Dear Musicians: Conversation Is The New Connection

 

THE MORE CONVERSATIONS THE BETTER

It's an interesting balance between you and your fans.

They feed off of you as much as you feed off of them. And sometimes, just sometimes, if you've got an engaged group of people that have bought into your "thing", they might even know you better than you do yourself.

All that aside, from a social media standpoint, it was never meant to be a replacement for real interaction, but a compliment.

So one of the best ways to treat your social media isn't as a channel to merely broadcast your thoughts and promote your next show, but moreso as a CONVERSATION with you and your fans

So your challenge this week is to: Ask your fan's opinion to get objective feedback, spark up a conversation, and maybe even do some market research while you're at it.

HERE'S A QUICK LIST OF CONVERSATION STARTERS

- Where do you like to see live music?⠀

- Which t-shirt design do you like the best?⠀

- What's your favorite song on our latest cd?⠀

- Do you prefer to download music (iTunes, Amazon) or stream (Pandora, Spotify?)⠀

- What venue would you like to see us play?⠀

- Which cd artwork would you pick for our new cd?

- What other bands do you like to see?

- Who's your favorite (genre related to you) artist?⠀

HOW TO EXECUTE SOME OF THE RESULTS

Some of the questions are just letting them into your process, like if you have multiple merch designs you're thinking about - like a new t-shirt or your iTunes cover art (see new Facebook poll options below). Yeh, you might already have a favorite, but why not give them a change to give you some input. 

If there's one thing your fans have plenty of - it's opinions!!!

If someone gives you a venue recommendation, follow up with them and find out why they like it (and more importantly) if they've got a contact there. You never know who's connected to gatekeepers in your area.

It's happened on numerous occasions where we'd be in a conversation with someone and realize that we were only 1 "warm" degree of separation away from an introduction to a talent buyer or committee chair.

One of the polls we would post on social media every few months was pretty simple and something we KNEW our folks would have an opinion on: "what song(s) would you like to see us cover next?"

We obviously couldn't fulfill all of the requests, but there were some awesome answers and we knew we had a winner when there was a song or two with multiple votes!

+ The 3-Part Plan Our Band Used to Get More Fans

And speaking of voting...

POLLS & SURVEYS

If you want to kick it up a notch, you could also think about creating a poll or survey. It shows your followers that you care about their opinions, which in turn helps to build trust and loyalty, which will help strengthen your brand (band) image.

Here's a list compiled by PC Magazine of the 10 Best Free Survey Tools. Any of these options could be used to create quick surveys to post on social media or send to your email subscribers. A couple options that are easy to set up (and free) are Survey Monkey and Google Forms.

Facebook has also made it suuuper easy to create polls on both your personal pages and business pages.

Facebook Poll Option - Personal Page

Facebook Poll Option - Business Page

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's even an option on your music page to create an image poll. Put two images side by side and have your fans vote!

 

 

 

 

Facebook Image Poll Example

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regardless of what method you use, get creative and most importantly - have fun. Your fans want to see you succeed!

They want to be a part of your success story and just need you to ask them the question (whatever that is). So don't be afraid to get their attention by getting their input and being consistent on your social channels.

Let them be part of your journey!

Learn More: http://bit.ly/ibc-30daytrial-conversation

#WorkSmarter #GigHarder
Leonard Patterson
IndieBandCoach.com