11) If All Your Eggs Are in Instagram You’re Doomed


Yes, Instagram is the hottest social app out right now (sorry Snapchat). But that doesn’t mean it always will be. I’m sure you’re too young to remember Myspace, but at one point the only online presence that mattered for musicians was Myspace. Those that didn’t grab their fans and transfer them to a database they owned (i.e. email list) lost contact with all their fans when Myspace died.


You rent your fans to social sites. You own your fans email addresses and phone numbers. Get them.


Don’t ignore the social sites where your fans exist, but also have a way to keep in touch with them that isn’t dependent on the whims of the latest hot social app.

The red part is from an article in Digital music news, here is a link to the whole article.

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/07/27/millennial-musicians/

This is a part that most artists forget (and labels too). These numbers are held by the site or app you are using. And in many cases like Facebook or Instagram, they want money for you to reach all your people, which is really insane but we buy it every day. You have to get things in your feed to get these people to give you their emails and phone number and location.

And to be honest this has been proved to work in many cases over the years. Per Gessle (singer in Roxette) had people sign postcards to send to radio to get his first single played. Yes, he went out manually to get these people, easier today, still you have to get down to do it. Part of Blink 182:s plan was that they called up fans personally in the city they were heading at. Of course for a fan to get a personal call from your favorite band telling you to bring friends with, yes you will bring friends with you.

So the tools are easier today. Still, you have to get down to have that list. You don’t have the emails on facebook. But you can use Facebook to get people to get you there emails.