The cookie is what's expected, but it's the fortune that makes it special.
Don’t freak out… this post isn’t meant to make you more paranoid, it’s meant to try making you see the promotional potential in everything you do. Keep that in mind as you read the next bit, and if you’ve ever read any Seth Godin blogs or books, the themes in this post may be familiar to you, but hey… if you’re in a band and you’re reading Seth Godin, then you’re on the right track already! So keep it up!
When you’re a band, and you’re putting yourself out there into the public eye (instead of staying locked in the basement), everything you do can be viewed as an interaction with a possible fan. Everything. There’s the obvious – being on stage performing, selling merch, mingling after/pre-show, all really valuable opportunities to give potential fans a meaningful interaction with you, and you’re most likely going to be “on” when you’re in these situations, so you’ll already be able to make those interactions as meaningful as possible.
But what about the less obvious times? What about when you’re just out picking up beer, or gear, or working your day-job? What about when you receive an email from a fan, a facebook message, myspace comment?
Pretty much everything you do could be viewed as an interaction with a potential fan, so it might be interesting to try to think of ways to make all those situations just a little bit special. What if you gave the cashier at the beer store a download card for a free song? Went out of your way to comment back to someone online, or post something on your blog mentioning someone who recently sent you an email about the band, or what if you gave someone who’s buying a CD from you an extra copy for free, so they can give it to someone else?
There are all sorts of ways you can give someone just a bit of something more than what they would expect – all you have to do is find ways to tie those little extras back to your band, and try to genuinely incorporate that behaviour into your daily lifestyle. Suddenly everything you do could become an exercise in making fans, and if you give someone a little bit extra, something more than what they were expecting to get, you’ve increased exponentially the chance they are then going to tell someone else about you too.
Scout66.com has the intent, “intent” to allow artists much more flexibility in communicating one-on-one with their audience. We have partnered with the amazing ArtistData.com which makes this simple movement so much easier to manage. Please visit either ArtistData.com or Scout66.com to input tour schedulees and voile! You will be seen in many more venues and internet outlets than ever imagined! Scout66.com’s primary intent is to allow the artist’s audience to review LIVE performance. Start simply and grow from there.
Who better to be an advertisement for your performance than those who pay to see you play? That’s our goal! We know that the audience holds the reins to all that rules the music industry. It isn’t the media, the record labels, or any other entity that formerly tried to make artists grovel. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT THE AUDIENCE.