Author David Meerman Scott made a honest and realistic quote, “if you want 20,000 fans you must do 2000 different things that each generate 10 fans.” This was my favorite quote from 2010 and I am going to take this on as a challenge for 2011 for an ambitious project to give you 2000 different things you can do to generate 20,000 fans.
Some of these items will apply better for larger acts, some items will work for any act. Some may work for you, some may not… not yet. Some these can be done with little effort, some will take some web development, some might even require some significant development. Some of these have successfully worked for me over the years. The point is to create a list of items that would cover a wide range of acts and abilities.
The end result of all this will hopefully be more Facebook likes, Twitter followers, email list subscriptions, more sales and more traffic to your website… more fans!
Here are three more things that this time focus entirely on creating a environment where fans are always contributing to your website and you are obtaining new content without any expense. These will work for any size band, unsigned or international star.
2000 Things to Generate 20,000 Fans Challenge
9. Submit show ads. – I am talking about print ads… from local newspapers and magazines. Ask fans to scan in the ad for a local show. They can either email them to you or better yet you can setup a webpage where they can automatically submit them and you only need to review them and click a approval button to make them live. This built out of my personal passion to collect tour ads and I started doing it on the KISS website. Everyone will love this. Fans love to contribute to your website and you will love to see all the ads from around world… great way to build a scrapbook around a tour. Hmm, is there another idea in a tour scrapbook?
10. Submit ticket stubs. – Even though tickets are slowly disappearing as more and more people print at home, it is still a cool thing to see scans of ticket stubs from around the world. I did this for both KISS and Ozzy Osbourne. You would be surprised at some of the amazing tickets that show up… very old tickets from many years ago, and very colorful and ornate tickets from somewhere on the other side of the world.
11. Submit radio ads. – And one more fan contribution activity. Ask them to send in a mp3 of a concert or album ad from their local radio station. Again they can either email it, or you can build a online submission page. I have collected some radio ads over the years and even just posting them on my site generates 1000s of visits.
All of these together really enhance a tour page on your site. Now a simple list of tour dates becomes much more exciting with radio ads, ticket stubs and print ads.
I would love to hear from you, got any things that worked great for you? Leave me a comment.
Could you clarify this a bit? Are you asking them to submit ads & stubs for your shows? That is to say, I would ask my fans to submit ads & stubs for my shows? Thanks.
Exactly, ask your fans to submit scans and photos of ticket stubs, show flyers, show ads. As well as send you mp3 files of radio ads.
Thanks, Michael, that’s what I thought, but I figured I would just ask. Now, to figure out how to get bookings where the venue will actually advertise! LOL 😉