How to Successfully Grow Your Fan Base Using Facebook (And Not Spend a Dime)

When it comes to your music, people are predominantly concerned with one thing - not what your music means to you, but what your music means to them. This is one of the most important lessons any musician can learn.

The birth of social networks allowed fans an insight into the more mundane aspects of celebrity; as a result, this sparked a newfound intrigue into their normality. However, now that everyone from the drummer of the Black Keys, to the State of North Korea are all Twittered up, the days of dietary intake being shareable news are long gone.

The tides have turned.

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Are You Wishing Your Fans A Happy Birthday?

I love this tip so much… Marcio Teixeira made a very simple suggestion for my 2000 Things article that fit perfectly with something else I was working on, wish your fans a Happy Birthday. How many are doing this? I have to say not many.

I don’t remember getting a birthday greeting from any band recently.

We all love it when someone recognizes our birthday. I am also always impressed when every year Southwest Airlines sends me a birthday card. No other business does that. A very simple action that always makes me think just how much I like Southwest Airlines. You need to do the same with every one of your fans. I already hear the comments… how!

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Give Your Fans The Experience They Crave

There is no doubt about it; social media has taken the sweet and innocent fan, and has created a monster.

A transparency-seeking, interactivity-craving, empowerment-hungry monster.

Ok so maybe fans aren’t these terrible things that goes bump in the night, but the point remains the same. Today’s fans desire something more than just music and the occasional Facebook or Twitter update.

Today’s fans desire an experience! 

But creating this experience can be a bit tricky. It has to cater directly to the needs and desires of YOUR fans, or else you run the driving them away. 

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6 Simple Ways to Give Back to Your Fans

Your fans are the lifeblood of your career. Without fans, you don’t have a music career, you only have a music hobby. Fans buy your products, listen to your music, give you feedback, share you with their friends, come to your shows, and wear your t-shirts. They are the people that enable you to become a full-time musician, and live the artist lifestyle. The most loyal of fans will stand by your side through thick and thin, buy all of your swag, and help you in many ways throughout your career.

It’s the end of the year, and showing some appreciation to your fans for all the support they’ve given you can go a long way. They deserve a bit more than music and t-shirts.

1. Don’t give your fans live music. Give them a live experience.

Your fans were awesome enough to pay money to see you perform, so the best way to give back in that regard is to put on an incredible show that fans cannot wait to talk about with their friends afterwards. Do something fun and unique that portrays your personality in a positive manner, and make it memorable. Whatever expectations that your fans held with them at the beginning of the gig should be shattered to pieces by the end. Blow your fans away, and give them more than what they believed they paid for.

The possibilities are really endless, but here are a few simple ideas that you can try out to give your fans a more memorable live experience:

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My 2011 Project: 2,000 Things to Generate 20,000 Fans

Author David Meerman Scott made a honest and realistic quote, “if you want 20,000 fans you must do 2,000 different things that each generate 10 fans.” This was my favorite quote from 2010 and I am going to take this on as a challenge for 2011 for an ambitious project to give you 2000 different things you can do to generate 20,000 fans.

I am defining generating fans in a few different ways:

1. A brand new fan who has never followed you before.
2. Engaging with existing fans to get them to participate.
3. Engaging with existing fans to get them to convert on an action.

Some of these items will apply better for larger acts, some items will work for any act. Some may work for you, some may not… not yet. Some these can be done with little effort, some will take some web development, some might even require some significant development. Some of these have successfully worked for me over the years.

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How To Use Facebook & Twitter With Your Official Website, Case Study Kissonline.com

A recent headline from KISS on Facebook: ”KISS Facebook Fans Pass 2 Million!”

Congratulations! That is great! Two million fans is a huge achievement and is no easy goal to meet. Then I decided it was time to discuss how to use Facebook and Twitter if you are a band, and sorry, KISS, you are the subject matter. This is not meant to put down the band in any way. I am having discussions weekly with various people about the benefit of Facebook Likes and Twitter followers. They ask what can they do to get more Likes and followers, and then what can they do with them once they have them. I only pick KISS because it is subject I know very well and a Facebook page I visit daily.

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How Well Do You Know Your Fans?

It is common knowledge that establishing, building upon and maintaining a fan base is one of, if not the most important goal of any emerging artist who is looking to use their music to forge a sustainable career.

But in order to make sure that your efforts are maximized and your fan base grows properly, it is important that you understand that not all fans are equal.

‘Fan’ is a metric of measurement of a persons dedication to your music.

While everyone likes to say they are a HUGE fan, the reality is a little different: your fan base will range from the mildly engaged Listeners to the overly-dedicated Superfans. 

Although creating legitimate and valuable relationships with fans is important, it is also extremely time consuming, especially as your fan base begins to grow. Therefore it is crucial that you understand who your fans are, in terms of dedication, so that as you invest more and more time into establishing and maintaining relationships with fans, you continue to see an increasingly beneficial return in terms of on and offline influence, engagement and sales (both music and ticket sales included).

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Why You Should Learn to Build Fans by Being a Fan

As musicians, it’s almost guaranteed that at some point you will have said or at least thought “I need more fans!”, and while there are countless blogs, resources, and gig slots open for you to act on that, I often feel that the best way to learn why someone does something is to be that someone – or as they say “take a step into their shoes”.

So I thought I would apply that theory to building fans and work out why I recently became a loyal fan of the artist Jason Mraz – what was the psychology and marketing that really made me warm to not just his music, but him as a artist (or brand).

I wanted to know how I went from being just aware of his hit single ‘I’m Yours’ to downloading albums of tracks, checking out his videos and tour dates - what steps did I go through as a fan, and what breadcrumbs did he leave online to turn me into a fan? 

It’s worth noting that I first heard ‘I’m yours’ in Summer 2009, yet only recently became a fan of his - what was my hold up? Here’s what I think happened.

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For Musicians: 10 Tips For Turning Your Fanbase Into A Tribe

Fans of groups such as the Insane Clown Posse (the Juggalo), the Grateful Dead (the Deadhead), and Jimmy Buffet (the Parrothead), are all apart of communities that exists beyond the band. The music is what brought these groups of people together, and the loyalty to the music acts as the glue bonding them together, but the artists themselves have no responsibility to control the group - the community acts as it’s own separate entity, with its own leaders and followers.

These fans belong to a tribe.

What Is a Tribe?

Tribes exist as a way to connect and to share an interest in a topic, and it is because of this that you as an artist must recognize that creating a tribe is an essential step towards success and career-longevity. And since a developed tribe acts as its own entity, the incessant ‘shameless self-promotion’ that unfortunately paints the walls of all too many artists’ Facebook and Twitter pages will become a thing of the past.

With a tribe of loyal fans at your side - just one announcement of any album, any show, even any new merch will be absorbed and spread like wildfire. Remember that a typical characteristic of a tribe member is to be overly dedicated, or obsessive, which can be used to your benefit! Think of these obsessive tribe members as your own instant viral marketing strategy- these are the types of fans who make sure that everyone in their social networks know about this new announcement.

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Idol Thoughts… the 4 Key Factors That Michael Lynche Posseses That Make Him A Great American Idol & A Lifelong Artist

Yesterday, I guest lectured at NYU for a group of Music Business students. One of them asked me an excellent question:

Is there a formula for success in today’s music business?

I told him that if I had the answer I’d be a lot richer! But then I stopped to think about it. Artists that have success are the ones who know what they want. They have a clear vision of what they see for themselves, and that vision is different for everyone. They may not even know how exactly they are going to get there but there are 4 key elements.

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How To Make Your SXSW Sticky! Advice From The Indie Max 100 Experts on How To Keep Your Conference Alive

So you FINALLY went to SXSW, and now after days of music, food, panels and networking (*phew*), you’re back home. So what can you do now to maximize your time spent in Austin? Here are a few pieces of advice.  Plus a few photos I took at SXSW 2010 - Full album on Facebook

AFTER YOU GET HOME

Create Your Own Lasting Media
So, no blog covered your performance?  No photographer snapped your photo for Rolling Stone?  That’s OK!  Make your own media around your experience at SXSW.  Write up a blog about what you did, and who you met, and post it on your MySpace, Facbook and Last.fm. Snap photos and post them on Facebook and Flickr with tags, or record some videos for your YouTube Channel!  Let your experience live online for years to come!
- Ariel Hyatt

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My first ReverbNation street team mission

I love ReverbNation. I could write a dozen articles on the various tools they provide for artists. For now I’ll focus on one I just tried for the first time: Street Team Missions.

Whenever a fan subscribes to your mailing list, they’re given the option to join your street team. You create missions to direct your team’s promotional efforts on your behalf, and they compete against each other for rewards of your choosing. ReverbNation manages the whole thing automatically by measuring plays, widget clicks, banner impressions, and mailing list signups. Sound too good to be true? I thought so at first, so I joined several other artists’ missions to get a closer look.

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Get Paid in 2010: Want To Increase Your Bottom Line? Focus On Your Fans!

Its here!  A whole new Decade :)

Paying attention to this article could be the difference between you making a little money off of your music in the New Year vs. making A LOT of money!

All of the current news surrounding the music business is still bad news.

But I think that this is a very exciting time to come up with some alternatives and some offerings for your core fanbase that could make you a lot more money.

The first step towards this is building rapport with your email list.

Which comes down to communicating regularly and consistently with your fanbase and then asking them for money only after you have built trust and rapport (when the time is right).

I have seen it thousands of times – artists that misuse their email lists and ONLY reach out to their fans when they have something to SELL them (a show, a new release etc.) but they never reach out to their fans for other reasons: to bond, share a funny story, or invite everyone out to the local bowling alley on a Tuesday night for a hang (I’m serious).

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In Defense of 1,000 True Fans - Part IV - Kelly Richey

Kelly Richey has been described as “Stevie Ray Vaughan trapped in a woman’s body with Janis Joplin screaming to get out.” That’s an apt appraisal of the Lexington, Kentucky native who’s now based in Cincinnati for many years. A working musician since her teens, she began her professional career as a member of the Arista Records group Stealin’ Horses; in 1990 she formed The Kelly Richey Band, with whom she has become both a national and international touring artist.

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