How Do You Attract Fans?

[Bob Baker]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The only factor that truly determines your material success with music (meaning money, attention and buzz) is the number of fans you have who are willing to buy your music, attend your shows, and talk about you to their friends.

So, what have you done to attract more music fans? Or what cool things have you seen other acts do to attract fans? Share your best tips here.

[Alun Parry]

i gig regularly. i run a podcast. i organise my own shows. i give away my music for free with an option for people to pay if they want to. i have a mailing list. i use myspace.

its not quite as snowball effect as i'd hoped but that's what i'm doing for right or wrong...

[Alun Parry]

honesty time here though....

i find a lot of the things i do to generate traffic doesn't translate to live shows particularly well.

in terms of generating supporters, it isn't happening for me that great to be honest. i follow advice that i read, i put in a phenomenal amount of work. i get great reviews from the local media - and i mean great reviews!!

and yet i'm still not pulling in loads of people at live shows.

i run a podcast, i run loads of music nights in the city so everyone knows who i am, i give my music away free online so that as many people as possible can get hold of it, i gig regularly with my band, i have a mailing list, i update my website regularly and frequently, i use myspace.

i follow the advice of people who are being successful but its just not translating at all.

i can't help ask what is it that i'm NOT doing? and why is all my work not resulting in new fans who come out to my gigs?

[Friday Joseph]

To attract people to my music, I started with friends. I mean guys that I play basketball with.After recording my demo, I bought a disc man and went to the basketball court with it. None of them knew I am into music so at first they were like you gotta be kidding us. But then they saw it's no joke cos I had the CD packaged well like a real CD in stores with my picture on it. They were like wow! Before I knew what's happening everyone stopped the game and wanted to listen to my music. It was so good that two people shared a pair of earpiece at a time! I made copies and gave it out to them and before I knew it I started getting known and people started talking about me. They obviously can't wait for my music to be in stores. I started marketing my music locally, in my town making posters and people started seeing my face and talking about me. I am like a local star even though i'm not making the money yet. I'm planning to get a CD duplicating machine and a printer to start packaging and selling my music. I put together a gig recently and I was amazed at the amount of people that showed up. The little venue i was able to afford couldn't contain everybody. It's been a buzz now and people just can't wait. My songs are receiving airplay even as I speak. I'd be on leave from work next week and I want to use that to appear on TV shows and radio programmes to create awareness and let people feel me.