Fans don’t just follow artists so that they can buy their music. For many fans, following an artist runs a little deeper and today, the fan-artist relationship is a two-way street.
A good quality fan can take an artist a long way. Not only will they listen to and buy music, but they’ll promote music within their friendship group, and help an artist to grow.
Artists need to work hard to make their fans feel valued. One guaranteed way that artists can show their fans they value them, and increase their chances of being shared is to give them stuff for free.
Sure, there’s physical things that you can give away, but many artists don’t realise that their online content is a giveaway that can be really powerful.
Instagram’s 500 million daily active users spend an average of 53 minutes on the platform a day. YouTube’s 30 million daily active users spend an average of 40 minutes a day viewing videos through their mobile phones.
When you consider that a song lasts about three to five minutes, and a promo for a song mere seconds, these viewing times are staggering opportunities for artists.
Instagram’s 500 million daily active users spend an average of 53 minutes on the platform a day. YouTube’s 30 million daily active users spend an average of 40 minutes a day viewing videos through their mobile phones
Yet some still make content as an afterthought. It’s frustrating to see bad images, posts without images at all, a lack of effort generally from artists in promoting their work.
Even worse are the artists who link spam the comments or feeds of even vaguely related music channels or fellow musicians. The in-person equivalent of that is walking over to a person, talking about yourself for ten minutes then walking away. It’s rude, self-involved and unlikely to make you any friends.
It is also pretty self-involved to think that you’re going to be the artist who fans love and follow when you don’t put any effort into presenting yourself to them or engaging with them.
We’ve found that content is really important in both keeping current fans and attracting new ones. Using Fan Builder, artists can go really far in a short space of time in growing a fanbase, but the quality of the content needs to be high. Artists need to put some effort in to reap rewards.
Thinking and planning is free, and if artists took a step back and took some time to plan what they were making, including how and for what purpose, they’d be likely to get some great results without spending a fortune
By high quality, I don’t mean expensive. Thinking and planning is free, and if artists took a step back and took some time to plan what they were making, including how and for what purpose, they’d be likely to get some great results without spending a fortune.
A standalone piece of content is fine for testing out new audiences. When promoting a release, artists should set out to create four to five pieces of video content (you can’t listen to images).
Before thinking about making something showy, it's important to get the basics right: good sound, a decent backdrop (even just being outside), the right dimensions for the platform and a clean, strong edit. None of these things is expensive. All are key to being heard.
Artists should think about their fans when they create their content. Put yourself in the mind of the audience: what would stand out to you and make you think someone was worth listening to or following? If they are already using Beatchain, artists don’t have to guess – Fan Insights shows what content your fans are engaging with.
Artists should think about their fans when they create their content. Put yourself in the mind of the audience: what would stand out to you and make you think someone was worth listening to or following?
As a general rule, artists should keep posts that are asking for things or selling things to one in three or less. That means for every post where they are asking someone to buy something or stream music, they should offer two posts giving insight into their work, or a performance, or something else fans will love.
If you’re an artist reading this, the next time you see a viral video, ask yourself: what makes this watchable? Take some time to think on that before you dash off content without thinking, expecting it to work like magic.
The audience is out there – do your best to reach them.
