What Motivates Fans To Support Independent Artists? Or, Help Me Finish My Dissertation!

My name’s Jimmy Richards, and I’m a final year student at the University of the West of Scotland, studying for a BA (Hons) in Commercial Music. In order to finish my course, I am currently writing my dissertation on what motivates the average music fan to support an independent artist or band.

To this end, I’ve produced a short online questionnaire, asking a few questions about to what extent music fans, on average, support their favourite artists. It would be a great help to my study if the readers here at MTT would be willing to take a minute to fill in this questionnaire, and perhaps share it amongst their fans/colleagues.

The questionnaire can be found here. Please note that by filling in this questionnaire, you are granting me permission to use your answers in my research. No personal data is required.

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Time To Find An Alternative To Facebook?

A week or so ago, I started to notice a steep decline in response to updates and general postings on my Facebook fan page. Then, like the great Sherlock Holmes, I followed the clues and stumbled upon another link in the chain, my posts were getting about 50% less impressions than before. Elementary my dear Watson. I was still puzzled until one day I saw one of my friends had posted this next clue:

“ Have you noticed that you are seeing updates or getting comments only from the same people lately? That’s because Facebook made a change. You only see posts from people you interact with regularly. To change this, scroll down to the bottom of the newsfeed on the homepage and click on ‘Edit Options’, click on ‘Show Post…s From’ and change the setting to ‘All of Your Friends and Pages’.REPOST AND LET EVERYONE KNOW”

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Industry Benchmarks: Why the Music Industry Finishes Last

1. We are spoiled. Our fans are so passionate about music that we are used to them coming to us and spreading the word. It is simply not good enough to just flier for your shows or treat every fan in the same way.

2. Whose job is it? In most industries, there is a CMO or a Marketing Operations Manager. In the music industry, there are still unclear roles about who should do interactive marketing. Is it the band, the manager, the promoter, the label?

3. Who owns the fan? Who owns the lists? Is is the band, the label, the promoter ?

4. Bright Shiny Objects. We are always trying to be one step ahead of the curve. We have to have a facebook, a twitter, 4square, a great music video, awesome tour dates. ooo and whats that?! We are distracted! We have a ton on our plate and really need to focus on a cohesive multi-channel marketing strategy.

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How To Get New Fans To Your Music Website From Facebook

As a musician do you find it harder and harder to get new fans to listen your music? You’ve  probably been using social media like Facebook already to promote your music. If you are wondering if there are ways to improve your success in getting people to check out your music then you are in luck because here are 5 ways that really do work.

1. Use Facebook To Build Your Fan Base By Actually Using It For it’s Intention!

Do not make the mistake of using Facebook personal pages like many musicians used Myspace which is by treating it like a bulletin board to advertise your band. You may get banned and people will get annoyed with you or worse by just ignoring your page. The truth is most people are not interested just because you are in a band. The good news is that once new facebook friends get to know you they may find it interesting that you are in a band and want to know more. Timing is everything. Yes, this process takes longer and has to be genuine but it really works to build your fan base when people can become interested in you as a person first. Start to think of fans as friends who like your music and you will be way ahead of the game. Often times your new friends will want to help you build your fan base too as a bonus!

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Mobile Connect-with-Fans For DIY Artists – Why, And How?

Recently, on ContentSphere.de I argued about how highly required it is for DIY artists to get mobile – to find a way for mobile communication with fans. Actually, it is key to truely connect with fans. Apparently, there’s a solution to that. Finally.

I know, it’s beaten to death… but – there is an app for that. Of course, the main issue in CwF (Connect-with-Fans) is authenticity. You can’t buy that, same with the quality of your music. Yet it is required to have something to grow that on. A medium like an app.

That’s why I was curious to see if there’s anything like that available for the common DIY artist. But first off, why is it necessary at all?

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Everyone Is Lying To You On Facebook

I mean this in a tongue in cheek way somewhat.

The reason I say this is because of this question I got one time on a karate forum (More about THAT experience later)

“What are your thoughts on pushing information out to people on the web?”

This is a fair question but it details a common error when it comes to social networking. Social networks are not I repeat NOT TV, radio and press.

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