CONVERTING "SOCIAL LIKES" INTO SUPER-FANS:

CONVERTING "SOCIAL LIKES" INTO SUPER-FANS:

The Importance of a Mobile Community

If you are just starting out, or have been around for years as an artist, now more than ever, controlling the way you communicate and engage with fans has become vitally important.

In the old paradigm of the music industry, if you were lucky enough to get signed on talent alone, your label would take control of your marketing and branding for you. In the NEW music industry, major labels rarely even consider an artist who doesn’t already have 50,000+ fans on social media and a solid email list of “Super-Fans.”

So how do you build fans on your network pages, and how do you convert those “likes” into Super-Fans? 

I’m going to first assume that you already have a strong website where fans can go to read a bio, see photos, listen to your music, find out where you’re gigging and watch videos. Your website should be a “hub” of all things “music”. It must be easy to navigate and have easy to see tabs, that fans can click on to get right to the information they are looking for.

Once your website is structured and formatted for mobile access you are now ready to engage your fans to action. The first thing to remember is fans don’t want to be “sold”, they want to engaged with you as a friend would, so be personal but cautiously so.

The three most important network sites on which to grow fans are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, hands down.

Use Facebook for a quick story, Twitter for sharing pictures, brief thoughts for the day, or a quick link to a newly posted video, and YouTube for organizing music videos and personal interaction videos for fans. 

Do remember though, what you share on the “branded band accounts” should be managed and not be a free-for-all. The value in this cannot be overstated. If a fellow band-member posts an entertaining personal moment on their personal Facebook page, you may want to consider reposting it on the band page as well, but posts should be entertaining or informative about the music. Post something a fan can ultimately relate to on a personal level or find personally entertaining and you'll keep their attention. But keep it about "the band." By engaging the fans in this way, you will be encouraging them to feel the emotional responsibility of helping you be successful in your music career. 

Make an effort to include your fans whenever you can, but don’t bore them with every little moment of the day. Choose the important, funny, beautiful or exciting moments, and share those. Just remember, share what you yourself would want to know.

Many potential new fans now live by their Smartphones and are no longer sitting at their computers in order to stay informed. So keep it brief but engaging. A video message is opened 75% of the time and viewed 85% to completion depending on the content so use video whenever possible.

I encourage artists to upload a short video at least once a week, be it a one minute backstage video, a two minute “meet my dog” video or a three minute acoustic or acapella performance. By regularly posting on YouTube your fans will grow to trust your friendship with them and start checking in on your website/app and YouTube page more regularly. A loyal fan is a profitable fan.

So now you have social network “likes,” how do you convert those “likes” to loyal, Super-Fans?

Get their personal contact info!

Give them something for free, and fans will freely give you something in return; their email address or cell phone number. 

The importance of personal contact info can’t be stressed enough! 

The statistics state that out of 50,000 “likes” on social media, a 4.5% conversion rate is the average, which means 2,250 potential ticket, CD and swag purchasers. It only takes 1000 true fans to make a good living. If you target those fans, and encourage them to purchase CDs, T-shirts, gig tickets or even contribute to your Fan Funding page on Kickstarter, and engage them to spend just $100 a year on your offers, you will be earning $100,000 a year simply off their loyalty alone. Not bad for an artist that may be sleeping on friends couches and eating Top Ramen.

MailChimp reports that 30% of subscribed newsletters are opened on average. That means that 70% of your Super-Fans may never read your email but the 30% that do, want the info! 

But think about this... connecting with fans in the same way that they connect with their world is not only strategic, but also highly effective. Statistics show that 97% of people receiving a text message, will read it within the first 4 minutes! …and 33% of Facebook members use a phone as their primary way to access Social Networks. If a fan gives you their mobile number in exchange for a free download or the like, they are willingly “opting in” to receive texts from you as a way to stay connected. Remember, woven into their desire to stay connected is a sense of responsibility to help you succeed and they want to be called to action. So a Mobile Fan Club is a major asset.

By announcing your Mobile Fan Club at a gig, and giving something away for joining (i.e. a free download or Meet & Greet after the show.) You have an opportunity to make joining your mobile community an event! 

Give your mobile fans the feeling of being a part of a very elite group and you’ll have the ability to engage them as such, by offering specific giveaways or discounts just for them.

While planning your strategies, remember research firms are expecting 300 million NEW Smartphone users to be online, with mobile interaction in the next couple of years! If you want to be ahead of the curve and connect with fans in the same way that they connect with their world, mobile interaction is where you need to be, and having a strategic Mobile Fan Club will give you a major edge.

Capitalizing On Radio Airplay And Promotion

It's important to understand a very basic principle; radio is a PARTNER in your career as an artist! Although most partners will voice opinions about how to operate your business, radio rarely does. On top of that, you only get one chance to make a great first impression. Radio wants to know you are actively trying to increase their listener-ship by actively building your own fan base, and that is the symbiotic relationship that they rely on when deciding who gets their spins.

Given that information, and assuming you are ready to embark on radio promotion, there are several steps that need to be taken in order to have the best shot at getting royalties and downloads.

#1: Embed your metadata in the mastering process. CDs will carry a layer of metadata about the recordings such as dates, artist, genre, copyright owner, etc. The metadata, not normally displayed by CD players, can be accessed and displayed by specialized music playback and/or editing applications. It is all too common for radio to receive a CD, they put it in their computer, the track name comes up as Track 01, with the artist and album columns blank (unknown). What that means is when they get ready to report their playlist to the PROs or Sound Exchange, it will show segments of airplay with the report "Artist Unknown." If you expect the MD or PD to type in your info by hand, take off your rose colored glasses and put yourself in their shoes. They don't care if you don't care, plain and simple.

#2: Register with Sound Exchange and the PROs as an Artist, Label and Publisher. If you are not registered how will they know where to send the royalty check? It's your job to sign the forms, assign a SS# to your accounts and instruct them on how you wish to be paid. Trust me, they aren't going to seek you out - they make interest on the money that is not distributed so why would they? Don't wait, go register!

#3: Fan Base, Fan Base, Fan Base! As a solo artist, "1000 True Fans" equals on the average, $100,000 a year in income. If each of those True Fans spends $100 a year on your concerts, CDs, T-shirts, Hats, DVDs etc... you will achieve a decent living from those sales. There are close to 7 billion people on the planet earth and all you need are 1000 of them to Tweet about you, Facebook you, come to your gigs and buy whatever you put out that is new, and you are making a living. The key challenge is that you have to maintain direct contact with your 1,000 True Fans. Maybe they come to your house concerts, or they are buying your DVDs from your website. This small circle of diehard fans, which can provide you with a living, is surrounded by concentric circles of Lesser Fans. These folks will not purchase everything you do, and may not seek out direct contact, but they will buy much of what you produce. The processes you develop to feed your True Fans will also nurture Lesser Fans. As you acquire new True Fans, you can also add many more Lesser Fans. If you keep going, you may indeed end up with millions of fans and reach a hit. I don't know of any artist who is not interested in having a million fans.

#4: Put those fans to work. Tell them what you need them to do. Tell them to tell their friends to "like" your Facebook page, "fan" your ReverbNation site,  call their local radio station and request your song, email their favorite internet station and rave about you, play your music on LastFM and "scrobble" it, repost your gigs on their pages, etc... etc...

#5: Create a promotion for radio that ties into their favorite charity or local non-profit. Give radio a reason to spin you, other than the obvious - that "they LOVE your song!" Royalty from radio is directly related to how many spins you are getting from terrestrial radio and how many streams are picked up on internet radio. Your fans can make all the difference in how much airplay you get, but by partnering with radio on a "Good Will" project, this gives them even more incentive to support your music.

#6: Submit your music to as many online music libraries as you can find - Start up your own personal radio playlists on as many sites as possible - Slacker, LastFM, Cloud, etc...  Be actively played as often as possible.

Although there are many ways to build a music career, let's face it, even if all you get the first year is enough money to replace the bad transmission in your overworked touring van, you're ahead of the game...