the content to get the visibility that your music deserves, this will be one of the biggest hacks for you going forward,” he said. There are several ways artists can approach clipping campaigns, but the most successful campaigns start with either (1) long-form content clipped down into shareable moments; (2) pre-tested short clips that already perform well on an artist’s page; or (3) song-only campaigns where creators pair the track with their own visual content. Sean strongly encourages testing clips first. “The better your content is, the more likely they are to grab it,” he explained. “Because the creators want to perform well, too. They want to make as much money as possible.”

For artists without a lot of visual content, providing just the song can also be effective. Creators will often pair tracks with sports highlights, memes, lifestyle videos, or gaming clips—helping to build an organic sense of “omnipresence” for the song. “You actually don’t have to create content at all,” Sean said. “You could just provide the song and allow the clippers to take your song and put it behind videos that they created to bring visibility to your song.” The result is that listeners start hearing the song everywhere—not just from the artist’s page—creating the perception that a wave is building.

Smart Payouts, Smarter Budgets

A major strength of the clipping campaign model is its performance-based payout structure. Rather than negotiating flat fees with influencers, artists can simply set a rate (typically $1 to $5 per 1,000 views) and a budget cap. Sean recommends $3 per 1,000 views as a common starting point, though campaigns can be successful at lower rates depending on content and artist profile. “Let’s say you have a budget of $2,000,” Sean explained. “At $1 per 1,000 views, that could get you 4 million views. And it’s not even up to you to figure out how to get those views—it’s up to the creators.”

However, Sean also warns that artists need to protect their budgets by setting a maximum payout per creator. Without a cap, one viral video could quickly deplete the entire campaign budget. “If a video does 10 million views and you’re paying $3 per 1,000 views, that’s $30,000 you’d owe,” he said. “That’s probably not what you’re trying to do.” A typical max payout is $500 to $1,000 per creator, ensuring that a campaign can benefit from multiple viral clips instead of being dominated by a single one.

Avoiding Pitfalls: Trust Is Everything

While clipping campaigns are relatively easy to manage through Whop, Sean cautions that maintaining trust and a good reputation is critical. Every video must be approved before payment is issued, giving artists control over brand alignment. However, Sean warns artists not to abuse this by rejecting valid content or refusing to pay creators who meet campaign terms. “You can very easily develop a bad reputation if you aren’t paying people out,” he said. “I’m less worried about artists getting botted. I’m more worried about y’all getting super picky and ruining your reputation.”

In Sean’s view, the key is fairness and transparency. If an artist consistently rejects valid submissions or fails to honor payouts, word spreads—and future campaigns will struggle to attract good creators. “It doesn’t make sense in most cases for a clipper to ruin their brand or get banned off the platform,” Sean noted. “But if you don’t pay them fairly, they’re not going to want to work with you again.”

Why Clipping Campaigns Work—Even for Artists With No Social Media Presence

Perhaps one of the most revolutionary aspects of clipping campaigns is that they can drive success even for artists who aren’t heavily active on social media themselves. “You don’t have to become somebody who posts extremely frequently to see results,” Sean explained. “Technically, you could not have a social media profile and still see results—not recommended, but possible.” He points to figures like Andrew Tate, who became the most Googled man in the world in 2022 using a similar strategy—without even having a TikTok account. “He blew up primarily on TikTok and never even had a TikTok account,” Sean said.

Because platforms like TikTok allow brand-new accounts to go viral, creators can drive exposure without the artist having to post constantly. Many top clippers run dozens or even hundreds of accounts, optimizing content across different niches. This allows songs to reach highly engaged audiences in ways traditional influencer campaigns often can’t match.

The Bigger Picture: Changing the Influencer Game

Sean is clear that clipping campaigns don’t replace influencer marketing entirely—but they do transform it. “It doesn’t mean you never use influencers ever again,” he said. “But it changes how much we need them just to blow music up.” Because clippers compete to earn payouts based on results, the model eliminates many of the inefficiencies of flat-fee influencer deals. “At the top, you still have influencers who are worth paying,” Sean said. “But at the smaller tier, you have micro-influencers—and it’s not even worth paying a lot of mid-tier influencers near the beginning of a campaign.”

Perhaps most importantly, clipping campaigns generate social proof. When dozens or hundreds of unrelated pages start posting videos with the same sound, it creates momentum. Casual listeners perceive the song as part of a larger cultural moment—a “wave” they want to catch. “There’s so much value in using clipping campaigns,” Sean concluded. “It’s one of the easiest ways to get seen as many times as possible—at the highest impact for the lowest cost.”