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!
View the single list of all 2000 items at this location.
2000 Things to Generate 20,000 Fans Challenge
33. Fan Signs
This idea comes from the world of adult websites. Adult stars have websites that you pay a monthly membership to join. Much of their traffic comes from affiliate websites. As a way to promote their website and recruit new affiliates and say thank you to existing affiliates they will do something called fan signs. The star takes a picture of themselves holding a sign with a affiliate’s name or website and maybe a message. In a message thread they will ask anyone who wants a fan sign to leave their name, website and message.
What if you did the exact same thing or maybe a variation. On Facebook make a post saying you will take some fan sign pictures and the first X number of replies get one. Maybe make a fan sign the incentive for clicking Like. Maybe the variation is to ask fans to take a fan sign picture and upload to Facebook and tag you. You could instruct the fans to take a picture in front of a computer with your website open.
Even better do all of this on Instagram!
Excellent idea! Fans love this. I’ve always theorized that simply showcasing people in the crowd on your site is incentive enough for people to share your band with their friends.
For instance, take pictures with people from a show and then post them on Facebook. Just make sure to enable “tagging” so the person can tag themselves or friends.
I’m experimenting with a variation of this using YouTube. My band does a cheesy “Thank You” video for people that Like our Facebook page. We just make up silly, non-sensical lyrics about the person and record a quick acoustic song. So far, people love it! I keep hearing about my little experiment everywhere I go.
Fans love to be put in the spotlight by their “idols”. Bragging rights if nothing else. At the end of every KISS show they put a big Thank You “city” message up on the video screens. So many fans take pictures of the message. Imagine if you also added photos of the fans?
Not sure if I said this before but this is a great series. Whether or not I end up using these ideas it keeps the wheel turning and the gears greased. Good stuff Micheal!
Thanks so much! I figure that at some point one of these ideas should work for someone, you just have to keep trying.
Awesome idea…you are definitely presenting a lot of ideas for artists to gain and maintain fans…nice