Photo by Peter Andersson
A few weeks ago, we posted an article on three things all artists should know about their fans in order to make informed decisions about marketing their music. Think about it like this: your band is your brand, right? And all successful brands do some sort of marketing research, whether it's an in-depth survey or something as small as checking out where your sales or followers are located via Facebook Insights.
You must consistently be on top of what your fans are into, what they want, and how to reach them. While we've already discussed why you need to know certain aspects of your fans' habits, this article will give you the tools and tricks to learn more about these habits so you can plan your next career move in an informed way.
1. Facebook Insights
What you can uncover about fans: Best posting times, content your fans interact most with, benchmarking, demographics
How to do it: Facebook's Insights Manager is a very user-friendly way to obtain analytics for your page. Simply go to the "Insights" tab in the top navigation bar on your fan page, and you'll be met with various options: overview, likes, people, reach, and more. The overview is just what it says: an overview of your entire account, including likes, reach, and engagement. You can also see in-depth aspects of your account. For example, "likes" shows the rate of your likes dropping and growing, "people" shows you where those who like your page are from, and "reach" shows which posts have gotten the most views and reached the most people.
How to use it: One of the most crucial aspects of all social media is posting times. One way to integrate Facebook Insights into your social media routine is by switching up your posting times every two weeks or so and seeing when you get the most engagement.
[Find out exactly what and when to post on social media!]
Another solid way to utilize Facebook Insights is by viewing the "people" tab. There, you can see where your fans are located, which is great for geo-targeting posts and for tour marketing. Most of all, this is just an overall great tool for checking up on your work and using it as a benchmark to make further improvements. See how your reach is, see what types of posts got the most reach, and tweak as you deem fit.
2. Google Analytics
What you can uncover about fans: Most visited pages on your website, where your fans are visiting your website from, how often they're checking out certain web pages, and so much more
How to do it: Before you begin gathering data, you'll first have to sign up for an account, embed a bit of code into your wesbite, and have your site approved by the team. (Learn exactly how to do that here.) Then, about 24 hours later, your site will begin generating statistics.
When you log into your main dashboard, "overview" will showcase everything you will need to know at a glance: page views, recurring visits, and your bounce rate, which is how often fans are going to a page and leaving or actually clicking on other links.
You can drill down even further. Try these shortcuts to get started:
- Audience > Overview > Demographics > Location to learn more about where your fans are visiting from
- Traffic Sources > Overview to see which search engines or social media pages your fans are visiting from
- Content > Overview to find out which pages fans are going to the most
How to use it: Let's say you have that merch page on your website and really want to make some sales. You may want to keep tabs on how often people are visiting and see which social media outlets seem to be working the best for pushing merch. Similarly, it's also great knowing where traffic is coming from, especially if you have a certain region you're trying to market. Overall, Google Analytics is just a great tool for keeping tabs on how your site is doing in nearly every metric possible.
3. Email analytics (MailChimp, MadMimi, etc.)
What you can uncover about fans: Each email newsletter program will have its own insights, but within each you should be able to learn how often fans are opening your newsletters, what they're clicking on, how many have unsubscribed, and how many new subscribers you have
How to do it: Depending on your platform, there will be an "insights," "analytics," or "campaign overview" tab. Here, you'll be able to see how many people have unsubscribed and subscribed that week, and how many reads your newsletters got. With each email you send, you'll be able to view a report that shows you important stats like your open rate and click rate.
[6 Ways to Persude People to Sign Up For Your Band's Email Newsletter]
How to use it: These tools are crucial for seeing how well your emails are performing. By checking out how many opens you have, or how many unsubscribes you have, you can dictate how well your content is performing and can make tweaks as necessary to keep your subscribers engaged.
4. Twitter Analytics
What you can uncover about fans: How many impressions a tweet made overall, and how much engagement a tweet generated
How to do it: Luckily, the platform is very simple and provides straightforward info that can be used quite well. When looking at a tweet you posted, you'll see there's a box at the bottom with four lines (depicting a bar graph).
Click that, and you'll get an overview of how your tweet performed. By clicking "more details," you'll get all the engagement insight that you need, including impressions, favorites, retweets, replies, mentions, and more.
How to use it: This is simply a good way to monitor your tweets, see how far their impressions went, and check which ones were most popular. That way, you know what content your fans like the best and which marketing tactics worked for which kinds of posts (i.e., did posting your album cover generate more impressions than posting your single's video?).
What analytics tools do you swear by? Let us know in the comments!
As a music marketing strategist, Tyler Allen works with an extensive array of artists, labels, music tech, and music retail entities. Tyler began his music industry career with Sony Music Entertainment and RED Distribution, as well as the advertising industry. He is dedicated to giving veteran artists the tools to preserve their legacy, and new artists the tools to begin theirs (as well as everything in between). Learn more at wtylerconsulting.com. He also offers strategy and artist packages for DIY and indie artists on a budget, here.
