Instagram Now More Effective Than Facebook Reaching Fans

It doesn't matter how large a social network is, it's all about how many of your fans you can reach. That's the message from a study by the research company L2 when evaluating Facebook and Instagram.

It turns out that brands, bands and artists are posting much more content on Instagram these days, mostly because the fan reach is so much greater on that platform. On Facebook, the only way to reach all your fans is to promote your posts, and even then it's debatable if you can reach all of them. On Instagram, their fans will see everything they post.

Although Instagram has only 300 million users as compared to Facebook's 1.3 billion, it doesn't matter much if it costs you too much to grow your fan base. That said, Instagram's audience is growing much faster than Facebook ever did even during it's peak periods of growth.

If you choose to post more on Instagram, there are a few things to remember though:

1. Photos on Instagram perform much better than video, which is the same on all social platforms, even though Facebook is pushing video sharing at the moment.

2. Instagram's Hyperlapse fast-motion feature has fallen out of favor after a big start last year. While it's a cool effect, it's definitely a special effect and using it sometimes makes it difficult to incorporate calls to action.

Social media is a constantly moving target. What works today may not work tomorrow, so you have to be prepared to roll with the trends. That doesn't mean you have to abandon your existing marketing strategy altogether, but it sure helps if you're willing to adapt as needed.

---

You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Using Spotify Playlists To Boost Your Fan Base

An easy thing that artists and bands can do to increase fan engagement and even increase your fan base is to create and share Spotify playlists.

This has been known to gain a lot of attention with both fans and non-fans alike. It's also something that big brands do all the time.

One example is Red Bull, who sponsor a discovery playlist, and another is Coca-Cola, who create branded playlists built around a "happiness" theme.

One of the reasons this works is because Spotify patrons don't like ads, but they do like brands, and the playlists help them identify with it. Of course the caveat is that you have to treat the creation of the playlist with some thought and an interesting approach to be taken seriously.

A good example is a friend who created a a playlist based around the soundtracks of Will Smith movies. He was astonished to find more than 50,000 shares within the first 24 hours.

Using Spotify playlists is just another way to increase audience engagement and increase your fan base. If you listen to Spotify a lot, put your listening to good use and create and share a playlist.

---

You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

.

Crowdfunding Without A Fan Base

Crowdfunding for music projects has proved to be very successful, with just over 50% of campaigns being fully funded. In most of these cases, the key to success is all in how large of a fan base you have. Usually big fan base = successful campaign.

But what if you don't have a large fan base, or any at all if you're just starting out? Here are 5 tips that you can use that have been proven to work.

1. Make sure you contact every person you know. Most small crowdfunding efforts are successful because of friends that invest in you as a person instead of the project. Therefore, you have a better chance of success if you reach out to everyone who knows you.

2. Set a reasonable goal. The most successful campaigns of this type are usually in the $5,000 to $10,000 range.

3. Use flex goals. You might have a wealthy benefactor who's willing to contribute more to your campaign than $5k, so it's best to have multiple goals so you don't limit your fundraising possibilities. Just make sure that the lowest goal is easily obtainable.

4. Have a short campaign. A short campaign of 5 to 10 days usually works better than 30 days, since the there's usually a long lull in contributions in the middle two weeks of the longer campaign.

5. Have regular communications. Continue to communicate with your potential contributors during the campaign, even if it feels like too much.

Crowdfunding without the crowd is not only possible, but is likely to be successful if you follow these tips. Good luck!

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.