Building an Engaged Fan Community: Tips from My Experience
It’s not about just getting onto playlists, boosting streams/likes, blasting out random ads or boosts, hoping for a viral hit. It’s about creating real connections and fostering a community that grows with you over time. This requires more than just a casual stream or spamming strangers with ads.
Skip the idea of running random conversion or clicks campaigns targeted at people who’ve never heard of you—that's like walking up to strangers on the street and asking them to give you their number. Without context and rapport, it just kinda spammy. Instead of just seeing them as quick promotional tools, think of digital marketing as a series of powerful systems working together to find, nurture, and build your community over time.
1) Organic
Begin by establishing a strong organic presence on social media—the foundation of your digital marketing strategy. Create a content calendar to consistently share high-quality posts that genuinely resonate with your audience and reflect your brand’s voice. Actively engage with your followers by responding to comments and messages to foster a sense of community. Leverage platform features, optimize your posting times, and use relevant hashtags to increase visibility. Collaborate with other creators to expand your reach, and regularly monitor analytics to refine your approach. Staying authentic builds trust and loyalty, setting the stage for effective retargeting and conversion campaigns that drive sustainable growth.
2) Engagement Retargeting
With that foundation of content, use retargeting ads to ensure that those who have interacted with your content or follow you see your new posts. This keeps you connected and maintains the conversation with your audience. *Social platforms don't show most of your posts to these people, so engagement ads are often needed.
--> Continuous Improvement: These retargeting campaigns should run indefinitely, with periodic tests, optimizations, and content updates to keep things fresh and relevant.
--> Some Key Metrics: Cost Per Quality Engagement, Engagement to Impression Ratio, Cost per ThruPlay
3) Call to Action
Once you’ve built a rapport with your audience, it’s the perfect time to invite them to take the next step—whether that’s joining your newsletter, buying a show ticket, streaming a new song, or any other call to action relevant to your goals. *The AI can then use this cumulative data to more efficiently deliver to new potential fans.
--> Continuous Improvement: Just like your engagement retargeting ads, these should run indefinitely with regular tests, optimizations, and content updates.
---> Some Key Metrics: Cost Per Conversion, Conversion Rate
*Requires tracking tools (API and pixel installation)
When ads are set up and managed properly, they work as a subscription to your audience. Embrace a mindset that prioritizes genuine connections and sustainable growth.
The goal is build a system that efficiently accumulates quality data that can be used to run multiple campaigns that work together. They should have different, but specific goals that puzzle piece together. This synergy maximizes the power of digital ads and helps turn casual followers into a loyal community over time.
Digital Marketing and Ads Management are a careers that requires expertise and training. The notion that most artists can just follow a template or some self proclaimed guru's "online course" and be ready to market their music is the biggest scam of them all. The average artist is better off learning the basics and using that knowledge to hire professionals.
Remember, it’s about creating a cohesive system where each part supports the others. By nurturing relationships with fans over time, you’re setting the stage for long-term success and growth...given your music and brand is ready to market.
Until next time, stay smart and creative! :)
