by Dave House (@DaveHouseOutlaw)
Fans
Fans are the ones who will buy your first album because the next person did. Fans look at their favorite Hip Hop Website to see how much a rapper sold and compare it to how much Taylor Swift sold. Fans want to see you on television. Fans want to see you do features with established artist to see how well you are received amongst your peers. Fans need to know that you are in the right place at the right time taking pictures for an additional co sign. Fans have attention span of at least two albums depending on the gap in time between Album 1 and Album 2. Fans don’t care about the quality of your work. Fans are only concerned about the quality that was sold. Fans say things like “I didn’t know the album was dropping”, expecting something to be dropped off on their doorstep about your album awareness. Fans only see what’s right in front of them, not what’s around them.
Loyalists
Loyalists are the ones who will buy all of your albums just because you are releasing one. Loyalists have no desire to read a Hip Hop website to analyze sales they only desire to read a website to see the artists tour marketing schedule so they can buy a ticket to see the show. Loyalist will follow their favorite artist and purchase the album of another artist if their favorite artist is featured on that album. Loyalists would love to see their favorite artist take pictures and collaborate with peers, but would rather a solo shot of their favorite artist or group so they can hang that picture on their wall or save their image as a screen saver. Loyalists just demand quality work and if the artist drop an album like Nastradamus, the loyalist will pick and choose their favorite record and wait patiently for Stillmatic. Loyalists know when an album is dropping because they will subscribe to fan page, websites, twitter, of facebook like pages. Loyalists will see what’s around them, and try not to get too caught up with whats right in front of them for example, if the loyalist’s favorite artist had a single on the radio, the loyalist would have named three other choices to play on radio or would hope that one of their choices become a single so they can hear it on radio.
So what you in this business for, to gain fans? or to gain loyalists?
Salute to the Loyal fans who supported Bad Meets Evil making it #1 on the FANS Soundscan chart. Sometimes it takes the #1 artist to do him & not worry about what’s popular.
Dave House is the founder of WHOOOOSHOUSE WORLDWIDE, LLC. With over 50 Million Records sold/Over 100 Million Spins detected during his career Dave has established himself as a voice in the music industry that you can trust. Follow him at @DaveHouseOutlaw on TWITTER for your WEEKLY MEDIABASE MONDAY REPORT EVERY MONDAY @ 12PM EST/ 9AM PST & MEDIABASE MONDAY RECAP @ 6PM EST/3PM PST
