What Your Audience Really Wants (The Artist's Rise #051)

What your audience actually wants to see from you (hint: it's not just music)

This might be a hot take, but there's a difference between an artist and someone who makes music.

An artist is someone with more substance and more value than just the music itself. You have to make music to be able to be an artist, but that isn't what automatically makes you one.

That's how you go from just having listeners to having actual fans.

Let's get into it.

Music is an output

The music is the backbone of your artistry. It's what gets you in the world of being an artist, and it's what your creative work ultimately revolves around.

But its reach only goes so far.

The music you produce is an output, it's the product you're creating and trying to "sell" to your audience to get them on board as fans.

It's the most important thing you create. Plain and simple.

That's what gets them in the door, but where most artists get it wrong is that it isn't what also keeps them there. What keeps them there is everything that goes beyond the music and lives in the world of the artist.

There are songs, even albums, that I like from artists that I wouldn't consider myself a fan of. I live as a listener with them, and nothing more.

Why? Because not all music we listen to is for the purpose of being a diehard fan.

In the age of streaming where every song ever made is readily at our fingertips, anyone and everyone could be a listener, but they won't all be fans.

So then why do most artists only focus on the music?

To get them to go a step further and become a fan, you have to give them something more. You can't expect more output when you aren't adding any additional input.

Your music already lives in places like Spotify, so it can't live that same way in a place like Instagram. Being an artist with fans is bigger than that.

What feeds the audience

If we look at social media as a tool, it has multiple layers to it: it gets you in front of new eyes & ears, and it puts you back in front of familiar eyes & ears that are at various points in their journey with you.

Most artists have the first part down, focusing on promoting their music and putting in the reps to get their music in front of more people, ultimately aiming at getting more people on board.

But what are you doing once you get them on board? If you continue to feed your existing audience the way you fed the newcomers, they're going to get bored.

Here's what your content strategy should actually look like:

"Exposure content" is focused on just delivering and packaging the music for new people. The only job here is to introduce yourself to them. They get to know the song/music, and they're invited in to learn more about the artist.

Then it's "engagement" and "expansion" content that takes it a step further and invites them into your artist world. Engagement is all about turning that listener into someone who lives more as a follower, someone who's "fan-curious", if you will. These members of your audience are on their way to becoming your fans.

Then, expansion is where you really invite them into your artist world. Dig deep into what the music is about, lean into storytelling and give them a taste of who you really are as an artist and why they want to be a fan. Remind them why they're here.

Why this matters

Think about building a relationship or a friendship. You don't keep it surface level forever, you eventually dig deeper and develop a stronger connection. That's what fandom is, it's a relationship that needs more than just what it was given in the beginning.

Fans want to view you as someone they know, someone they relate to, someone that understands them without even knowing them. The music might start to do that for them, but it's the rest of your artistry that really makes you more of a person to your audience.

In the streaming era, it's hard to determine what a "fan" really is. Someone who listens to your music could be a fan, but just by listening they aren't automatically one.

So while it's gotten easier to get your music in the hands of future fans, what hasn't changed is what you have to do to make someone a fan, and keep them as one.

Fans build careers, listeners don't. Fans want artists, not just music.

Finding the balance

Balance, in any form, is one of the hardest things to find in the music industry, especially as an artist. And when it comes to content, it's about delivering something for your audience at any stage, whether that's someone who's just meeting you, or someone who's been a fan for awhile now.

The best rule you can make for yourself is a baseline for each type of content. For example, if you post every 5-7x a week, your minimum should be at least 1 post for Engagement and 1 for Expansion each week. That leaves room for changing priorities, like if you have a release you're pushing, you can keep a heavier mix of Exposure (music-centric) content, or you can up the mix of Engagement and Expansion if you're in an off-season.

The most important thing is making sure you hit all three regularly so that everyone in your audience is being given value and has a reason to stay on their fan journey with you.

All in all

The value you give your audience will always match the value they give you back.

You give them music, they listen.

But if you want more from them, and you want them to be fans, you have to go beyond the music itself with what you provide.

Use your content as a way to go further and build an artist world for them to live in.

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