?Tons of YouTubers make these videos on how
to go from zero to a hundred thousand fans but if you watch their videos for a while it
becomes clear that they are just recycling what theyve read in books that their research assistant
wrote down for them. I know this because I wrote one of those books and I hear them reading
directly from it. <grin> But I have actually done this work and worked with tons of groups on
their ascent to building a huge fanbase and work on this every single day with DIY, indie and
major label acts across all sorts of genres. So in this video I’m going to talk to
you about the techniques and thoughts we used when we started out at the ground level
that led to them building a huge success.
Hi I'm Jesse Cannon a music marketing
nerd whos teaching musicians how to grow their fanbase from zero to 10,000
fans and this is Musformation.
Since I don't want to bore my regular viewers if
you’re sitting here watching this thinking I am just another one of those YouTube con artists
selling a course who is just spouting off with no experience, I encourage you to go to my
channel page and watch the video on my biography. But the short of it is – For well over a
decade I’ve been a marketing strategist for all sorts of musicians and worked on the
marketing of a Billboard number one comedy record and a podcast that has been in the
Apple top 5 of all podcasts numerous times. But really what I think is most important is my
head is in the game I live and breathe marketing in not just music but comedy, podcasts and
politics talking to the managers, pr people, booking agents and A&R of many of the biggest
artists in the world in tons of different genres, I'm on the phone every day with
people who are building a new artist who have also taken artist to platinum sales and
I have been taking the information I learn there and putting it on this channel for the past
two years.
I stay up on what is working and post it on my channel every week.
So lets get some quick things out of the way to make this video more enjoyable. What
I am going to do here is Layout the topline strategy to build a fanbase off of. If you think
something I am saying is interesting and you want to go deep on it there’s a link for each Chapter
to a playlist of videos for you to go deeper and understand this more.
If you’re not interested in
a certain section there’s chapters for this video so feel free to skip ahead. OK so let’s talk
about the first pillar of marketing in 2022. Which is appealing to algorithms
Algorithmic.
Now I know for a lot of us it can be a
real turn off to appeal to algorithms, but I have news for you this happens to have a
happy ending unlike what Facebook is doing to our society with its algorithm. <side eye> Right
now the majority of music discovery and how people build a fanbase is because they use smart strategy
that appeals to an algorithm. But theres a smarter way to see this – If you deliver music in the
way the algorithm likes – which means you don't have to and nor should you compromise your music
because the great thing about music today is songs that are authentic are more rewarded than ever.
But the delivery method and way you release music has a defined way to spread as far as
possible if you follow the rules of the algorithm.
And if you really feel it compromises
your art to have to release it in a way that helps spread it, well you’re in a catch 22. But for
those of you who just want to do it effectively lets talk about what that looks like.
Right now what I see the majority of artists who get a fanbase doing to effectively build a
fanbase is they release a single every 2 months while occasionally peppering that with alternate
versions, covers, remixes and adding a feature in here and there.
They do this for 12-18 months,
while doing something eventful every two weeks and something smaller every week. This only takes 6
songs per year to fill up an entire calendar year if you release a single screen YouTube video and
stream of your song, then two weeks later a lyric video, then two weeks after than an alternate
version. When you release a single every week it makes people feel like its not important
and you are throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. It keeps peoples attention
spans engaged. People are offered the 60,000 songs uploaded to Spotify daily so showing them this
one is exceptional by putting in the effort to make content around it and continually remind
people it matters makes them think they should pay attention to it. This is what Lil Nas X
did when he rose from being a complete unknown to the artists with the longest-running number
one song of all time.
By continually reminding people that your song is something exceptional you
convert them to listeners and hopefully build a relationship with your song if its indeed one that
makes them feel good when they listen to it.
Now a lot of people get really bummed out
when they hear me talk about releasing singles constantly as they love albums and EPs and you
know what so do I, I was listening to some while I wrote this. But you have to see EPs, LPs and
mixtapes as what builds a deeper relationship with fans who love you. It makes them think about
you more and feel close to you and the deeper that relationship is the more likely they are to come
see you live, buy your merch and engage with you on socials and most of all never shut up about
you to their friends till they annoy that friend into listening to you.
I often cite this MTV
study on the screen now which showed this. But we need to see it this way – The singles are
what lures people in much like that sample of chicken the Chinese food stall gives out free
in the mall, they hope to lure you over to the counter to buy a pound of it and keep coming
back to doing that each day when you need it. We have to see albums and singles as two different
things, singles offer the opportunity to bring in enough people that they are going through your
album or back catalog and getting to know you and developing a relationship with your music, but if
you arent?? releasing as many singles as possible to bring people back to that album you are
basically derelict in sending out the samples that will intrigue people and this is because
singles are how people first taste music and decide if they want more and right now algorithims
and peoples attention spans work in the way that the more singles you release of quality
material the more chance people will want to take in your album and back catalog.
What Appeals To Algorithms Appeals To Humans Attention
Ok so lets go over this the top 2 ways people discover music are Spotify and YouTube.
When it comes to DSPs and listening without video if you open the majority of artists analytics of
where their listens come from if we bar YouTube its usually 80-85% Spotify and 15-20% Apple
and all the other DSPs. So like it or not Spotify is a really where you need to focus
your energy and they give artists tons of tools to promote themselves whereas all the
other DSPs except Pandora give virtually none. Because Spotify only lets you submit one song at
a time to its editorial playlist submission tool and they recommend you submit 4 weeks in advance
this means releasing anything more is a wasted opportunity as your single greatest chance to
have your music get discovered by a lot of people if you are not appealing to the chances
of that you are failing yourself. And while editorial playlists are
the biggest ones, we have to remember Spotify puts the artists who get on User
playlists on their editorial playlists so its important that after your song is
released you then pitch to other playlists as well as using Hyperfollow/pre save tools that
encourage fans to follow you on Spotify.
But the other platform we have to consider
is YouTube which not only helps with music discovery it is also where you can build
relationships with fans since we all know a great music video can be what tips you to
be so blown away by what your listening to you send it to a friend. But YouTube rewards those
who are uploading weekly or bi weekly so putting up Behind the scenes videos, playthroughs, vlogs,
lyric videos and single screen videos of your song helps their algorithm favor you and serve you
to more fans while feeding the attention span of fans who are starting to grow a relationship with
you. So maintaining Consistent sustained promotion by posting to YouTube and then reminding your
audience on socials that ??you're doing so not only helps you algorithmically it make your
audience see you are regularly feeding them and you are an eventful person who they should
be paying attention to.
And when you regularly entertain people and stay on top of their minds
fans inherently tell their friends about you and talk about you on social media since by nature
humans seek out commonality in others and want to bond over what they enjoy. Doing this not only
appeals to the algorithm, it reminds fans to grow relationships with you so they are thinking about
you more and want to go deeper with you.
But I know a lot of you are thinking —-
Great but no one is paying attention to me yet, how does this matter if I don't get put on
any playlists—- So the greatest thing right now about algorithms is instead of some
gatekeeper choosing you if you use smart strategy you can draw connections between you
and other artists algorithmically and have the platforms push you to one another.
I recently
made a video on how collaborations, remixes, features and split releases are the greatest
marketing opportunity in the history of music. These not only introduce you to another artists
fanbase but they live on another artists page and are tied to you for years to come. But
there’s an added algorithmic benefit, you end up in the release radar and discover weekly of
that artists and I have talked to the managers of some larger artists who say this can help
them more than getting on the biggest playlists especially those artists who are regularly
doing collabs.
But the benefits of this doesn't stop at Spotify and YouTube. One of
the things musicians seem to forget is that the way Instagram and TikTok algorithms learn
to recommend you is the algorithm looks at when two at tags are mentioned together and when
it happens regularly like when you play a show or do a song with another artist the algorithm
ranks how often this happens and then recommends you to one anothers audience. This aside from
some music genome methods the streaming services have st the only way an algorithm knows to
link you to other artists. Spotify radio is just playing the artists most people who listen
to that artist also listen to. And this is why not being an island to yourself and regularly
tagging and doing things with other artists helps you grow.
So what does this mean practically
Doing features, collabs, and remixes as well as split releases and making sure you tag properly
on spotify and YouTube will link you there to get you on Spotify radio playlists as well as
Discover weekly and release radar playlists.
Doing Music Plus Talk DJ sets or Radio shows
and tagging the artists on Instagram and Twitter can help those sites spread you. As well
@messaging other artists and socializing on Twitter can get you seen by their fans as Twitters
welcome screen shows off the people they follow and the most liked interactions. Now before you
get any big ideas the key with these algorithms is they work at a scale so messaging Drake
and tagging him isn't going to tie you to him but this right here is why knowing your community
and doing this with artists who are just a bit above you and are growing is key.
Which is why
you need to really know your community. Which brings me to
Find Community
So in my video last week I went really long on
why and how you find your community and use it to leverage your fanbase so instead of getting
into the details of that, I want to instead show you how it plays with the other pillars of
this. But let me put this into frame for you. I just explained who knowing who the smaller artists
in your community are is important these are the people you should be doing collabs, remixes, split
releases and features with, playing shows or even tours but also putting them in your spotify artist
playlists since this helps the algorithm think you belong together as more people listen to you. The
only way Spotify TikTok or any other algorithm knows that you are similar is if the algorithm
sees users who like you like the other artists so doing as much research on your community
shows you the artists that you should be creating a connection map together soi the algorithm
knows who to serve you to the fans of.
But community work goes deeper, knowing where
people in your micro genre, your local scene etc congregate whether that's clubs, discord chats
or subreddits is how you meet the people who open doors for you and connect you to the right people.
So often artists who get the most engaged people in these online communities are often tomorrow
tastemakers, playlisters or A&R at a cool label. It allows you to know who is the best mixer
or director in your price range. You need to be taking time every single day to understand
your community as it makes you a better artists, student of the game and most of all
those who reach out in their community get propped up and this is how you get your first
fans. But like I said I just went 20 minutes deep on this last week and I am about to go 20 minutes
more on it in the next week or two so just head to the description and watch that video.
Authentic Story Driven Content
So the other main pillar of this is how you
connect with people when you show yourself on social media, vlogs, interviews etc. The
majority of musicians I talk to on a daily basis have made social media far too complicated because
they don't realize what they are actually seeing. What appeals to an audience is not someone
trying to be something they are not. We all have authenticity radars that give us cringe the
second we see something inauthentic and yet most musicians talk to me as if they should be doing
some performance that is not them. Thats not what I see blowing up and making fans for artists.
Here’s what is – Instead of thinking about branding or imitating other people, think about
your authentic thoughts and personality and how you can display them on social media. Devote time
each day to thinking about your most interesting thoughts or traits of your personality and how
you can use them to build relationships with fans. The honesty and vulnerability you express in your
music paired with doing that on social media is what people actually latch on to, want to get
to know you better and listen to your music. So many times musicians think something is
contrived or coached when really over and over these days its just the musician being themselves
for better or worse by being in the habit of any time something interesting comes to mind or is
happening they find a way to share it.
The other thing musicians really make a mistake
about what to do on social mediais they think they have to be something they are not in order to be
synergistic with their music which I also find to be untrue. Phoebe Bridgers make some of the more
sad and moody music yet her whole social media personality is jokes. Many musicians who make
playful music can be passionate about politics. People want you to be yourself and often the depth
of yourself not just being the person who makes the music is the appeal.
Now with that said if
your mood is a continuation of the music some of the most powerful marketing can be accentuating
the mood of your music with your music. And so that's why what I see working is each day
thinking how you tell your stories or thoughts in an authentic way is what works. This even goes
for what platforms you spend the most time on as each of them have different forms of expression
so choosing to go hard on two platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok, you can go lighter on
Twitter and Facebook just choose to really go in on and keep a presence on the others
But note, you also need to remind people regularly about your music by making those stories involve
your music.
Just saying your song is out now is the weakest sell of a song possible. Tell the
story of how the song makes you feel or makes others feel and you will see your song streams
increase and if you are regularly telling people this with an understanding of community you will
build relationships with fans and grow their relationships with them.
The Cheat Code Technique
OK so the last pillar of how you grow in 2022
is to understand the cheat code of your genre! So I can't get super specific with this
since each genre and even micro genre has their own cheat code and what I
mean by this is theres often a trick, a practice or an aspect of music promotion you
can focus on that will get you more fans if you understand it.
Think of it this way – Right now
hiring a radio campaign if you're a DIY pop artist you may as well set the money on fire since
there's no chance you'll ever get played unless you create momentum and streams behind you first,
but a moody indie artist doing this for college rock and sirius can really be a small amount of
money to spend for the gains you see and a total cheat code.
If you’re making songs that sound
like The Beatles and you're buying TikTok ads one might be reminded that many of the people
on TikToks parents werent even alive when the Beatles were together. Each genre has a promotion
or a marketing tactic specific to it that can lead to explosive growth. Understand and research the
cheat code technique of your genre and exploit it as much as possible since if theres one thing I
see over and over is I will hear “This artist blew up from say TikTok, when I actually look under
the hood I often see there was another ingredient there helping explode their growth.
Its very rare
an artists massive growth came from concentrating one place it is often an accumulation of a few
smart strategies and I just laid out the top lines of those for you here.
Outro
So let’s review really fast.To distill
this video into a few small rules they would be this and the more you follow these
rules the more your music will spread
Appeal to the algorithm by releasing a song
every 1-2 months on Spotify and pitch it to editorial playlists and then follow up by pitching
to user playlists. Release a single screen video, a lyric video and a music video for
each to appeal to peoples attention spans as well as YouTubes algorithm.
Learn and do community work everyday as the time spent doing this sets you up for a
greater understanding of what your should do and finds the people who will elevate your music
career. Whenever I speak to the artists who really blew up without fail it was that their
community lifted them up and their understanding of this not that they bought a bunch of ads.
Create connections on social media and on Spotify and YouTube between you and other artists
who are similar to you that are equal or just a bit bigger than you in size so the
algorithm understands how to recommend you and connect you to the fans of those artists.
Instead of thinking about branding or imitating other people, think about your authentic thoughts
and personality and how you can display them on social media. Devote time each day to thinking
about your most interesting thoughts or traits of your personality and how you can use them to build
relationships with fans on social media.
Ok so this video here kinda sums up what we
talk about on this channel, so if you enjoyed it you better like, subscribe and get notified.
I answer every comment down below so feel free to let me know your questions. On the screen now
is a playlist that links to all my videos on this subject or you can go deeper on the subjects in
this video How To get your music Noticed and How To tell stories around your music. Keep going
deeper and learn more. Thanks for watching!.
