I follow a lot of DIY artists on social networks and I see a lot of photos of bands with thousands of social media followers playing to empty rooms.  Bands like this fool themselves into thinking they have a ‘big following’ and fail to realise that in the real world their social media numbers mean nothing.

Lots of bands can’t understand why they have a large online following but also have no-one at their gigs.

Followers on Twitter or Facebook aren’t all real fans, in fact most of them aren’t.  A person who likes you on Facebook is just part of your ‘general audience’ not an engaged fan who will pay money to see you play.  Your job is to use your marketing to turn that social media audience into ‘real’ fans who will invest their time and spend money to see you perform.

There’s too many bands with thousands of followers on Twitter and noone at their gigs.

How do you do that?  Well, you need to use your social channels to entertain and engage that audience. Use your music, use music videos, videos discussing what is happening in your world, by curating and sharing content that that audience will like.  That’s a start.  You need to start a building a meaningful relationship with your audience and by doing so that audience will start to become fans who will want to see you live. If more bands started doing that, they might not be playing to empty rooms

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

Twitter:  @60secondmm

Facebook: www.facebook.com/60secondmusicmarketing