For this month's blog posts I would like to get back to my overall theme in hopes that my pointers will be able to help artists as well as their managers become even more successful.
In today’s world there are many things that affect the
overall success of an artist; however, I believe that one of the most important
is the online presence they have. According to Meylah,
the three most important reasons an online presence is important to an artist
are; to share and promote your work, for others to share your work, and to sell
your products. In my eyes, the online presence of an artist directly represents
who they are, what they stand for, and how they would interact with their fans
real world. An artist in the industry that is doing a great job of this and is
a good example that artist managers could use to improve their own artists
online presence is, none other than, John Mayer.
John Mayer’s current online presence is on par with other
artists in the industry and is just something else that he has perfected. He is
active on all of the social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and
Instagram. He interacts with his fans on Twitter and Instagram by having
contests that allow them to win something that he personally mails or gives
them. He has a total of 5.7 million
likes on Facebook and had over
58,000 people talking about him when I accessed his page. This just shows you
that he has a successful online presence simply because his fans are active and
talking about him on a daily basis. He has fewer followers on Twitter and Instagram; however, he lets them into
his personal life, which entices his fans to remain loyal and feel as if they
are closer to him. His YouTube
channel not only features music videos and live performances, but also has some
of his personal interviews and practice sessions. Finally, his website was really impressive because it
included a lot of interactive material for his fans to view and listen to for
free of which included; videos, photos, interviews, gave insight on whom he
supports and donates too, and allows fans to listen to his music for free.
Overall, his online presence is really good in my eyes;
however, there is one thing I think he could improve on. The main thing that I
believe John could do to retain current fans would be to give live q&a
sessions once a month or every few months. These sessions could be held
exclusively for those whom currently have his album or could be used to entice
others to become new fans. He could also turn these live q&a sessions into
live streams of his bands practices or sound checks even. These live sessions
would be a great way for him to get people to come out and experience the real
thing.
For the artists that I personally develop, I would begin
building their online presence as soon as they had content such as music,
interviews, and live performances available to post. The main reason for
waiting until they achieved those few things is simply to allow their fans
instant access into who they are musically and individually. The small
following that the band gathers in their beginning live performances will allow
their online presence to potentially explode by word-of-mouth or, by what we
call it now days, social sharing.
The main lesson that I want my readers to take away from this
is that by having a good online presence and interacting with your fans
routinely you will slowly, but surely, have more and more success. The
connections you make online are some of the most important an artist can make,
that will attribute to further entice fans to come out to live performances and
experiencing it first hand. Paying extra attention to your fans online by
providing them with videos or interacting with them on Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, and other social media sites could lead to 100 more ticket sales. I
know, I know, it doesn’t sound like much, but in the long run it could turn in
100 into 10,000.
References:
Website: http://johnmayer.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnmayer
Instagram: http://instagram.com/johnmayer
Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnmayer
Berkley Case Book. (2009). John Mayer. Retrieved on
September 9, 2013, from; http://berkleecasebook.blogspot.com/2009/03/john-mayer.html
Billboard.com. (2013). John Mayer Image. Retrieved on
September 9, 2013, from; http://www.billboard.com/files/styles/promo_650/public/media/john-mayer-650-430.jpg
Meylah. (2012). 3 Reasons Why and Online Presence Is So
Important for Artists. Retrieved on September 9, 2013, from; http://meylah.com/meylah/3-reasons-why-an-online-presence-is-so-important-for-artists
