What methods do you use to attract new fans?
You’re doing everything correctly if you’re doing live gigs, earning press and playlist placements, and running social media marketing. However, there are a variety of different unique strategies for attracting new followers that you should include in your marketing approach to have more music fans.
Many of them are taken from the realm of small business digital marketing, and with good reason: being an independent artist in today’s environment is a lot like having your own company.
Continue reading to learn about 12 different techniques to get new followers that you can attempt right now. This list has something for everyone, from influencer marketing to establishing a social media challenge.
Let’s get started!
1. Give away something
This is a tried-and-true marketing strategy for internet businesses, and you’ve probably seen offers for free books, templates, checklists, and webinars all over social media. This method can also be used by musicians. If you’re a producer, for example, why not give out a free beat to entice new fans (or even customers)?
With a small budget, you may run some social media advertising to persuade people to download your free beat in return for their email address. Once you have their email address, you may urge them to interact with you in other ways, such as by following you on social media, listening to your music, buying your other beats, or even hiring you for a special project.
2. Organize a remix competition
Your current fans are ambassadors for your music, so help them spread the word about it. Organizing a remix competition is one method to achieve this. When you next release a song, post the stems and encourage your fans to remix it—they’ll be ecstatic to have the chance to collaborate with you on anything. Invite others who do not compose music to cover your song instead, or perhaps design a dance around it.
Whatever they make, they’ll almost certainly post it on social media with their own networks. Those who enjoy the remix will most likely go on to listen to your original version and become new fans.
3. Launch a referral contest
Organizing a referral contest is another approach to connect into your current followers’ networks. When individuals join up, they’re given a unique referral link, and you’ll be able to identify who recommended them when their friends and relatives use it to listen to your music. Encourage individuals to join by rewarding the person who receives the most referrals with a unique gift.
The best part is that others who were recommended can join up for their own referral link and compete for the prize, significantly expanding the contest’s reach.
You may do this before you release to increase the amount of pre-saves, or you can do it at any moment to just attract more people to listen.
4. Work with a different artist
Collaborating with another artist is another wonderful approach to get your music in front of fresh ears. This might be done through a fresh release or even a social media video.
Collaboration with someone who creates music in the same genre as you is crucial. Their listeners will be more likely to love your song if you do it this way. Try to identify someone who is at the same level of their musical career as you; in other words, don’t approach someone with a 20-fold larger audience than you. The partnership should be mutually beneficial and helpful to both of you.
5. Make a cover
When you release a new original song, you’re asking listeners to fall in love with everything at once—the words, the melodies, the production, your performance, who you are as an artist, and what you stand for. That’s a big request. Consider releasing a cover or two if you don’t already have a significant audience. This way, all you’re asking them to do is fall in love with your interpretation of a song they already know and love, which is a lot easier to do. Not to mention, you may capitalize on the song’s existing popularity to attract new listeners.
6. Reach out to influencers with your music
Influencers on social media are called that for a reason: they have a significant impact on what we eat, purchase, watch, and listen to. If their favorite influencer recommends your music, they are considerably more likely to listen to it than if they see a sponsored social media ad for it. Influencers have spent years cultivating a degree of trust there.
Consider reaching out to influencers whose brands are similar to yours to see if you can collaborate. They could like your music and post it on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or in a playlist. They can perform it for free or ask for a monetary reward. It might be a beneficial investment of your time and marketing resources in any case.
7. Collaborate with a brand
A brand relationship in the realm of social media influencers usually entails being paid to promote a company’s product. True collaborations, on the other hand, are mutually beneficial, in that you may help promote the brand while the brand exposes you to its own audience. They may use you as a model for their commercial campaigns, add a postcard about you in their shipping boxes, or include your music fans in their internet ads. There are plenty of tiny businesses and startups eager to help musicians and find their own audience among music fans, so it’s not just well-known artists that receive brand agreements.
8. Visit record stores and cafes
Our method may seem outdated in comparison to the others on this list, but it worked before social media and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work now. Consider venues that your prospective fans frequent, such as music stores and coffee cafes. Request that your song be included to the playlist of someone who is in charge of playing music fans over the PA system. The worst-case scenario is that they say no. The best part is that their visitors will Shazam you and acquire new followers as a result of hearing your music.
9. Create a social media challenge for yourself
Encourage user-generated content as one of the finest strategies to expand your social media reach. When your fans share content about your music on social media, they help spread the word to their own networks. Start a TikTok challenge, invite people to upload a photo with your hashtag, or include your song in their Instagram Reels to get the ball rolling. Early adopters may need to be enticed with a contest, but if the challenge develops pace, others may join simply to be part of a trend.
10. Generate content
People are curious about how others live, what they do, what they eat, and how they spend their time for many reasons. Take use of this by writing a blog, vlogging on YouTube, or hosting a podcast about your life. It isn’t even necessary for it to be about your music! It’s almost preferable if it isn’t; it will allow people to get to know and relate to you as a person rather than just a musician. People that learn about you through this information and connect with you are almost certain to listen to your music.
11. Go live with it
When in-person events aren’t possible, livestreaming isn’t only a method to play live shows for your fans—also it’s a terrific way to recruit new ones. While livestreaming on your own social media channels allows you to reach out to your current followers, livestreaming on sites like Twitch and Sessions allows individuals who have never heard of you before to tune in. You may also arrange to stream on someone else’s social media account (perhaps another musician or a company) to gain exposure to their audience.
12. Arrange for a sync positioning
Every musician’s desire is to have their music used in films, television shows, or ads. It allows you to get your music in front of hundreds of thousands of people and typically pays well. It’s true that sync positions are difficult to come by, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attempt. To increase your chances of obtaining a sale, hire a sync agent or upload your music to a sync library (or both). You never know when an opportunity will arise to propel your career forward.
Which techniques for attracting new followers are you going to try?
If you approach audience growth with a multi-pronged strategy, you’ll get the best results, so try as many of these strategies as you can and discover which ones work for you.
