Welcome to Episode 42 of the Bandhive Podcast.

It is time for another episode of the Bandhive podcast. My name is James Cross, and I'm here at long last with Matt Hoos of Alive in Barcelona. Welcome back, Matt. How are you doing today?

I'm doing pretty stellar. How are you doing today, James? I'm glad to hear that. I am also doing well. Quick, nerd, out here. Has anyone heard in the intro? This is episode 42 of the podcast. So that means that this episode we're going to share the answer to life, the universe and everything. Or is that's known in 2020. Building an engaged audience on your social media profiles. Specifically Instagram. It's good to have you back, man. And I know this is gonna be a killer episode for you to dio because this is your wheelhouse.

This is your bread and butter. Basically, you are all about that branding and image. It's definitely a lot of fun. And Instagram is definitely one of the more fun platforms Thio use just because it's one of those very, very engaging platforms, and it also gives you an opportunity to show the best part of your life to your audience. It really gives them a window into who you are, and it's up to you to give them whatever view you want. Thio. So it really gives you a lot of freedom.

And Instagram is just a lot of fun. There's, you know, it's the largest marketing platform on the planet. Most people don't know this, but there are about 100 million instagram posts made per day, and about half of those are promoting businesses, products or services. One of the most sought after jobs in the country is being a social media influencer, and that's basically because you get to travel around equal food, drink tasty drinks, see awesome places, meet fun people, and you get to show that to everybody else and you end up making money.

If you have your program set up right, and if your brand is monetized, then you can really, really dio ah lot of awesome things with it. So, yes, this episode is gonna be about engaging your audience, um, and really, really knowing the different tools at your disposal to do that, You know, it's mind boggling that there are 100 million posts per day. That's just insane. And I gotta ask, Is that just posts? Or is that posts and stories that is posts and stories and actually, you know what?

We'll talk about it a little bit more, but, you know, the Post is a lot more permanent than the story is. And so there was, ah, certain level of intimacy that the story has. And so a lot of businesses, when they roll out new products, actually use their story because it develops a much stronger connection with their audience. And actually, you know, people really feel like they're a part of something. Um, you know, some people exclusively rollout products first on Instagram. And so, you know, people who are fans of the Kardashians, they might, you know, launch a new makeup line or they might launch a new product or service that people only find out from, you know, being an instagram fan or, you know, and they're really good business people.

And so, you know, sometimes they also launch products that just got through an email blast. So it's like they've really utilized different, different marketing platforms for getting different things, and in the process that's caused them to really develop a network off highly engaged fans that are subscribed to multiple of their platforms, which is really the, you know, the best place for you as a business to be is when your audience is is paying attention to every one of your avenues. So that way you can you know your album as a band.

So if we put out an album, we want everybody to hear that. But if you record a single that doesn't go on the album, or maybe you have a B side that you're like, I really want people to hear this. But it doesn't have a place on the album. Well, maybe that's something that you can push out through an email blast. Or that's something that you promote through an instagram story. And then, you know, maybe giving people just a different avenue for finding some hidden music. I know for me, my favorite band has always been the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

And I went through album by album when I first discovered them and I started off as a bassist. So hearing Flea was like, Oh my gosh, let's hear all the different things that he could dio Well, then, after doing our research, that's when I found out they wrote 40 songs per album cycle. They would generally whittle it down to between 12 and 16. So it's like you have 24 songs, each album cycle that just didn't get hurt at all. And what was really cool when Stadium Arcadium came out was just a double CD each track.

Each CD had 13 songs. I believe it was a 26 song album, but then afterwards they started releasing three song B side disks that you could buy. I think it was just on iTunes, but you couldn't get him on. You know you couldn't go to best Buy and get him. You couldn't go to ah retail store and buy them. You had to specifically purchase them online, and it, you know, probably didn't make them all these extra millions and millions and millions of dollars. But all of the true fans like me, all the people who they had already, you know, I had been engaged on their social platforms.

I had been actively involved in the products and services that they were releasing. And so then I went and I searched out, and I was like, Oh, here's this one platform that there's no marketing on it. There's no nothing But I found all this extra stuff. And so then I immediately went through and bought, like an extra 20 or 30 songs that I had never even heard before. And it was awesome for me because I was like, Wow, on this band's biggest fan and I just got another like two full albums of material.

And so that was like one of the most eye opening moments for me when I was younger, and I was ableto really realize it's like, Hey, just because these albums come out that's not all the products and services that this band has. There's other stuff, you know, there's documentaries. I was young at the time. I didn't really know about live DVDs and oh well, then I discovered they had these live DVDs in places when I started to buy those, you know, And then it was like, I don't think I have enough red hot chili peppers T shirts.

Anybody had access to their records. Anybody had access to the albums, but it was like, You know, for me I fell in love with the base, so I fell in love with flee. Then I discovered these hidden gems that they had. They have their stuff that they pushed their their, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing in. They had the stuff that they're label pushed. But then the stuff that they individually they delegated it themselves. They put out a few songs that they believe people still would want to hear.

And for me, I mean, the Chili Peppers don't put it. They put it on album like once every four years, so those songs really like would get me through in between their album releases, and it was a consistent revenue stream for them. And that's really hard for I mean, I I also, ironically, I read Anthony Kiedis, his book Scar Tissue, and that was, you know, and that was another avenue that he had explored that led more revenue to them. And in that book, he actually talks about due to their family life.

It was really, really hard for them to tour. And so it was things like releasing those singles that helped them maintain funding throughout seasons where they would go without touring. Flea had two small Children, so as a father he needed to be at home a lot of the time. And so I can't remember what decade it was. But they made the decision to Onley tour. I think it was three days out of the week, but the biggest issue that they ran into that with that was You can't hire a crew for three out of seven days on a tour, and so they had to figure out a way to adapt.

And this is, you know, this is a band. You think Wow, these guys were making millions. This is this is a band who was huge back in the eighties, you know, They were touring with Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, you know, they were taking those bands on tour, you know, they were the headlining act, and this is a band two, at the height of the beauty of the music industry, ended up having to adapt, having to release singles in order to recoup some of their losses. They did this by knowing their audience.

They knew that they had a loyal audience. They knew that they had people all over the globe who loved their music, who were invested in their lives, invested in their stories. And so they said. You know what? We have all this extra music that we've written, Let's release it and they did, and that was able to propel them for even more years. It all started with the audience. It all started with their interaction. They have fan groups. They have every social media platform. They had ways. They had street teams.

Street teams were really, really popular thing. They're still used somewhat, but not compared to the scale that they were. Now we have digital teams. Before us, three team would go out and you'd be coming into town and they plaster you with you know, you'd send them 100 posters. You paid for 100 posters to be made and they'd go out and they'd hand out the posters. They'd go out and they'd spread the word. And that's what made the tight knit music scene of the eighties so awesome. Now the power and knowing your audience is really e mean.

That's everything. If you have an audience, then it's your job to engage with them and figure out what they need. I know for any of our past listeners you've heard James and I talk about numerous times being a go giver. Focus on how you can make other people's lives better, and in the process you're gonna make your life better. I'll go back to my Chili Peppers example. Ah, lot of their music is actually written about other people that they met in their lives. A lot of their songs were about individuals who they came in contact with that were, ah, blessing to them, and so they would write songs about them.

And then people were like, Oh, my goodness, you wrote this song about me. You know, they would responsible. Yeah, you know, you mean a lot to me and that was like, this awesome. It was no longer an audience setting. It was no longer like these people are coming to listen to me it. Waas These people are a part of what I'm a part of. I really feel like they took the best example of engaging to your fans and because instead of just saying, Hey, fans, what do you dio you know, How can I make this?

You know more about you. They just started writing songs about their fans and the people that inspired them, and in the process that caused the people who they inspired to continue to push their music to heights and distances that you know a lot of musicians will never see in their career. Man, I love how you're talking about how they interacted with their audience and how they grew their audience. But of course, they're already a well established band. How could a NA artist who doesn't have an audience yet figure out who their audience actually should be?

Oh, of course, great question with knowing your target audience. This is one of like the biggest struggles just in business in general. Your target audience is going to change with every new song that you release your going to gain new fans and you're going thio alienate some of the ones that you had. You know, everybody has an expectation about what their favorite pander their favorite project should sound like. If you don't believe me, go back and look at any of the comments on any. Bring me the Horizon Song Post 2000 and nine.

Any time after they made their shift away from Death Corps, they alienated their old fan base. If you look at the size of their fan base now it's 50 times larger. It's up to you to pick and choose what's gonna be more important to you. But I like bring me the horizon because they made a very slow, gradual change into the radio rock sound that they have today. And they tried very, very carefully to not alienate their fan base for a smaller band and bring me the Horizon was not a big band of the beginning.

Most death core bands do not achieve these, you know, super huge heights. And so they has a band actually had to slowly but surely, with each album start incorporating Mawr songs that appealed to a larger audience that was a faras. Their products were concerned, but the other things that were really key in order to making those shifts or how they engage with their fans. This is one of the most important things that you can do in music and that is opening a dialogue with your fans. If you talk to your fans, I promise you they will talk back.

Your fans love your music. They believe in your product and honestly, if they are passionate about music the same way that you are passionate about music, there's a good chance that you have created a moment in their lives that they cling Thio that they really find important and so continue on that build on that relationship. People in their mind they already have a relationship with you. It's the relationship that they've built, and so it's your job to nurture that relationship. The way that you do that is with dialogue and you don't open a dialogue about what's important to you.

You open a dialogue about what's important to them. This can take form in a whole bunch of different ways. This could be like on Facebook stories on instagram stories. I'm sure everyone has seen the little polls that you can do or surveys where people ask questions or where people say, Explain this to me, or what do you guys think about that? It generally is, you know, associated with a picture that has something to do with it. So there's this touch of visual marketing and there is well, so it's like they have, You know, they create a presupposition in your mind with this image, and then they ask you a question on it.

There's two ways that you can go from here. You can ask stuff that is relate able to people's lives. You can ask people's opinions on current events. There's so much going on in the world right now. It doesn't mean that you have to take a strong stance on it one way or the other. But it does mean that if you create a place for people to discuss that, people will come there to discuss. If you build it, they will come. It's an old saying from a movie, and it's true if you build a place for people to come and discuss and where people can leave that platform feeling respected, edified and really like you've created another moment that is really where you're gonna develop these lifelong relationships.

This is where you're gonna build these true fans, this intimate level of connection. It's all about transparency. It's all about vulnerability. We actually have one of our coaching clients who will remain nameless because I haven't talked to them. If it's okay, we'll talk about them. But I encouraged them to be very transparent about some of the emotional struggles that they've had to go through with their life. This person wanted that to be a heavy part of their branding, and so this is really what we focused on.

And then within three days after we talked about this, that person had sent me a link to suppress that they had already received. It all circulated around the transparency of the artist. Now this artist had gone through some incredibly tough things in their life. So has your audience, and that's where your relatability iss. Nobody goes to your band's favorite page to be broken down. You know, we don't want to go and read this terrible, sad story. There's enough sad news in the world already. It's the hope the hope is what people want, because that's what everybody is looking for.

We're all looking for hope. In some ways you perform hope that your business will succeed. Hope that your music will be heard. Hope that you'll change even just one person's life. Hope that you'll be able to play music for your entire life and your bills are paid. Our lives are constantly filled with these hopes, and so you. As an artist, it's your job to satisfy the hopes of your audience. And in doing that, they will satisfy your hopes is well. So how you interact with your audience is really going to be up to you.

It's going to be about the specific struggles in your life. It's going to be catered to your branding for me. I have no problem talking about this. I have had Ah lot of suicide in my life. A lot of my friends have killed themselves from when I was younger and not just me, my band mates as well. My band mates have had friends that have killed themselves. We have all lost someone that has been integral in our life, that we never you know, that we could never imagine losing.

Now I could talk about this here and then never talk about it again, and that's not gonna help me. It's not gonna help my fan base. It's not gonna help anybody, really. It's just a talking point, and maybe people will relate to it. But unless I have that dialogue with the other people who are experiencing those things, it's not beneficial for anybody. So you engage your audience, your transparent, and you could do this Anyway. I'm sure anybody that's been on the Instagram world for a while remembers a few years ago when there was when suicide prevention was becoming, Um, or for lack of a better term, trendy thing.

And a lot of artists in the industry posted on their instagram a picture of them holding a sign that said, Suicide doesn't end the pain. It just eliminates the hope for things getting better. Or that's a paraphrase And it was a whole bunch of them. It was the industry taking a stand against suicide and really trying to actively push into the lives of hurting kids and that visual marketing ended up going everywhere. It created a platform for people to come on and say, like, this is how I struggle, you know, and for us with suicide being so close.

We launched a whole campaign. When it came to suicide, we wrote a song about suicide. We made a five piece documentary where each one of us talked about things that were incredibly, you know, tough in our lives. And then on top of that, we encouraged our fans to come out and share their stories. We encouraged them to be vulnerable. So not just that. We could be edified and they could be edified, but also so that they could turn and help somebody else. So, like, that was our goal.

Now for you. It might look totally different for you. You know, you might be trying to reach people with humor. Totally awesome. You can absolutely do that. Humor is the most activating emotion. It's right up there with fear. Everybody in the world sees something scary and then instantaneously. You're like This is terrifying. We've seen this month over month over month, throughout everything with coronavirus, things that are funny, those of the other things that go far. So that's why there is the most controversy around things that air fearful and around what should be and shouldn't be funny.

Those two emotions kind of like walk hand in hand. Let's say somebody puts out something that they think it's funny. Like Daniel Tosh, for example. Daniel Tosh has always been very, very racy and very on the edge, and a lot of people have hated him for that. But the people that hate him constantly talk about how much they hate him, and the people that love him constantly watch him. It's that no press is bad press. He's created such unengaged audience that he's being engaged with by either the negative side of his audience or the positive side of his audience.

And it was all about the engagement. It wasn't even about whether or not these people are gonna buy his products and services, and on top of that, all of his stuff is streamed. So in order for people to even know if they like his jokes or not, they have to listen to his stream, which makes him money. So even in their distaste there supporting him. So there's a lot of different ways that you can really reach out, and it's all about transparency. It's all about engaging them directly, talking about things that are important.

You can use current events to do it. You can use humor. You can use poles. The point is, is you want to bring them into your circle. Your customer is the most important part of your business, so make them a part of your business. So when it comes to all these strategies that you can use to connect with people and grow your audience and, you know, keep them engaged on your own page, how can you get that audience in the first place? You know, obviously, if you build it, they will come.

But where do they come from? How can you spread the word to your potential audience that there is a place for them to be part of the community? Absolutely well, And I would say is you need to go to the places that the people already are. You're not the first person creating a safe haven for people. You're not the first person creating a humor group for people. You're not the first person creating moments for people. And so stand on the shoulders of giants. Do what you're supposed to dio.

You go to a place where that avenue is already happening. Hashtag for those of you who don't know what a hashtag is, every time you create a hashtag, it's a place where you go to search for stuff. Anybody that's ever posted a picture with the hashtag breaking Benjamin, you could go look up hashtag breaking Benjamin and you will see every picture that's ever been posted by anybody with that hashtag What about Hashtags? Like for us suicide hashtag suicide? What about hashtag? You know depression? What about hashtag Warped tour?

What about hashtag music? What about hashtag? Bring me the horizon. Hashtag this hashtag that it doesn't matter. Find out the bands you sound like Go look at their hashtags. You have to try to be objective. What I would honestly say. The best way to do is is to send your music to other people and have them tell you who you sound like and then try to market to the fans of those bands. If they say I sound like breaking Benjamin, I'm gonna go look up hashtag breaking Benjamin and I'm gonna try to reach out to the kids on breaking Benjamin's page.

You can use direct marketing campaigns through pretty much any one of your platforms. But there are places everywhere. There's Facebook groups. If you're curious about music sharing groups, just look at them. If you get online and you start Googling avenues to share your music, they're everywhere. There's Facebook groups. There's Twitter groups. There's instagram groups. There's APS that you've never heard of that air, literally just out there for people to have conversations and discussions. There are forums. There's Reddit pages. It's such an abundant place for you toe like dive in that, really, there's no wrong place for you to start.

The trick is you have to start with a dialogue. And so, you know, maybe it's these kids like if you go to breaking Benjamin's page and you read comments on their photos, these air kids who are actively engaging artists that they love you already know that these kids are like, er, czar commenters are sharers market to them. You can actually see if you go on Facebook posts. You can see the people that share posts. You can see the people that like posts. You can see the people that comment and you can reach out to them directly if you want.

I've seen a lot of really awesome marketing strategies from YouTubers that do. This exact thing is that they get on other social influencers pages and try to get fans over there. And then, ironically, when a lot of those guys start to like every once in a while, you'll have people butt heads like I can't remember who it was. Maybe this dude perfect and beauty pie. I think the two of them were competing for who had the most either subscribers or the most views I can't remember. But what was amazing is that these guys were literally stimulating both of their audiences by creating this competition between them, and it wasn't even really a material competition.

Three Only thing that really happened was dude Perfect and peut Pipe. Both made a bunch of money, and that was really cool. But the reason that their fan base shared it is because beauty pie made videos for his fans. He would ask his people what they wanted to see, and he would make it, and then he would continue to make Absolutely no, he wouldn't sacrifice his brand, but he definitely was focused on producing content that was unique for his audience that engaged his audience and that state consistent with his branding.

So how to find a place? If you're playing shows, then you should be talking to everybody that comes to your shows. Your merch table is also a huge place to start. If people walk up to your merch table, they're invested in your project. So that's the type of person. Get to know them. Ask them about their life. There's all sorts of different things that you could do. We actually we have a fan. A in Portland who last time we were there, it was his birthday and he plays drums.

And so he played drums on his favorite of our songs. That's awesome. It was incredible. It was special for us. It was cool because this kid, obviously our music meant enough to him that he was going to ask. It's okay, it's my birthday. Do you mind if I play this song? And you know what? He got up there and he killed it. And not only did he kill it, but everybody in that venue thought it was the coolest thing on the planet, including us. It wasn't just like, Oh, this is special for you. guys.

It wasn't this like, Oh yes, we're the musicians and were gracing our fan with this opportunity to play for us. It's like No, and none of that prideful, arrogant garbage throw that all away. Your fan base is amazing. Take one out of Kevin Smith's book. Okay, if you don't know who Kevin Smith is, Google him because Key has had one of the most loyal fan base is his entire life, and he has cared so much about his fan base that when he started to receive a lot of backlash for some of the stuff that he had been doing, he actually contemplated quitting the art industry altogether because of how much his fans opinions mattered to him.

And actually, in an interview, he said that his daughter and her passion for art is actually what revitalized his passion for art because he was so afraid off putting out art that his fan base didn't love and respect, or that they didn't benefit from. And then it was really his daughter, who her passion for art revitalized his passion for art. And that's incredible because Kevin Smith has probably inspired tens of thousands of people artistically and to who knows to what degree art is very, very powerful, and it can speak leaps and bounds to people if it's harnessed correctly and so you can use Hashtags, the more posts that you make with hashtags, when people start to search, they're gonna find.

So if you're anti suicide and you start posting stuff regularly about anti suicide with proper hashtags with suicide support, you know, with hotline numbers, things like that people are gonna start getting the message and you're gonna start finding people for us. We actually found a few. There was heart support, which is an incredible company, that we ended up pairing with that. We did some interviews with them for some of their anti suicide stuff. We launched a T shirt with them and we did. Our whole marketing campaign was our hashtag was the fight we were talking about the fight that everybody has to endure and the fight is always different for everybody.

And then when we encourage people to share their stories, they shared it with that same hashtag and then heart support paid for a shirt to be made that had that hashtag and people were able to purchase the single ahead of time and they could get it in a bundle with there and with a limited edition heart support shirt that had the hashtag the fight on it. And this was to encourage people to come out and share their struggles and create moments for other people. It was encouraging them to create their own audience so that they could in turn inspire other people.

For me, I would firmly say that as an extrovert, I love talking to people. I love talking in general. That's why I do podcast with James. But it's how you have that dialogue. It's when you see that person in the corner of the room that's not having a good time. It's having the strength toe walk up and talk to them. It's having the confidence to share your hard stories, to say, You know what? My friends have killed themselves. You know what, like I've struggled with drug addiction, you know, I've struggled with X Y Z P. D. Q. Whatever.

There's a million different things that you can relate thio. But even in the act of sharing in the active, including people in your circle, your fortifying all of you and you're creating Bonds that will last a lifetime. Well, Matt, I think that's a Mike drop moment right there. But I'm gonna ask you to pick that mike right back up just for the artist to have no audience. Or, let's say, you know, under 50 or under 100 followers, or they have an audience, but that's not engaged. Can you give us like a quick, step by step summary of what artists could do to grow a healthy and engaged audience?

Absolutely. The first thing is going to be having a product. Write a song, you record it. It's very, very important. If you don't have a product, then you don't have a business because musicians have two things. We have products, and we have services. Right now, nobody is really playing live shows, so it's got to be about a product, which can be difficult. If you don't have a product, work, work, work. Get your money up, build your funds, get a good quality track written and start with that.

The thing is, you're going to start building your fan base by putting yourself out there. You need to go to each one of your social platforms. Search hashtags. They'll have a search bar search hashtags go start engaging with audiences, become active in your digital community. So let's say, for example, musicians post on like Twitter all the time. If you have a favorite musician that you follow, get on there and actively respond to their tweets, become an active member in their community as well. Networking is the whole game.

So the more you become an active member in their communities them or you'll be able to draw fans from their community as well. So again, searching those hashtags trying to figure out what artist you sound like is integral. You need to know your target audience, and your target audience is really going to be, You know, if I like Slip Knot and I play folk music or pop music like I'm not going to be appealing to that part of the audience. I'm not going to be appealing to the part of me that says, I like Slip knot.

I'm not appealing to slip, not fans. I'm appealing to, you know, folk fans or pop fans or whatever. My genre of music, Yes, And then on top of that If you're a folk artist, give your music to people who like folk. Don't be afraid, especially at an early stage. If you hear somebody that says that they like an artist, that you think you have a similar sound and you're really starting off at ground level, give your music away at the very, very, very bottom. You know, if you have no fan base whatsoever, chances are those 1st 100 fans that you have or like your mom, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, family members and the friends, the fans. Exactly.

They're the people who love you unconditionally, but they're probably not the people who are going to buy every one of your T shirts. They're going to support you as long as it takes to get you to where your self sustaining if they really believe in your product. So those people give you music away, Thio you know, especially if you only have like a single or two. And honestly, the people that really support you, they're going to try to give you their money anyway. And so, at an early stage, think of it as an operating cost.

You're not at the point where you're going to start making your money back. Yet you have to think of that as a marketing investment in hopes that they're going to then take that and go somewhere else. The hard thing about putting a specific formula with this is that with marketing, things were different. If you're a young artist and you've released a cool song and you're popular and you're you're you're still in high school in your popular give it to the other popular kids. If you're out of high school, try to meet Cem popular high school kids and give it to them.

Trends start in school. It's because kids air, you know, sitting there for 12 hours or eight hours a day with nothing to dio and so things like fidget. Spinners get popular, and I don't even know what the latest one is right now. But there's always something new, you know. These things always come in and out For all those nineties kids, it was fogs and baseball cards and things like that. Nowadays you wouldn't find any of that. But everybody in school still knew the kids that had, like, the coolest fogs and things like that.

It was that was the trendiness. So the marketing aspect of it is really gonna depend on where you are. Don't be afraid. Like if you work in a restaurant, don't be afraid to ask your co workers. These are going to be the people that push you to places you need to go and so hashtag stuff. So search hashtags. So go to music forums. Be ready for criticism. Be ready for people to tear you apart. I have literally had random people on the Internet give my music a percentage and letter grade, and it's funny because then my fans have gotten on there and Tauran them apart.

But that's just kind of goes back earlier to what I was talking about, where you create a place for people to discuss. You leave your opinions on the side, but if you give people something to talk about, they'll talk about it. If you build it, they will come use those surveys, get on Instagram and start adding people. If you go to breaking Benjamin's fan base, just go start adding those people and then start sending out messages. Unfortunately, direct marketing is the best way for you to get off the ground, and direct marketing is kind of hard because it requires you to be vulnerable for those introverts.

It requires you to talk to people for those extroverts. It requires you to talk to people digitally. There's a different struggle for everybody, and it's gonna be all about finding the correct avenue for you to push your music. If you play folk, don't post it on breaking Benjamin's page. Go to Fleet Foxes Page and go reach out to their fans. If you think you sound like Slip, not go to slip knots Page, find their fans. Reach out to them. If you think you sound like Death Cab for Cutie, you get my point.

Go to where your fans are going to be. If you know that folk artists play coffee shops, go to coffee shops. Another really good one that I've that I've seen is people following club tours. You know, for us a big way. We got off the ground was following warp tour. There's there's this target. There's an audience of 10,000 kids per day standing in line, and so we went around playing our music and selling CDs. We made 20,000 fans in the summer, and that really helped us get off the ground, and it was because there was already a target audience and we decided to capitalize on.

So figure out what your target audiences then figure out how you are going to interact with them. It always starts with dialogue, but just make sure whatever that dialogue is, try to hone it, try to figure out what it is that people like to talk about. Then once you have that audience, engage them with open ended questions. Polls with humor create a platform for them to talk to each other for them to discuss. And then you just kind of stand on the outside and spectate. The larger form that you create for people with larger your fan base is gonna be.

And the thing is, when your fans disagree with each other, that does not affect you. That's why creating a place for them where they can feel safe to come and discuss and where they're where they're willing to come and do it is incredibly power that does it for another episode of the Bandhive podcast. Huge Welcome back to Matt and of course, thank you to everyone who listens to the podcast every single week. I hope you're learning quite a bit from Matt Aaron and myself. Those of you who were listening closely might have heard Matt mention one of his coaching clients.

If you're interested in becoming a coaching client of any of the hosts of the band, I've podcast just head on over to band. I've dot rocks slash coaching and you can apply for coaching. And you can either choose one of us or you can let us figure out who will be the best fit for you. So again, that's band. I've got rocks, slash coaching, and we look forward to finding out more about you and helping you and navigate the music business and your career. Thank you again for listening.

We'll be back with another episode next Tuesday at 6 a.m. Eastern time. We hope you have an awesome week. And, of course, as always, keep rocking