Collaboration to Grow Your Fanbase

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Collaboration is a key factor for success in today’s music industry. It is very difficult to “make it” on your own without the help of band members, team members, and other musicians and bands. When it comes to growing your fan base, collaborating with other bands or musicians is a great method. You can promote each other on Facebook, you can play live shows together, and you can share each other’s music with your followers. Get creative with your collaboration ideas! In the end, collaboration between two or more bands creates a mutually beneficial relationship.

Here’s one example of musician collaboration from Hypebot:

Let’s say you put together a playlist with tracks from 10 artists you feel close to in your scene, with a couple of simple assumptions: each of you has 2,000 fans (or followers), and there is no cross-over in your fanbase. If each of those 10 artists shares your playlist, you’ll be reaching a potential of 11*2,000 = 22,000 fans. Assuming 20% actually listen to the content, and a quarter of those become fans or followers of you and the artists in your playlist, that’s 1,100 new fans for everyone. Some of the assumptions are simplistic, but you get the picture.

This idea of curation as a means of putting a musical scene you feel a part of in the spotlight has yet to overpower the hype of discovery algorithms, but already some artists have been headed in that direction for some time, notably in the electronic music and hip-hop scenes. Take a look at French artist Brodinski: hisFacebook and Twitter feeds are filled with musical content from artists he’s close to. Or Boston duo Soul Clap, who regularly create DJ charts on Beatport; and, because, there’s a “buy” link on the tracks, these guys are actually providing their fans with an incentive to financially support the acts they’ve curated. If you believe in the power of connecting with other musicians, of creating a movement, your job as an artist becomes to get connected with your scene, finding the artists you see as part of your movement, help them be discovered and identified as part of the movement, and help them reciprocate. As long as there’s an unmistakable unity, the bigger the movement, the bigger everyone’s personal gains, ultimately.

To read the full article, visit Hypebot.

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