photo © 2009 Pip R. Lagenta | more info (via: Wylio)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!

2000 Things to Generate 20,000 Fans Challenge

16. Inside The Studio

Fans are constantly craving access behind the velvet rope, to what they see as the sexy private world of being a musician. One of the areas that is so often never experienced by fans is the studio. Sure they will sometimes get a quick glimpse in a video or still photo. But most fans will never actually have the chance to be in the studio when a album is being recorded. Why don’t you take them completely into the process of recording in the studio. You can provide so much exciting content without even having to provide a single song. You can record short video clips to post on your website and YouTube. Capture photos throughout the entire recording process. Post updates to Facebook, Twitter and your website briefly explaining some of the many steps of recording. How the song comes together. This can easily be turned into a daily feature giving fans a reason to return daily, maybe multiple times a day. Using various tools available you could provide a short outtake audio clip that is only received by providing a email address or clicking LIKE on Facebook page. Your entire marketing plan for the promotion of a new album can begin with the process of recording, before you even know the name of the album. Guess what, months later when the album is released you can gather up all of this content and edit it into a video or a dvd… maybe even too sell. You can do all of this so simply using a smart phone and a app such as Hootsuite.

Don’t lock out your fans in this exciting process, bring them inside the studio with you.

View the single list of all 2000 items at this location.