Three years in the past the northern Virginia conscious hip hop artist Lucidols became suffering to get listeners to his music. He had about a hundred and fifty month-to-month listeners on Spotify Playlist (no I didn’t neglect a zero) with simply forty five fans, about 1,500 fans on Instagram and Facebook. And turned into making less than $one hundred a month from his song.
Fast forward to these days, three years later, he now has over 500,000 monthly listeners on Spotify (no my finger didn’t get caught at the 0 key), over 50,000 followers on Spotify, over 2 hundred,000 Likes on Facebook, over one hundred,000 followers on Instagram, he’s getting round five million streams a month, has over one hundred million general streams across all structures and is making around $20,000 a month simply from his recorded tune.
Oh, and he’s were given no label, no supervisor, no publicist, no agent and is on 0 legit Spotify playlists.
I’ll pause as you pick your jaw up from the ground.
These are real fans. Not bots. Human beings.
He showed me his Instagram inbox which is flooded with fans telling him how his song saved their lives. His song makes a speciality of mental fitness consciousness.
So how did he try this?
He utilized direct advertising techniques on Facebook and Instagram to discover his audience and get them into his world. Specifically, he mastered the Facebook Business and Ads Manager and ran all special styles of video ads concentrated on enthusiasts of similar artists.
They came pouring into his global and subsequently he was getting fanatics to click on his advertisements at round $.02 per click on – setting each marketing expert to shame. Spending about $10 an afternoon, he became pulling in around 500 new lovers consistent with day. And due to the fact his song is super and his Instagram is engaging (i.E. He is very active on there – responding to feedback and messages), these folks who began off as passive observers was die hard lovers.
I examined out his techniques with my task and a bunch of friends’ tasks in numerous genres and it works throughout the board.
This isn’t always a fluke and this isn’t always due to the type of tune he makes.
Yes, I understand, that you’ve possibly run Facebook advertisements in the beyond and you were less than pleased with the consequences. Me too. I’ve WASTED hundreds on Facebook advertisements. The Facebook Ad Manager, although, is not just for Facebook ads. And in case you don’t recognize how to make use of it effectively, it won’t work for you. Period.
So don’t come at me with “Facebook commercials don’t work!” You’re each proper and incorrect. And, to be sincere, this strategy isn’t always about jogging ads on Facebook anymore. That become so 2018!
He did this all on his very own, without the assist from the enterprise. And he’s been in large part omitted through the enterprise. And he’s A OK with that because he’s creating a strong residing and has zero% fee to pay out to all people.
His fanatics recognize he exists. And that’s all that topics.
But But But, Playlists!
Ok, deep breath. Despite what you would possibly think, you do no longer need to wager the pony on getting on Spotify playlists. For one, you’re preventing against every label, every distributor, each supervisor and every artist for coveted playlist slots. There are handiest such a lot of slots and handiest so many playlists.
We are too captivated with the playlist sport. Playlists are fickle and do not get real FANS into your international. Yes, getting on a few warm playlists can skyrocket your monthly listeners and streaming numbers overnight. But those are not your lovers. These are enthusiasts of the playlist.
Streams ≠ Fans. Monthly Listeners ≠ Fans
Just because you’ve got 1,000,000 streams does no longer suggest you have a million fanatics. Same goes for monthly listeners. We are dwelling in an technology wherein there are artists with millions of streams on Spotify who cannot draw 50 human beings to their neighborhood shows.
These artists are making a solid dwelling off in their Spotify streams, however don’t have any real fanatics. I’ve heard of artists who were able to cease their day jobs because they got blanketed on some warm playlists which earned them millions of streams a month (thousands of greenbacks a month), best to get dropped from the ones playlists and must move beg for their task returned while their streams dropped to simply zero.
It’s time to break faraway from the obsessive playlist mentality!
One of my favored games to play is to guess the month-to-month listeners to fans ratio on an artist simply with the aid of searching at their Spotify profile. Spotify, of direction, displays the month-to-month listeners wide variety loud and proud proper there on the artist’s profile. And the wide variety of streams for the pinnacle 10 songs. But the real fans range is quite hidden.
If an artist has no fanatics, but heaps of streams and monthly listeners, it’s due to the fact they may be on great famous playlists. Just click on on the About segment (at the Desktop version of the app), scroll all of the manner to the lowest and take a look.
A strong ratio is 5% (Followers to Monthly Listeners).
As you can see, Lucidious has nearly a 10% follower / month-to-month listener ratio.
Take a couple of minutes (when you’re at your desktop) and take a look at out some of your preferred artists’ ratios. Now look at a few small-mid level artist ratios. And mainly your buddies who got blanketed on hot playlists who you’ve been jealous of. Don’t be. Be satisfied for them! But additionally don’t forget, monthly listeners DO NOT identical lovers. And streams DO NOT same lovers.
If you want real fans (now not simply lovers of the playlists you’re on), you have to make use of direct advertising and marketing.
Utilizing Direct Marketing To Grow Your Audience on Spotify and Instagram
The first-rate way to discover and grow your target audience is now thru direct advertising. Not PR. Not playlists. Not journeying. Not blogs. Marketing. And you don’t need to spend that plenty cash to do it.
Ok, what’s direct advertising? It’s not as horrifying as it sounds. Direct advertising and marketing is honestly locating your target market and welcoming them into your world. That’s it.
So how do you discover wherein your target market is?
Utilizing Facebook and Instagram commercials is the satisfactory way to try this at this second in time. However, you do no longer want to try this blind. This is not clicking the “Boost” button on Facebook or the “Promote” button on Instagram. That’s the fastest manner to throw away your cash. Facebook has that button as it’s so damn simple to do, they make a lot cash on folks that don’t recognize how to properly utilize the Business Manager and Ad Manager.
Yes, studying the Ad Manager takes a piece of time. But anybody can do it. You can do it. You simply ought to hunker down and make it work. Yes it’s complex. Yes the backend Business Manager can be insanely confusing. But that’s the paintings you gotta installed in case you need to compete. Once you learn it and get it down, the difficult part is over.
You can then cross returned to making song. The stunning aspect about direct advertising and marketing is that once you set the advertisements, they move. Sure, you need to reveal them, however once you get an advert that’s powerful, you don’t really want to the touch or tweak it for awhile.
Fast forward to these days, three years later, he now has over 500,000 monthly listeners on Spotify (no my finger didn’t get caught at the 0 key), over 50,000 followers on Spotify, over 2 hundred,000 Likes on Facebook, over one hundred,000 followers on Instagram, he’s getting round five million streams a month, has over one hundred million general streams across all structures and is making around $20,000 a month simply from his recorded tune.
Most those who are employing these strategies are gaining round 100 new Instagram fans an afternoon (actual enthusiasts, now not bots) and about 500 Spotify followers each week – whilst spending simplest round $five-10/day.
So, in preference to posting frequently on Instagram and Facebook begging humans to percentage your stuff. Go immediately to the folks that might dig what you’re doing.
It’s a very thrilling time to be an independent musician.
If you’d like to analyze more approximately Facebook Advertising, Facebook has put together an creation to advertising for musicians here.
