Tag Archive for: fan base

Get More Fans with Fluence

“How do I reach new audiences and grow my fanbase?” is a question I get all the time.

It’s easy to stay in contact with your current fans – there are amazing tools to sell your new music, create engaging fan experiences, and send direct and targeted promotions. The problem was always reaching new fans, but now I’m going to let you in on a little secret and show you exactly how it’s done.

On Thursday, January 29 at 1PM EST, I’ll be hosting a free live webinar with Shamal Ranasinghe, founder of Fluence.

Join the Webinar2

Fluence is a platform that allows musicians to contact music industry influencers and curators directly and get valuable feedback to improve their craft. These direct connections are way more than just self-improvement – they could end up as serious exposure or opportunities for you and your music.

The key to growing your fanbase is taking an active approach and getting your music to music influencers and curators who have an established and dedicated audience. An influencer can be a music blogger, a radio broadcaster, a journalist, a successful producer or musician, or a music supervisor, publisher, label or industry person. These people have developed a group of dedicated followers – be it on Facebook, Twitter, or their blog – who listen to their ideas and value their opinions. If an influencer recommends your music, the followers are much more likely to take note than if they had seen you pop up on Spotify or Google.

The music business is a really personal industry, and often your opportunities will come from the connections you make. On top of that, opportunities like getting your music played on the radio or featured in a show or movie can put you in front of a new audience of potential fans. Although Fluence influencers are not paid to share your music with their following, if they like your sound enough they likely end up doing so. In the webinar, we’ll be looking at a few Fluence artists who got their music in front of a HUGE audience after sending their music to an influencer on Fluence.

If you’re ready to grow your fanbase in 2015, join Shamal and I in the webinar Thursday, January 29 at 1PM EST. If you can’t make the webinar live, you can still sign up to watch the replay.

 

/by
, , , ,

Create an Emotional Connection With Your Super Fans

140028409_edit

Article by  of CyberPR. Check out the full article here. 

Newsletter

Before the internet, newsletters were used as a way to connect a world-wide community of fans. However, even now with the existence of social networks, newsletters are a personal and direct interaction that can connect not just you to your fans, but your fans to each other.

One excellent examples of community newsletters are the Grateful Dead’s ‘Almanac.’ What made this newsletter work so well is that it covered more than the music; it covered the scene as a whole.

The ‘Almanac’, typically spanning 5 or 6 pages in length, spent much of the first few pages showcasing original (and exclusive!!) artwork, discussing side projects and music as a whole that the community would be interested in, as well as updating the community about the charitable foundations started by band members (more on sharing passions below). The second half would be band news, announcements of upcoming tours or album releases and finally, mail order music/ merch and tickets.

Video Tour Diary

A concert is more than just music. It is an event. An experience.

A well-delivered concert experience is THE best way to connect with your fans on an emotional level. Because of this, video tour diaries are an extremely effective way to increase that emotional connected established through the concert experience, by giving the attendee’s a deeper look into the behind the scenes happenings before, during and after the concert. Ultimately this gives attendees the chance to grab on to, and re-live the event any time they want to.

The idea of a video tour diary has become quite popular in the emerging hip-hop world, as many of these upcoming artists give their music away for free through mixtapes and focus on making money from the live show; a business model similar to that made famous by the Grateful Dead and Phish.

These videos not only act as a way to offer additional value to those who attended the event, increasing the emotional connection within, but can function as an emotional marketing tool as well. Giving your fan base the opportunity to take a sneak peek of your recent live shows is a fantastic way to drive further ticket sales…

Always remember that a concert is more than just the music. It is an event. If you can convey that your shows are a must-see experience, then you’ve already begun to establish an emotional connection with fans before they’ve even bought the ticket.

Name Your Fans

This is THE first step to creating a tribe, which is the most ultimate form of emotionally connected fan base you could have. This gives your fans away of identifying themselves as apart of a group, and ultimately this creates insiders and outsiders which helps to strengthen the loyalty of those within.

Like her or not, Lady Gaga has done an incredible job labeling her fans as her ‘Little Monsters’.

Even emerging hip-hop artists are starting to understand the power of naming the fan base, such as CT-based Chris Webby, whose ‘Ninjas’ (Webby is an avid Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan) have lead to the over 13 Million youtube views. His latest mixtape  garnered over 23,000 downloads in under 24 hours.

How have you built an emotional connection with your super fans? 

If you’re ready to take your music career to the next level, check out the New Artist Model online music business classes. You can also sign up for access to free lessons.

/1 Comment/by

Unforgettable Fan Experiences

Your fans are the reason you can live a life in music. They are the reason you wake up every morning excited to perform, record, or create. Additionally, your fans can act as a formidable marketing team if they share your music with their friends. Building great fan experiences into your marketing plan is a great way to get them talking and make them feel appreciated.

This article was originally posted on Cyber PR by Corie Kellman. She highlights some of the amazing experiences she has personally encountered as a music fan. With a little tweaking, these concepts can be easily incorporated into your marketing plan.

1. During Your Live Show, Make the Connection to Your Real Fans

If you guys follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you have no doubts that I am secure and comfortable about being a fan of Taylor Swift.

Naturally, I had to check out one of her three sold out shows last week at Bridgestone Arena. At most large arena shows it’s very difficult to make fans feel special or connect on a personal level, as there are tens of thousands of faces hidden and the performer generally can’t see past the bright spotlights on the stage more than the first few rows.

Within the first three minutes of the show, Taylor passed her hat off to a fan in the general admission pit after her first song completed. As she coasted up and down from stage to stage, she gave fans high-fives and tossed out guitar picks. It was a great attempt to make a large show feel a little more intimate.

2. Make Your Success a Success for Your Fans As Well

Last month, Country star, Jake Owen announced a free block party show via Twitter to his fans to celebrate his number one single. These number one parties are a bit of a tradition here in the Nashville country scene; driving up and down music row you will see banners celebrating singer-songwriter accolades. Different to those typically seen here in town, Owen wanted to share the success with his fans, not just his industry team. 20,000 fans gathered in front of BMI for the free show and this party went down in history as the largest number one party Nashville has ever seen.

3. Empower Your Fans to Share Online and Off

Leaving Nashville Sunday night last month, a friend and I visited the merch table a week leading up to the Wild Feathers official album release, where they had CDs available for their fans early. I prefer to purchase vinyl and stream digitally, and since the album wouldn’t be available on vinyl for another week, I left the event with just a poster. My friend, however, LOVES CDs. . . seriously LOVES THEM. As she sat in her car and opened the album to pop into her CD player, she called me stressing not to pull out yet. When she opened the CD, there were two, one “to keep” and one “to share”.

The idea was GENIUS! She came to the show on my recommendation and now she could share with a friend. It is a small offering from the band AND works out in their favor if when it lands in a potential new fan’s hand.

To see the other two experiences, check out the full article on the Cyber PR blog.

What are some of your most unforgettable fan experiences?

/0 Comments/by

Collaboration to Grow Your Fanbase

Photo by buddawiggi

Photo by buddawiggi

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.

/1 Comment/by