A Sure Way to Grow your Fan base

Hip hop artists online are always struggling with gaining new fans or even just simple followers. They think that posting music on Soundcloud or Youtube will help them go viral then later become frustrated when their music barely gets any plays or views. These days, you have to be more strategic if you want to attract people to your work. Simply tweeting and tagging people to your posts won’t cut it anymore. In fact, other online artists do that so much that it has become annoying and regular people just ignore music links. Yup, online artists have become spammers.

Don’t worry though, I will teach you a strategy that I use myself that will attract people to you and your music rather than you having to ask them for a play. In fact, this will build longevity and you will get more than just a view or a play; you will get a fan and most importantly, their loyalty.

Follow 50-100 different People a Day:

The logic here is for people to follow you back. As an artist, gaining new followers builds brand awareness which allows them to see your posts and content that you provide. This practice also builds momentum as you watch your followers grow. Keep in mind that some people may not follow back and that most social networks have a follow limit ratio. Once you hit that ratio, you may need to unfollow those who are not following you in order to start following again. A way to easily unfollow those who are not following you back is by using a website called manageflitter.com

Think about each follower as a customer and your social network account as the store. The more customers that you bring to your store, the more chances you have to interact with them and even gain a sale to your music or merchandise. Some customers may come through and just look around but if they find value in you, they will surely come back again.

 

Provide Great Content!

Having followers means nothing if you can’t turn them into fans. You can only consider someone a fan if they either interact with your posts or take interest in your music. Great content needs to either be useful or entertaining. For example, I follow entrepreneurs because they provide tips and motivation for growing businesses. Not only that but they provide the information I need that I also find useful. I follow sports accounts to stay updated with my favorite teams and players. I follow my favorite artists and producers to see what they’re up to and to have an inside scoop on their lives. Athletes and artists to me are more on the entertainment side. Either way, their content catches my attention and that is what’s most important. That is the value they provide.

 

What kind of Content should you do?

• As an artist, the best thing you can do is to post content which showcases your skills. I’m not talking about reposting the same song every day either. You can try posting daily or weekly bars or do ciphers via live streams. Even consider submitting your weekly bars to sites like cyphercircuit.com and other hip hop blogs that feature artists.
• Teaching is one of the best forms of content. You can do a tutorial on structuring a song or teach enunciation. Showing your expertise in your craft builds authority within your community and lets people know that you are no amateur. For a couple of months, I started doing video blogs on Youtube on giving tips about how to grow a fan base. Doing these few videos helped bring traffic and sales to my hip hop instrumentals and hip hop beats for sale. I provided value for my audience while creating value for myself and for my brand.
• Doing reviews of other artists work is great way to not only provide content but to also network with other people in your field. That kind of content gives people a reason to connect with you because you are offering something that can benefit them. Now that is value.
• The most popular form of content today is a documentation of your journey. Doing this will show your viewers the authenticity of your grind. Many people pretend to be something they’re not online but by documenting your journey, you allow yourself to share the details and truth of what you do. Documenting your journey and work ethic will inspire people to go after their own ambitions. If they can become inspired by your actions, they will feel a greater connection to you.

So What now?

When it comes to marketing yourself and your music, the only thing you should be focused on is providing content. Unless you have a massive budget dedicated for P.R and online advertising, content marketing is the cheapest and most effective way to grow your fan base.

However you decide to put yourself in the public eye, the most important thing to do is to just take action and do it consistently. As long as you build momentum for yourself, people will become curious and attract to your content. It is the Law of Attraction.

The reason that content marketing is most effective is because you are giving value to others while also creating value for yourself. Simply releasing music online won’t make you go viral.

There are hundreds of thousands of talented artists out here in the world; the real question is how will you stand out from the rest?

 

Three Tools You Will Need

There are so many marketing tools out right now, it really gets confusing on which ones to use. The answer to this is simple. Only use the tools that best fit your needs. There is really no need to use any marketing tool that doesn’t truly benefit your style of promotion. Why use tools for Twitter when you are more active on Facebook and vice versa?

1. Always schedule your posts: Social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are best utilized in real time. In fact, your fans including regular people go on these sites for fun and to see what the world is up to. As music artists, we use these sites for more than just killing time. These sites help us grow our fan base and connect with them on a deeper level. Some of our posts may be for fun but some should have a “call to action.” Just to remind you, a call to action is when you want someone to do something. An example would be sharing a link of your music to have people either listen to it or subscribe to your channel. For whichever reason, it is best for us as music artists to reach people when they are mostly online. It is such a waste of a post if you share your music when everyone is having dinner or are asleep. My favorite tool to schedule my posts is Buffer.  It allows you to not only schedule your posts but to add multiple posts and at different times. It also analyzes your social media data and gives you information on your best posting times and which posts give you the best results.

2. Link all of your social media mediums the smart way: Recently I started using “If This Then That” or better known as IFTTT because of its awesome functionality. I do have my Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud, and Instagram all linked together but it only does one thing; distribute my post throughout each other. What “If This Then That” does is something a bit smarter. Have you noticed whenever Instagram shares a post onto Twitter, it shows up as a crappy looking link instead as a native picture similar to Facebook? Well with “If This Then That” it allows Twitter to post them as native pictures which looks a lot more attractive in people’s time lines. When people see only an Instagram link, they tend to skip over it. Since IFTTT posts Instagram photos as native Twitter pictures, people will always see what you post on Instagram and are more likely to be interested in what you are doing.

3. Last but not least, BLOG: I am very aware that most of us don’t have the time to consistently update a blog but there is another way to use it. These days, many blogs give you an option to design them in a way to where it looks like a website. All you have to do from there is just post any new music or videos to your blog and host it there. That’s what I did for my hip hop instrumentals and hip hop beats before I invested in a website. You can also connect your social media links to your blog with “If This Then That” and schedule multiple posts throughout the day through Buffer.

These three simple and free tools may be all you need for now to get your music to fans by yourself. It is a form of automation which frees up your time to focus on what is most important; the music.

For Free Hip Hop Beats and Hip Hop Beats For Sale

Visit the New Website JustinJayBeats.com

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Show Your Face

I was watching this recent Master P interview the other day and something he said made me realize something about online artists today. A lot of artists these days rhyme about hustling and making power moves but still have trouble getting their music out. The main reason is because they only upload their music online without a business or marketing plan.

“This generation with the social media, they all get around and talk about each other and I’m like, them people where I live at don’t care about what you think. They don’t even see you, you don’t even exist.”

That really got me thinking about this generation of artists. I’m not saying marketing online is corny, in fact online is the best place to get your music heard by hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people. The problem here is that sharing a link is as far as many of these online artists go.

Aside from online spam artists, there are also more serious artists who actually put out music videos, do marketing campaigns, submit to blogs, and stay active on their social media platforms. Many of them have a strong fan base and great amount of followers. My next piece of advice goes to these types of artists. If you are doing these types of things and currently investing in yourself, then my advice will be a game changer for you.

Get in front of the camera.

What I mean by that means more than music videos. Show your fans who you are behind the music and just talk. What you may not know is that many fans and followers love hearing and watching what their favorite artists are about. They love content. When you talk about certain things or share information, you are delivering content. As an artist, you must also understand the business and marketing side of the music industry. You must understand how to grow the loyalty in your fan base and keep them wanting more. We live in the social media generation, if you will, and always want new content. Why do you follow certain pages on Facebook about sports or music and why do you follow people who deliver you funny tweets on Twitter? It is because they provide you with content.

Since you are already putting in the effort for serious marketing, getting behind the camera and sharing your thoughts shouldn’t be a problem. In fact, it’s free and it has a bigger return on investment. The reason I recommend serious artists to do this and not spam artists is because the more serious artists already have a steady fan base and decent following. Serious artists already have people to show their videos to; spam artists do not.

Always keep in mind that your fans want to see you on their level as well. That means they want to feel the human side of you and not just the musical side they look up to. That is why making videos and video blogs can easily connect you with your followers and fans. Videos also become more viral than regular posts and you can easily connect things you are trying to promote with them. For example, you can link them to your Instagram page and they can follow you there as well. Now you have two avenues of easy content for them and they can stay updated with you much easier. The possibilities are endless and with a bit of creativity, you can create loyalty with fans much easier than any marketing campaign.

Click Here for Free Hip Hop Beats and Hip Hop Beats for Sale

Facebook Promotion Trick

Cross promotion is one of the most effective forms of marketing. It is extremely effective because not only do you reach another person’s fan base but they also provide you with social proof with their endorsement. Social proof is a crucial part of marketing your music online because it shows that people are actually listening to your music. The beauty of Facebook is that it is a social proofing machine. It informs you when your friend likes a page, likes a post, comment on something, create posts, or anything for that matter. It also suggests you pages, articles, and advertisements based on your browsing habits and will even let you know if any of your friends like it as well.

Finding other artists to cross-promote with is rather simple and can also become a great asset to your grind. They provide you with social proof which presents their fans a reason to give your music a chance. The more they endorse you with a shout out or by sharing one of your links, the more it resonates with their fans which in turn build what marketers call “brand awareness.” When people are aware and familiar with your brand, it gives them a more of a reason to check you out. Remember in music, you yourself are a brand. Creating popularity for your brand can intrigue and spark people’s curiosity about you; all this just from creating familiarity.

Look at the people in your network as assets. The more assets you have, the better equity you have. With that logic, also consider the quality of these assets. That should obligate you to grow your network. Now imagine doing the Facebook cross promotion with 10 artists instead of just one. That can surely bring in more potential fans to your music. Acquiring these artists is easy but it takes more than having common interests with them in order for them to cross promote you. What you must do is reciprocate. That means you will promote and endorse them as well. Don’t be afraid of sharing your fans with other artists. Just because you endorse another artist doesn’t mean that you are giving your fans away, it simply means that you are sharing them.

The most important part of cross promotion is that you must actually like the artist you promote. Your fans are your fans because they take an interest in you as a person as well as your cause and message. That means that the artist you share is an extension of your interests. If you just share any artist for the sake of cross promotion, your fans will notice that and you will lose value with them. Keep in mind that they see you as a person of value because they are fans of your content, your music and most importantly you.

Click Here for FREE HIP HOP INSTRUMENTALS and HIP HOP BEATS FOR SALE

Biggest Mistake of Hip Hop Artists Today

The internet has become the new promotion playground of all kinds of music artists in this day and age; especially for hip hop artists. Unfortunately, one thing that has become associated with hip hop artists online is spam. I’m 100% positive that you’ve received links of random artists in your inboxes on Facebook, Twitter, and email. I’m also 100% positive that you’ve spammed a random person at least once in your music grind. I don’t blame you either, I’ve done it too when I first started.

Over the years, I’ve learned that I get better results creating business relationships as well as friendships rather than spamming. The problem with spamming is that it is impersonal and extremely annoying. If you’ve read my past music blogs you would understand how passionate I am in avoiding spam. You would also understand why I emphasize so much about branding yourself as an artist because spamming harms your brand so much more than you realize.

The reason hip hop artists today still use spamming as their only source of promotion is because they are too lazy to try other strategies, they do not believe in themselves enough to invest at least a small amount of money in their hustle, and simply: it is the only thing they know. I find it funny how many hip hop artists call spamming “grinding.” If you ask anyone with experience in marketing, they would call it a waste of time. That is because you spend all that time copying and pasting the same message to random people and yield little to no results.

Spamming is not networking. The sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner you can start bringing in results. Hip hop artists online talk about having connections with all kinds of leaders in the music industry. Believe me; I’ve heard it all whenever someone is trying to get free hip hop instrumentals from me. Though many people have these connections, the results I’ve seen from them tell me something different. It tells me that they have not utilized their connections enough to learn anything from them.  I only have a few friends and colleagues who are truly in the entertainment and music industry but the knowledge they happen to pass on me is used to my benefit. I take that knowledge and find a way to incorporate it in my own music hustle.

Once you can break away from that filthy habit and start thinking outside the realms of spam, you will broaden your creativity in marketing and learn more about your fans and peers. This is because the way to build a fan base is by creating relationships with people. Creating relationships with people, whether business or personal, gives new information and perspective. What you learn from them will help you develop the correct strategies that fit your needs and more importantly, your target market.

I’d like to bless my readers and hip hop artists with some free hip hop beats

Click here for free hip hop beats

The Fan Funnel

Getting fans to your music isn’t as easy as it used to be when all you had to do was spam people your links. This is because music online has become very common and potential music fans are being bombarded with all kinds of music-related advertisements every time they go online. It has gotten to the point to where they’ve started considering unsolicited music as spam. Imagine the early days of online music, people were going out of their way to discover new talent to check out. Now the tables have turned and artists are now searching high and low for new fans to take a listen to their music.

In order for you to gain new fans, you must create relationships with them in the form of content. It’s kind of like them engaging in their favorite reality show; only this isn’t a show, it is real life. Let me clarify what I mean a bit. Imagine an artist that you follow and are a true fan of. Every time they release a video blog, post on social media, or anything of the sort, you are there following their updates. It’s not uncommon and it’s not abnormal. This is what we do when we are involved and inspired by someone. Now the question is how do I manifest this kind of influence? The answer is actually simple. Create a fan funnel.

The fan funnel is a series of steps that bring you closer to a fan. If you simply spam your link to someone then they will just as simple ignore you. What you have done there is skip crucial steps in the funnel. You can only link someone to your music if they are involved in your art or if they ask. A person listening to your music is the last step of the funnel.

I will give you an example of a fan funnel you can use yourself. Keep in mind that I encourage you to be creative and design your own funnel through trial and error. There is no one way of doing this so just keep trying different things until you find something that works.

As an artist, your main goal is to get fans to your music. The first step is to create what marketers call a “trip wire.” This is something that will get the attention of someone and is the first engagement.  Marketers usually offer something for free like a free trial or sample product for their trip wire. Have you noticed that producers offer a couple free hip hop instrumentals if you sign up to their mailing list? As an artist, you’ll have to think outside the box about what you can offer. I will offer you an advanced strategy if you would like to fast track your fan base campaign.

1. My suggestion would to be to pay for a feature in a popular blog (or hire a PR expert to get you a feature) in order to catch the attention of your target market. When they see that you are featured in a blog that they are familiar with. Doing this strengthens your brand and potential fans will take you more seriously.
2. Offer fans your album or mixtape for full download if they share your link. Also ask for their email in return. If you use Reverbnation.com, there is an option to allow exclusive downloads in exchange for an email.
3. The shares are crucial because some friends of that person will be influenced to check out your link that they shared. This is what marketers call “social proofing.” This means that people are more likely to check something out if someone they know suggests it rather than some random advertisement you have no association with. If you are using a Reverbnation.com player, you can grab their emails when they download one of your songs.
4. Once you have attained their email, you have reached the last step of the funnel and have turned that person into a fan. This is a very fragile part of the funnel so don’t celebrate quite yet. You must consider having their email as a privilege and respect the fact that they don’t want to see spam every time they check messages. This is where your content comes in. Remember how I said it’s like a real life reality series? Whenever you send them an email, make sure that you intrigue and entertain. If they find you boring or not useful, they might unsubscribe and not recommend you to their friends.

 

Now that they are willing to listen to what you have to say, you must use that time wisely and nurture the relationship of your fans. Be careful once you have collected their email at the final stage of the funnel. It is not yet a victory, in fact the battle has only begun. If you have an annoying and sloppy email game, you will lose fans that you worked so hard to get. There are also methods and strategies that you can do for free at no cost as well if you don’t have a budget for music marketing. As long as you can be creative with your trip wire, the possibilities are endless.

 

Feel free to pick my brain about artist marketing and how you can expand your current fan base at JustinJayBeats@gmail.com

A Few Tips on Submitting to Music Blogs

The headline is extremely important. Just go with “Song Submissions” or “Music Entries”

  Be professional and don’t come off spammy. If you plan on sending one email to all the sites, make sure you send it bbc. Most sites are likely to post if you send them a more personalized email but you and I both don’t have time for that. What I did to get featured in most of these sites was all in the way I formatted the email.

I started off my introducing myself with a very short bio. Where I’m from, my goals in music, my message in music, and what the whole art form means to me.

Next, I said “I would like to take the opportunity to submit my music to your site.” It also wouldn’t hurt to say something like, “I like what your site represents and would love to be featured.” Of course follow up those two sentences with a few personalized messages of your own so that you don’t sound like a robot!

If at all possible, think of something you can offer to their site. What I did was offer to write a few articles which guaranteed my features and assured back links to my hip hop instrumentals. I am aware that most of us don’t have time for that so just think of something small like offering to share their site on your social media platforms.

Lastly, never attach files. Your email will get ignored and blacklisted if you do that. Just include your links and don’t forget to include social media links. A phone number may even get you a phone interview with some of the bigger sites.

Pro Tip: Do not submit the same song more than once. You will instantly get blacklisted.

Expert Tip: Some of these blogs offer guaranteed placements for a tiny fee. This is actually a good way to brand your name as an artist as you will create familiarity and presence. Before you do so, check their traffic rank with alexa.com

Make sure their site ranks 1,000,000 or lower. Anything past that is not worth paying for. Keep in mind that sites in the top 1000 will be more expensive for a feature since they get more traffic but if you look hard enough, you’ll be able to find a few sites that have excellent deals.

If you’d like more tips and information about marketing your music, feel free to send me an email at JustinJayBeats@gmail.com

Tweaking your Newsletter Game

   I’ve noticed that 95% of artists that include me in their email blasts all look the same and receive the same response from me; ignore and delete. There are many reasons behind my actions but the main reason is because they did not take time to personalize it. I’m not saying that they should make it directly relate to me because they have hundreds of other people to address. The point being made is that they should find a way to make it more about their mailing list subscribers rather than just about themselves. This means instead of writing “Hey check out my music and my links and the stuff I’m doing” they can write something that the subscriber will actually engage with. Here are a few ways you can make your email blasts a lot better and optimize the mailing list experience.

1. Let me get this out of the way because it is the first thing any great marketing expert will suggest; offer content. If you’ve noticed in my emails, I offer advice and tips to artists in the form of blogs. While some people ignore the blogs and get straight to the free rap beats and hip hop instrumentals, the people who truly enjoy my writings engage with me and are intrigued by what I offer. This is because they find value in what they have read and can actually apply the information to their own music grind. The value I’ve created also forms relationships between many artists and I which in turn, creates value for my brand. As an artist, you don’t even have to create your own content. You can share content that you yourself find valuable. Be careful to only share things that relate to your audience otherwise your emails and newsletters become nothing more than spam.
2. Break the marketing Immunity. Marketing immunity is when the consumer has become immune to marketing tactics and advertisements. This is why most billboards and especially commercials don’t have the same effect on people as they used to before people became immune to them. The only way to break the immunity is to be creative and show people that you are different. Put yourself in the shoes of your mailing list and think about the other artists that bombard them with spammy emails. Now think about what makes your brand any different. You must find ways to be creative and unique when presenting yourself. As an artist, creativity comes natural. All you have to do is apply it to your marketing strategy.
3. Engage with your audience. This means that you shouldn’t just email them when you have a new song posted online. In order to create value for your new song (or anything else) you must build equity with your mailing list. The best way to build equity is to engage them. I will give you a few ways to engage your list to get you started. You can hold a contest and give prizes or offer something else in return. If you’re still having trouble thinking of prizes, tell them that you will fully endorse the winner’s music for two weeks if they themselves are also artists. You can even have a few shirts or hats made of your brands logo. The return on investment there would be awesome as it would also serve as a form of crowd-sourcing whenever they wear your apparel. There are countless ways to engage your fans, just hop on Google and do a bit of research.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask your list questions. In fact, not only will asking your list questions cause them to engage with you but it will also help you learn more about them. This means that you will have better data about your audience and know what kinds of things they will respond positively to. Keep in mind that you never want to spam your list with information for no reason; you want them to actually like you. People will always know when you’re being authentic or when you’re just being tactical so be sure to always be real in whatever you do. It’s all part of the marketing strategy but when you give people something of value and something they find useful, they become closer to you as a person.

 

5 Tips You Need for your Music Grind

 

1. The first strategy I will offer you is blogging. This can be in the form or videos or just regular text. Your blog can be about anything, just as long as you express your opinion. Blogging is a great way to reach people and to create a fan base. When people are interested in the content you provide in your blogs, they begin to look forward to each post and will not have any stipulations to click on what you have to offer. You build trust and authority among your fan base which is in online marketing can be coined as social currency. The more social currency you have among your fans, the more resources you have to reach more fans.

2. The next is networking on Twitter with promoters. The search engine in Twitter is very powerful and used by many marketers and entrepreneurs like me. You can get laser targeted results by using the advanced search feature but what makes this search function so useful is that you can get tweets in real time. There are many promoters online that do free promotions in return for cross-promotion. I use a few of these services and it has worked in my benefit to reach more fans and musicians. Type in “Mixtape promotion” or “Mixtape promoter” and find your network.

3. Crowd sourcing is one of the most efficient ways to promote your music. Your fans are a great asset and will help you gain new ones. A prime example would be a promotion I did back in June where I offered free leased hip hop instrumentals in return for a share on Facebook. That month I gained almost 500 new fans. The beauty about my promotion is that it was organic and did not require paid traffic. When I came up with that campaign, I had to sacrifice a few sales for long term results. Instead of making a few one-time sales, I gathered new fans that provided me with even more sales. Not only that but because they became connected with me through my fan page, I had another avenue to engage with them. They also became new members of my fan base. Be creative with your resources and utilize what you have to offer.

4. Get involved with your local hip hop scene. Most of my subscribers are already a gear in their local hip hop machine and if you’re reading this blog, then you’re one of those people. This tip is for artists that haven’t made the first step of joining the community. Having any type of job whether it is on the street team or being one of the sponsors will bring you face to face with fans. This is an advantage because you have more opportunities to engage with them instead of having to wait for a response online which can take days. One strategy that will yield a rewarding return on investments would be to give out stickers (for example) of your logo in exchange for a like to your page. Remember that you can keep in touch with fans through your fan page which can serve as form of free traffic to your music. A free mixtape CD may be more intriguing and a more fruitful endeavor but will be more expensive in cost. If it is possible for you to do this, not only would you multiply your likes tenfold but you will create loyalty among new fans instantly. This loyalty is worth more than one time sales because it will guarantee you more sales in the future as well as word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing is the most difficult form of marketing to master which is why it is the most profitable. Seven percent of branding is done online while the rest is done outside of the internet. When you give people a reason to talk about you in outside of social media, you have become successful in your craft.

5. Network with other artists and collaborate with them. If you can feature on one of their songs, it gives you the opportunity to reach their fans. As an underground artist, the point is to reach more fans while sharing your message with them. This would be the ultimate and most effective way to cross-promote. Imagine that each artist you do a feature for has a fan base of 100-300 fans, multiply that by twenty features and reach a potential of 6000 fans. Even half of that number would have a tremendous and positive effect to your image and brand as an artist. You would create awareness and later have a good chance of being recognized by them musically. We live in the day and age where networking and collaborating with people is as simple as browsing the internet on our smart phones. Meet someone online, get to know them, and then get to work. 

A Numbers Game

     The amount of followers one has on social media can be a crucial determinant in how valuable an individual is on social media. When we see a person with an astounding amount of followers, we automatically presume that he or she is of some importance. That is one reason there are dealers online who sell followers for all social media platforms. The reason is to influence other people to follow them under the presumption that they are worthy of following. Though this tactic is used by some, it is just something I couldn’t do for myself. I don’t want to trick people into thinking that I have something to offer. I want them to follow me because they know I have something to offer; which are my hip hop instrumentals. Buying followers on Twitter or likes on Facebook may work for some, but it’s not something that I would waste my money on. The reason is because I’m more into building my fan base organically and not under the false pretense that I’m a person that they need to follow.

     I have been doing a lot of research on what intrigues people to follow a certain person, the truth is that I’d rather work on music than work on branding myself as an artist but the downside of that is if I don’t let people know I exist; then my own music ceases to exist because my fan base ceases to exist. We as artists must understand that music is half art and half business. Well, instead of calling it business, let’s just call it promotion. Always remember that our main reason in music is to spread our values and beliefs to other people in order to create unity among certain cultural environments and communities. If your sole purpose is to create music for no one else but yourself, then more power to you but don’t expect the same accelerated results that the next artist is working day and night for to push their music across the globe.

     So forget about buying followers and allow me to provide more tips for my artists. According to a study done by one of my favorite magazines Fast Company, a good way of gaining followers is by sharing information. Everybody follows information and sources that either share or provide information. There is no denying that anyone using social media also likes and follows people and organizations that either enlighten or entertain. The study also showed statistical data between those who share information about other things and those who only share information about themselves. The data showed that those who shared information had twice as many followers as opposed to those who only talked about themselves. Another interesting piece of information from this study is that 52% of followers want special offers and free giveaways. This was a Nielson research conducted from the U.K sometime in March of 2014. The last tip they mention in their article was to tweet and frequently post about things that relate to your fan base and target audience. The more you post, the more things you will come up with that relate to your fans which in turn gives insight on how you can predict what your followers will engage with.

     The last aspect to consider is how much authority you promulgate on social media. People will only follow you if they consider you as an authority. This means that you have done your part in showing them that you are an important figure in the music culture. It doesn’t matter if you’re a mainstream or underground artist, as long as you are worth following, they will follow. The best way to gain authority and clout is by word of mouth marketing. Being featured on blogs, interviews, videos, features in songs, and internet radio can help boost your clout and authority while further branding your name as an artist. There are many ways to become popular online; it just takes a lot of research. If you don’t have time to research, you can always hire online marketers that specialize in branding and public relations.

     A huge following always asserts authority and popularity. The reason that I don’t recommend purchasing followers is simple. If you don’t have actual content to offer actual followers, there is a huge chance they will unfollow you and not recommend you to their friends. People can usually tell if your followers are not real by simply viewing your profile. If you don’t have interesting content on your page like music or information, then they will conclude that your followers are actually bots and fake dummy profiles. Not only that but they may even view your followers and notice that they do not have any human characteristics. That is extremely harmful to your brand as an artist and can make you appear foolish. Reversing the consequence can be timely and take five times the effort to restore. Just keep in mind that you must be transparent among your fans meaning that you must be honest and believe in the information you share. Increasing your follower count may seem vain but it is an actual demographic of who supports you and who does not.