So you have a new band or existing band and your ready to start spreading the love. Easier said than done right? Well, with a few strategic methods, you can start expanding your fan base. It's not necessarily going to be easy, but nothing worth while really is.
Follow these three easy steps and I bet you'll be amazed at the new fans that start trickling in.
1. Social Presence. One of the 1st things you will want to do is develop your Social Media Sites. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are great places to start. Yes, I said LinkedIn. LinkedIn offers a host of great groups you can join and meet other artists in similar situations to you. LinkedIn also groups for helping you figure out places to submit your music for reviews, licensing, and radio airplay. Everyone is familiar and comfortable with Facebook and Twitter, but LinkedIn is one, that should definitely be in your overall Social Strategy as an Indie musician.
Also part of your Social strategy should be something like Bufferapp. This cool tool allows you to schedule your tweets and set up several in advance, freeing up more time for you to do what you really want to do, which is play and create music.
2. Quite possibly even more important than the Social strategy is to have a way for fans and potential new listeners, is a place to stream your music. Make sure you have Soundcloud, Youtube, and an app like Bandpage or Bandprofile on your FB. These streaming sources make sure people can listen to your music online, and most importantly most of them have means for people to share if they hear something they like!!
3. The next and final step will discuss for now is make sure they can get your music by an easy download. There are so many places online that give you this opportunity for free! The above mentioned FB apps, Bandcamp, even Soundcloud allows you to offer the listener to download. Routenote, CD baby, tunecore, etc all provide you means to distribute your music. Most even provide a share for download option. Perfect for growing your fan base!
The key to all three of these steps is to link them all together. If someone finds you on FB, then they can easily link straight to your Twitter, YouTube, and Website, etc.
If you are an indie or new musician starting out, forget the money for now, and worry about fans. Build it and they will come, could never be more true for new musicians. Don't make it too difficult for fans to discover your music. If you build a fan base now, the fans will buy later. Give them an experience and make your music accessible. Fans will become your biggest advocates and your own little street team!
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