How to Develop a Hardcore Fan Base

I’m a big fan of the 1,000 True Fans theory. Whether or not you think that it is the key that unlocks your music career, it is always good to build an army of enthusiastic supporters who will fervently support your music. The best way for any company or new artist to grow their fan base is through referrals. The combined energy from a hardcore fan base can create some serious momentum (just look at the career of Justin Bieber or even the popularity of the book 50 Shades of Grey, both were launched by obsessed fans). 

So how do you create that loyal, energetic army? Here are some tips:

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What if your Band only had One Fan?

What if every band had only one fan? What if live music was no longer available? What if there was no fame or money involved with music? What would you do?

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Basic Marketing Principles For Artists - Part 1 of 3: Increasing Your Fan Base

As many of you know Cyber PR® is a hybrid of Internet Marketing, Social Media and PR. I am an avid Internet Marketing student and I gather the nuggets I learn from my studies for musicians.

For many years, I’ve attended internet marketing retreats and seminars; a favorite of mine was a two-day intensive course run by the incredible marketer, Ali Brown.

The course was a whirlwind, and the core principles I learned were both basic and critically important.

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Reason #1 for The Fan Experience – A Take That Story

At the tail end of 2005, I was sitting in my office as Digital Product Manager at Sony (BMG) working on the Take That website. The band had been away for ten years. Take That were making their comeback and this event was marked by many things - a documentary charting their career, a new “Greatest Hits” album called “The Ultimate Collection - Never Forget” and of course their first official website. Until this point in time the “Take That Appreciation Pages,” had occupied the prime real estate of web space as the number one destination for all things Take That. The owners of the “Take That Appreciation Pages,” were doing a better job then we ever could have at managing the fans. Resources at Sony were stretched between many, many artists. The Take That Appreciation Pages,were dedicated to their cause. When it came to Take That as Lulu said in the documentary you weren’t so much a fan as you were a disciple.

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The Right Mindframe for Acquiring Fans

The right mindframe is to “find fans” not to “make fans”. Let me explain.

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Growing a Crowd for Your Music Through Engaging Stories: FanBridge Co-Founder & CEO Spencer Richardson Shares Thoughts on Engaging Influencers One Chapter at a Time

FanBridge Co-Founder and CEO Spencer Richardson says, “When you can tell your story through your voice… instead of trying to do the spinning plates trick, where you try to keep everything up at once, you develop a momentum and synergy through your narrative. It starts with a story, and the channels are just a reflection of the story. The strategy becomes much easier.” Continue reading to learn more about leveraging the power of the crowd and best practices for engaging with the press.

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Do Social Networks Really Help Musicians?

The purpose of this article is to cut right through to the heart of why it’s so hard for musicians to benefit (in any meaningful way) from social networks. The social network provides new and exciting benefits for musicians, which is why most embrace new social networks as a way to expose their music to thousands of potential fans and music industry reps. The only trouble is overcrowding. What always struck me as strange is the myspace mentality. It appeared that musicians actually thought that having a million friends was a good thing on myspace, despite the fact those friends were all musicians who only ‘friended’ you so that they can get more ‘friends’ for themselves. Perhaps myspace’s tag line should have been, “Join myspace, an endless circle of incestuous pleasantries probably amounting to nothing”. I guess that wouldn’t have been snappy enough.

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How to Get a Booking Agent to Book Your Band

Dave Cool is the Blogger-In-Residence at musician website and marketing platform Bandzoogle.

One of the most common questions I was asked by artists during my time as a venue booker was how they could find a booking agent. I inevitably answered that they should just keep playing gigs, grow their fan base, and an agent would find them. But is the answer really that simple? In a word, yes. By far the best way to get a professional booking agent is for bands to book themselves until the point where they are selling out shows on a regular basis on their own.

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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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Seven Rules for Effective Social Networking For Artists

Whenever I read about effective social networking for artists, I see the same few discussions concentrating primarily on examples of people who had traction prior to the use of social networks and found that they were able to continue to build their fan base using these tools.  

Amanda Palmer is the most common example.  She is excellent at engaging her fans and followers, but she has many of those fans and followers because of the significant backing of a label.  While her path is interesting, and it does provide useful lessons for artists just starting out, I don’t think all of her techniques and approaches apply to the beginner.  As such, my goal here is to discuss some of the things that I, as a more unknown artist, have found effective in building and maintaining a modest following.

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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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