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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

FOMO works and that’s a problem

Limited merch drops. Exclusive access. Countdown timers. The music industry has enthusiastically and successfully adopted Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) as a marketing tactic. And it works. But what actually happens to the fan on the other side of that tactic?

Why it matters

I find it highly questionable whether FOMO tactics are ethical. I’ve written about this before: the pressure artists are under to manufacture urgency, and the way that pressure gets passed directly onto their fans.

Japutra et al (2025) published research that provides a framework for that discomfort. They surveyed 511 consumers in the fashion industry and examined how FOMO shapes how people relate to brands they love.

Their conclusion is more nuanced than the idea that FOMO is simply good or bad. FOMO excites fans, but under certain conditions, it can push them towards a kind of passion that harms them.

How it works

The researchers build on dual passion theory, which explains that there are two fundamentally different ways to feel passionate about something.

• Harmonious passion means you love something because it genuinely fits who you are. You buy the record because the music means something to you. You go to the show because you actually want to be there. Your enthusiasm is yours.

• Obsessive passion means your engagement is driven by pressure, like social comparison, fear of exclusion, or the need to prove something to yourself or others. You buy the merch because everyone else seems to have it. You feel anxious when you can’t attend. Your relationship with the brand isn’t entirely your own anymore.

Japutra et al (2025) found that FOMO activates both types of passion. Interestingly, it predicted harmonious passion more strongly than obsessive passion. So, FOMO isn’t simply destructive: Fans who feel that pull can channel it into genuine enthusiasm for an artist they already love.

But obsessive passion is the pathway to compulsive buying: debt, stockpiling products that never get opened, and purchases people later regret. FOMO feeds this.

One more finding worth noting: consumers aged 35 and older were more vulnerable to obsessive passion under high FOMO conditions than younger groups. The assumption that FOMO mainly affects impulsive younger fans isn’t accurate.

Yes, but..

This research was conducted in fashion, not music. Fashion is a product category where social visibility is partly the point, similar to customer-based brand equity mechanisms: What you wear signals who you are.

On the other hand, there is also significant overlap between music and fashion when social media is taken into account, and social visibility comes into play again. Take stories of fans at concerts or festivals as examples. Where you are signals who you are.

Take action now

Artists can review their most recent campaign promoting a tour, concert, or club night. Ask one question: What emotion does this primarily trigger? Is the framing built around what fans gain, or around what they’ll miss if they don’t act fast?

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Hoe merken onbewust dwangmatig koopgedrag aanwakkeren (SWOCC)

• Japutra, A., Gordon-Wilson, S., Ekinci, Y., & Adam, E.D. (2025). The dark side of brands: Exploring fear of missing out, obsessive brand passion, and compulsive buying. Journal of Business Research, 186

• The psychology of scarcity (The Fanbase Builder)

• How artists contribute to social media addictions (The Fanbase Builder)

• Artists fuel social media addictions (The Fanbase Builder)

• Why strong artist brands matter to fans, not just artists (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Fans turn waiting into its own event

Nobody likes to wait, but fans are surprisingly good at it.

Why it matters

Artists spend a lot of energy on the release itself. Less thought goes into the space anticipating the release.

Many music campaigns focus on the concepts of anticipation and speculation. For example:

• Announcing an album and the campaign leading up to the release date.

• Announcing a tour, the campaign leading up to the on-sale date, and the time in between purchasing a ticket and the event itself.

• Rumours of major artists going on tour or releasing new music.

• Fans predicting festival lineups.

• Fan discussions about DJs playing 'IDs' at major shows.

For artists trying to build a lasting relationship with their audience, knowing how fans behave during a campaign’s build-up is as important as the campaign itself.

How it works

Fandom academic Owain Gwynne introduced the concept of fan-made time in his philosophy PhD thesis at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

For two years, Gwynne analysed discussions on a popular Lord of the Rings website prior to the release of the first film in the ‘Hobbit’ trilogy. The film’s production faced many obstacles, including lengthy delays, a union strike and the departure of the original director. According to Gwynne’s thesis, these events appeared to be as emotionally engaging for fans as they expect the films themselves to be.

The pre-release period is a block of time that fans create, shape, and possess themselves. During this time, fans engage in speculation, frustration, debate, and discussion. The wait between the present and the anticipated transforms into a separate event: a special experience that's enjoyed as much as the release itself.

In her book Fangirls: Scenes from Modern Music Culture, author Hannah Ewens applies this concept to fangirls queueing for many hours for concerts. She describes the queueing as a ‘block of time created by fans’. By queueing, the girls extend the experience of a concert.

The release doesn’t start the experience. The announcement does. Sometimes the rumour does.

Yes, but..

Fans create most of this themselves. The speculation, the anticipation, and the community energy often happens despite an artist’s marketing, not because of it.

So, if fans are perfectly capable of generating their own engagement around an artist, what is official marketing actually for? And is there a risk that too much managed communication; like scheduled posts and polished teasers; actually interrupts what fans were happily doing on their own?

Gwynne’s argument is that fan-made time should be treated separately from hype and marketing strategy. It’s not the same thing as a rollout. Conflating the two risks turning an organic fan experience into a managed one — and fans tend to notice.

Take action now

Artists could facilitate fan-made time to be enjoyed. Monitor fan accounts on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Discord, etc. Learn how to engage with them and send them some news once in a while.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Fan-made time: How fans enjoy waiting (The Fanbase Builder)

• Gwynne, O. (2017). Fan-made Time: Power and Play in the Production Paratext of The Hobbit (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy). University of Otago. [link]

• 'Fan-made time' - a study of Hobbit fans (Otago Post)

• Fangirls: Scenes from Modern Music Culture (book)

• Can superfan and community strategies coexist? (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Why artists can’t ignore vanity metrics

Music industry gatekeepers base their decisions on easily inflated data.

Why it matters

In marketing, the distinction between vanity metrics and actionable metrics is well established.

• Vanity metrics like followers, streams, and likes are easy to inflate, straightforward to polish, and reveal little about genuine audience behaviour.

• Actionable metrics, such as video watch time, save rates, or ticket sales, reflect real human behaviour showing intent.

Experienced marketers know this. The problem is that most music industry gatekeepers aren’t running the same analysis.

For example: A booking agent deciding whether to sign an emerging artist may look at Spotify monthly listeners. A label A&R might check Instagram follower counts. A festival promoter weighing a guarantee could look at streaming numbers.

None of these are deep engagement signals, but they are publicly visible, instantly available, and fast to interpret. In an industry where a decision-maker evaluates dozens of artists a week, vanity metrics become shorthand.

Hence, vanity metrics are a branding asset, and artists can’t dismiss them outright.

How it works

Vanity metrics are easy to manipulate. I am not recommending any of the following tactics as examples. However, understanding how they work is useful, both for protecting yourself from being impressed by inflated numbers and for understanding why organic growth signals are harder to fake.

• Streams (any platform): Land a placement on a passive-listening playlist: a concentration playlist, a sleep channel, a background music compilation. Listeners aren’t following the tracklist; they want ambient sound, not artists. The streams accumulate without building an audience.

• YouTube video views: Run a skippable pre-roll campaign on YouTube targeting Smart TVs. Millions of people use this channel as their main music source. Most viewers don’t actively skip; it’s too much hassle. They’re unlikely to search for the artist’s name or click through. The views-to-comments ratio tells the real story.

• Social media followers or likes: Run ads targeting the cheapest available markets. The follower count rises, but the engagement rate drops. Future organic reach won’t grow as much because algorithms don’t pay much attention to followers in the long run.

Each of these tactics inflates the number without building the fanbase. More importantly, experienced gatekeepers recognise the patterns.

Yes, but..

We can’t fully blame industry pros for relying on vanity metrics.

First, actionable metrics are private. They have to be requested from the artist, and who’s to say the numbers supplied haven’t been selectively presented? Vanity metrics are the only publicly verifiable data available.

Second, decision-makers are moving fast. What feels like a life-changing opportunity to one emerging artist is a routine call for the person on the other side of the table. Running a deep engagement analysis on every artist takes time nobody actually has.

Third, and this is the most encouraging part, the best decisions in music aren’t made on data. They’re made by ear. The most experienced gatekeepers trust their listening, the scene an artist belongs to, and a quality of appeal that doesn’t show up in any spreadsheet. Those qualitative signals are the most actionable metrics of all.

Vanity metrics get artists in the room, but what happens in the room depends on everything that data can’t measure.

Take action now

Artists can run a cold gatekeeper read on their own profile. Open a private browser window, search your artist name, and look at what a booking agent or A&R would see in the first thirty seconds. Ask what impression those numbers make before anyone has heard a single note.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Finding the metrics that matter (The Fanbase Builder)

• Artists shouldn’t rush releasing music to streaming platforms (The Fanbase Builder)

• Why artists shouldn’t skip steps (The Fanbase Builder)

• Artists should focus on only two metrics (The Fanbase Builder)

• How to leverage user intent (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

What if synthesisers only worked in the USA?

Technology with a foreign off switch isn’t really yours.

Why it matters

The US government issued an export control order requiring Anthropic to suspend all access to its latest Claude models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for anyone outside the United States.

I’m writing this on Sunday, June 14. What strikes me is how little coverage this has received in European media.

AI is proving itself as the defining technology of this era. That technology was switched off overnight for the entire non-American world.

At first sight, this might read like an edition that’s far removed from usual fandom-strategy-related topics. But look at it this way:

I’ve used synthesisers as an example before. It fundamentally changed what music could sound like, who could make it, and which ideas could reach an audience. Now imagine those instruments had only ever been available to American musicians, just because the US government decided so. That’s the direction we’re heading.

European creators already depend on US-hosted AI tools for writing, production, visual work, and planning. It’s valuable to start considering where those tools come from.

How it works

The problem the Anthropic suspension reveals is compute dependency. Europe currently controls around 5% of global AI compute. The United States controls roughly 80%.

Last week, European AI scientists published their initiative ‘Europe 2031‘, a five-year scenario about Europe’s impending slide into irrelevance. It’s a great read, and I highly recommend scrolling through the scenario or reading the summary.

Europe has misjudged AI’s speed, scale, and capacity to catch up. These are genuine trade-offs. Building sovereign AI compute at scale takes years and enormous capital. In the short term, reducing dependence on American frontier models means accepting tools that are currently less capable. In the long term, it might mean investing in sustainable data centres and reducing CO2 emissions in other sectors.

Yes, but..

Sovereign AI compute is not something an emerging artist can act on directly. It’s too simplistic to say “just use European AI like Mistral”. Artists should use a range of AI models to develop stronger AI intuition. So what I’m trying to do here is raise awareness of this problem, which was surprisingly overlooked in European mass media.

Take action now

Artists can start by mapping which AI tools they currently use and checking where those tools are built and hosted to understand what they depend on and what would replace them if access changed.

The Europe 2031 initiative is freely available and worth reading, particularly if you work in music or creative industries in Europe.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Europe 2031 (Europe 2031)

• Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 (Anthropic)

• Anthropic suspends new AI tools over US government security concerns (BBC)

• ‘Wake-up call’: Europe reacts to Anthropic halting access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models (Euronews)

• European sovereignty in AI requires ugly trade-offs, say experts (Science Business)

• Navigating AI beyond the hype in 2026 (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Create simple DAW tools for fans using AI

This is one edition in which many readers know more about the subject than I do.

Why it matters

Virtual merch is one of the most underused tools an artist brand has. I wrote about this when I built The Fan Bass Builder synth in four hours with AI coding tools. That was six months ago, which feels like decades in AI-innovation time.

My synth is just an online toy, a standalone website, disconnected from DAWs. Creating a VST plug-in or sample pack would be a logical form of virtual merch that creator-fans can actually work with, but they require effort to make.

For artists, it would be valuable to find a middle ground: creating simple tools for their fans that live inside the DAW where the music is made, tools pulled directly from the artist’s creative process.

How it works

While browsing YouTube, I stumbled upon Ableton’s Extensions SDK announcement video and the accompanying how-to tutorial.

Ableton Extensions are custom tools that don’t touch the sound, but can read and rewrite the data and structure around it: the raw material an artist brand could turn into something fans actually get to interact with.

Artists can build custom extensions using the SDK, a JavaScript and TypeScript toolkit built on Node.js.

Translation: AI coding tools such as Claude Code and OpenAI Codex eat this for breakfast.

Artists who can describe their idea to AI can build working custom tools for Ableton without any coding experience, and release them as virtual merch for their fans.

That’s exactly what I did when building my synth as a live example for artists to create virtual merch: describe what you want clearly enough, and a model like Claude Code or Gemini can build the rest.

When digging deeper, I found that Ableton isn’t the first DAW to open this kind of door. Bitwig has an open-source Controller Extension API with a community library of scripts on GitHub, and Logic has Pro’s Scripter. While Ableton’s SDK seems a bit more accessible, they’re not the only DAW that allows for creating AI-assisted customisation.

Yes, but..

I cannot test any of this myself. Unfortunately, I don’t produce music. While I have messed around with Ableton, I don’t understand it well enough to create extensions myself.

So I’d genuinely like to hand this one over. If you use Live and have joined the beta, or if you build something with the Extensions SDK in the months ahead, please share in the comments below what it actually feels like to work with, and what an AI coding assistant gets right or wrong when you ask it to help.

Take action now

Artists who use Ableton Live 12 Suite can join the Extensions SDK beta and try describing one small idea to an AI coding assistant. See what comes back, and how close it gets on the first try.

Your thoughts

Share your virtual merch, created with or without AI coding assistance, in the comments :)

Further reading

• Introducing Extensions SDK: An experimental playground inside Live (Ableton)

• I built a web-synth in four hours (The Fanbase Builder)

• Navigating AI beyond the hype in 2026 (The Fanbase Builder)

• How artists create brand worlds (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

How to build a community?

Nobody joins a community that hasn’t formed yet.

Why it matters

Artists are told to build their audience. Post consistently. Grow the numbers. However, audiences form around belonging, not output.

Earlier, I wrote about McMillan and Chavis (1986), who identified four conditions for a genuine sense of community:

• Membership: A feeling of belonging.

• Influence: Members matter to the group and vice versa.

• Integration of needs: The community delivers something of value.

• Shared emotional connection: History, common experiences, rituals.

Artists can’t manufacture all four conditions from scratch. But a working scene already has them.

Think of local music scenes, online communities, or creative collectives. These scenes have regulars, shared tastes, and trust built over time. Showing up in them means borrowing those conditions before you’ve built your own.

How it works

I think there are four recognisable phases in building a community:

Phase 1: Join an existing scene.

Find a community close to what you’re making. Not the most aspirational one, but the one you can actually show up for next week. Local venues, online forums, genre-specific communities, group chats with five other artists working in similar territory. Show up with genuine interest. Go to their shows. Collaborate without an agenda.

Phase 2: Subgroups form on their own.

Smaller clusters emerge inside any active scene. They self-organise around shared interests and repeated contact.

Phase 3: When the scene grows, you grow.

A scene that produces compelling work attracts attention, secures bookings, and draws audiences. Your growth becomes tied to the scene’s trajectory. Because you’ve built specific relationships within the scene, you’re a node rather than just a member.

Phase 4: You become a community.

At some point, the subgroup that formed around your work develops its own gravity. People are showing up specifically for you. The dynamic repeats: within your community, subgroups form. Fans who also make music. People who met through your work and now know each other. Artists you’ve started to support because you have the reach to do so.

Yes, but..

This takes longer than most artists expect, and sometimes growth doesn’t happen at all. You earn a place in a scene on the scene’s timeline, not your own.

Take action now

Artists can start by mapping the scene they’re actually closest to. Ask yourself: Where do I already belong, and how do I show up there more consistently?

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Creating a strong sense of community (The Fanbase Builder)

• McMillan, D. W., & Chavis, D. M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 6–23. (full-text: pdf | online)

• Artists can create momentum by making things happen (The Fanbase Builder)

• Why fans wear band shirts like football jerseys (The Fanbase Builder)

• How artists can find their niche (The Fanbase Builder)

• The Guanxi approach to networking in music (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned.

The PESO model is one of the first things every artist should understand about marketing.

Why it matters

Most emerging artists discover marketing through social media. It’s visible, creative, free to start, and everyone around them is doing it. It’s absolutely not a bad choice. The problem is that it’s often the only choice.

How it works

The PESO model (Dietrich, 2014) divides marketing channels into four types: Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned.

It’s a classical framework in communications strategy, and arguably one of the first things worth understanding when you start thinking seriously about how to reach people.

• Paid: Reach you pay for. Ads on Meta, TikTok, or YouTube. Sponsored content. Paid placements. You control the message and targeting, but you’re renting attention rather than building it.

• Earned: Reach that others give you because your work is worth it. Press coverage, playlist features, blog reviews, podcast appearances, word of mouth. A gatekeeper amplifies you, spilling-over credibility precisely because you didn’t pay for it.

• Shared: Content distributed across social platforms via community sharing and user-generated content. High visibility and relatively low direct cost, but you don’t own the platform, and reach is algorithmic.

• Owned: Channels you control completely. Your website, your newsletter. No algorithm decides who sees it. The audience you build here belongs to you.

Most emerging artists are:

• Heavily invested in Shared.

• Lightly invested in Owned.

• Occasionally active in Earned.

• Too early in Paid.

The model makes it clear what you’re already doing and what you haven’t looked at yet. From there, the question becomes straightforward: which channels fit your brand, your career stage, and your available time, energy, and money?

• An artist with a strong visual identity and a compelling story might find Earned media a better investment than paid advertising.

• An artist who is still developing their sound might prioritise Owned first: build a newsletter, develop a website, and create a direct line to their audience before worrying about social volume.

• An artist with an already-engaged community might find that a small investment in Paid amplifies what’s already working, rather than buying cold attention.

Yes, but..

PESO was originally designed as a PR framework for communications professionals, not for solo artists managing their own marketing with limited resources. Some channels, particularly Earned, require established relationships, market value, and strong press materials before they are accessible. An artist without industry contacts or a track record will find it difficult to secure meaningful editorial coverage, regardless of how strong the music is.

Take action now

Write down every marketing activity from the past three months and place each in a quadrant: Paid, Earned, Shared, or Owned. Where is most of the time and money going? Which quadrants are empty?

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Paid, earned, shared, and owned media: fully operational, fully integrated (Spin Sucks)

• Dietrich, G. (2014). Spin Sucks: Communication and Reputation Management in the Digital Age. Que Publishing.

• The problem with newsletters (The Fanbase Builder)

• Why artists should select their platforms with care (The Fanbase Builder)

• Don’t run ads: Better ways to spend a hundred euros (The Fanbase Builder)

• The anti-content strategy (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Music is a social accelerator

In a world optimised for individual experiences, the thing society needs most has the worst business model.

Why it matters

Festivals in the Netherlands (arguably the world’s strongest festival market) are struggling to sell out. Governments are pulling back on cultural investment. While AI companies attract billions in funding and streaming platforms grow their subscriber base quarter after quarter, the live music industry is left to explain why a ticket costs what it does.

Princeton economist William Baumol observed in the 1960s that certain sectors can never become as productive as manufacturing or software. He used a string quartet as his example: it takes four musicians forty minutes to perform a Schubert quartet. No technology can change that.

When wages rise across the economy, driven by productivity gains elsewhere, sectors like live music, theatre, and childcare must raise prices to stay afloat, even without the productivity gains to justify them. Baumol called this ‘cost disease’.

Author Alex Mayyasi recently argued that cost disease is one of the hidden drivers of social isolation. Their piece inspired me to reflect on this subject and apply it to music. They state that the economy has systematically rewarded what scales: digital entertainment, streaming, and AI.

• Netflix can add a million subscribers without hiring a single extra employee.

• A festival cannot add ten thousand attendees without proportionally more staff, infrastructure, and security.

The profit logic of scalable media favours individual, at-home experiences. The economics of communal experience remain structurally punishing.

This matters for artists because they are caught in the middle of this dynamic: producing something with irreducible human cost, in a market that increasingly funds what doesn’t need humans to scale.

How it works

The Pareto principle is evident throughout the music industry. A small number of blockbuster artists generate the majority of revenue. The vast majority of artists operate in an industry where income from music rights is negligible, live income is costly to produce, and government cultural investment is declining.

Earlier, I wrote about Durkheim’s concept of collective effervescence, the emotional energy that emerges when people gather in shared rituals like concerts and festivals.

A shared physical experience creates a sense of “we” that digital experiences, by design, struggle to replicate. It produces something beyond entertainment: identity, solidarity, and the felt sense of belonging to something larger than yourself.

Music does this more efficiently than most things. Fan communities form around artists and endure long after specific songs or albums. Shared taste fosters in-group identity. Festivals concentrate this social energy for tens of thousands of people over a single weekend. An investment in live music infrastructure is, on this reading, an investment in social cohesion.

The contrast with current funding priorities is stark. AI companies attract investment because their products scale infinitely. Streaming platforms grow because their marginal cost per user approaches zero. Governments fund what delivers measurable GDP returns. Music does neither in any obvious way. Its economic model is stubbornly labour-intensive, and its social returns are diffuse and long-term.

This is exactly the gap that music can address. Not by pretending to be more scalable than it is, but by making the case for what it uniquely offers: a social accelerator.

A technology for building shared identity, community, and belonging at a scale no streaming platform can replicate.

Yes, but..

The “arts need funding” argument has been made for decades without decisively shifting how governments allocate resources.

Government arts investment has a complicated history of favouring established institutions over emerging scenes and minority communities, which runs counter to what the social cohesion argument would support.

Take action now

Artists can make this argument themselves: When speaking to venues, local governments, grant bodies, or the press, they can frame what they do in terms of what it builds: communities, shared identity, and local belonging.

A sold-out show is not just a revenue figure. It is a room full of people who now have something in common. That is worth naming explicitly.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Why ‘Cost Disease’ Is the Secret Force Behind America’s Toxic Solitude (Alex Mayyasi at Derek Thompson)

• Baumol, W.J. & Bowen, W.G. (1966). Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma. A study of Problems common to Theater, Opera, Music and Dance.

• Durkheim, É. (1912). The elementary forms of religious life.

• Why your live show should be more than just your album played loud (The Fanbase Builder)

• Creating a strong sense of community (The Fanbase Builder)

• The limits of business logic in music (The Fanbase Builder)

• Why fans wear band shirts like football jerseys (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

The problem with newsletters

Newsletters only work when they earn their place in the inbox.

Why it matters

Right now, more than 400 newsletters and transactional emails are sitting in my inbox waiting to be read. They won’t be. There’s simply not enough time, and at some point, my brain stops trying altogether. That’s what got me thinking about this week’s topic.

Email is owned data. That advice is correct, and it’s why so many artists are told to start a newsletter.

The problem is that nobody talks about what happens on the other side of the inbox. Readers subscribe with good intentions, fall behind, and eventually stop opening anything. The inbox becomes a graveyard of unread editions.

Newsletter marketing is not only about “how do I grow my list?”, but also about “how do I earn someone’s attention?”

How it works

From a writer/publisher’s perspective, I see two broad approaches to newsletter publishing. Both can work if expectations are clear:

• Consistency (hub content) means showing up regularly. Readers know what to expect and when. It’s easy to skip a busy Tuesday, but that regular presence builds familiarity over time. Readers start to recognise the sender, even when they don’t open every edition.

• Go-big (hero content) means publishing less often but with greater ambition. When something lands, it surprises people. It tends to earn more opens precisely because it doesn’t arrive every week, and readers know it’s high quality.

Neither is wrong. The mistake is sending inconsistently without intention, which signals to readers that the newsletter isn’t a priority for the sender either.

Another important factor is the perceived value.

A newsletter that only promotes (stream this, buy that, click here) offers nothing. It only asks. If every edition is a summary of what the artist did elsewhere, there’s no reason to open it on a busy day. Readers quickly learn that nothing new is inside, and the open rate quietly dies.

The newsletters that survive inbox saturation are those that entertain, educate, share a perspective, or offer access readers can’t find anywhere else.

Yes, but..

All of this assumes there’s already an audience to write for. For most emerging artists, the hardest challenge is getting people to subscribe in the first place. A great newsletter with 50 readers is still 50 readers.

Take action now

Before the next edition goes out, ask: Does this give readers something they can’t get from my socials? If the answer is no, rethink the content.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Quality versus Quantity: Two content strategies for artists (The Fanbase Builder)

• What a perfect artist newsletter should look like (The Fanbase Builder)

• Focus on input, not output (The Fanbase Builder)

• How to use download codes on Bandcamp (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Take control of your narrative with the active voice

Small grammatical shifts create massive psychological changes.

Why it matters

I’ve read thousands of artist announcements in my career. The most common mistake: artists who erase the creator entirely in an attempt to sound official or professional.

When I read an artist write, “New music will be released on streaming services”, it feels as if someone else is in control. It implies that an invisible corporate machine did the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

That gives way too much credit to others and far too little to yourself. Your music doesn’t magically appear on streaming platforms, so stop writing as if it does.

Behind a line like “the album was finished,” there are months of work. You created it. You released it. Your fans want to hear from the leader who built the world they are stepping into, not a detached observer.

Passive language creates psychological distance and strips your announcements of their rightful power.

How it works

In grammatical terms, the active voice is used when the subject of a sentence performs the action. In the passive voice, the subject receives the action.

We create mental frameworks based on how information is delivered to us. When you favour the active voice, you reduce cognitive friction for the reader and immediately position yourself as the driver of your career.

Here is how this shift looks in practice:

• Passive: “The new single was released on Friday.”

  • Active: “I released my new single on Friday.”

• Passive: “A music video is being filmed for the track.”

  • Active: “We are filming a music video for the track.”

• Passive: “Tickets can be purchased via the link in bio.”

  • Active: “Buy your tickets via the link in my bio.”

• Passive: “The album was recorded in my bedroom.”

  • Active: “I recorded this album in my bedroom.”

• Passive: “A tour is currently being planned for next year.”

  • Active: “I am planning a tour for next year.”

You establish immediate ownership by simply changing the sentence structure. Taking direct responsibility for your art builds trust.

“I wrote this song” demands attention and respect, whereas “This song was written” allows the reader’s mind to wander from the creator.

Clear, direct language removes ambiguity and compels fans to connect with you.

Yes, but..

So, what if it’s a multi-artist project? Simple: use we.

It’s not about arrogance or authority. “We spent three months creating this record” is just as active and powerful as “I spent three months.” The critical mistake is to say, “The record was created over three months.” The latter sounds like an automated, impersonal process.

Take action now

Review your latest announcement about new music, shows, merch, etc. Rewrite passive-voice copy into the active voice and adjust your phrasing to reflect the reality of your hard work.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Captivating fans using the active voice (The Fanbase Builder)

• Active vs. Passive Voice (Grammarly)

• Passive Voice: When to Use It and When to Avoid It (University of Toronto)

• How to make your album announcement newsworthy (The Fanbase Builder)

• The limits of business logic in music (The Fanbase Builder)

• Crafting an artist’s brand personality (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Proof of humanity as a marketing metric

Artists who can’t prove they or their fans are real are in trouble.

Why it matters

Rapid AI developments are flooding streaming platforms with new music, and fraudulent use of that technology is surging alongside it.

Deezer reports detecting 75,000 AI-generated tracks uploaded to its platform per day, while Spotify earlier removed over 75 million spammy tracks.

It’s a volume problem for established artists, and a discovery problem for emerging artists.

To be clear, the issue isn’t artists using AI creatively. It’s the spammy, fraudulent use of AI to game royalty systems: impersonating artists, churning out sped-up or slowed-down tracks, and diverting royalties to fraudsters.

DSPs are responding fast. Their discovery algorithms are tightening to prioritise quality and relevance.

New detection systems analyse listener behaviour to distinguish “real” music from spam. Tracks without behavioural signals, such as active streams (plays from search), saves, shares, or repeat listens, are flagged as suspicious.

The next step could be a distribution model where music is pre-evaluated before upload, and not every track automatically makes it onto a platform.

How it works

So, what does this mean in practice for artists?

DSPs are moving away from passive metrics and towards engagement quality. The question is no longer just “how many streams?” but “are real humans actually responding to this music?”

Earlier, I wrote that artists shouldn’t rush to release music on streaming platforms. I argued this for branding reasons: Streaming numbers are public. Tracks with fewer than 1,000 streams immediately signal limited audience interest, which damages the artist’s brand.

Now that DSPs tighten their music discovery algorithms, a new argument becomes even more valid:

Community is more than ever the most important quality signal an artist can build.

The old “drop-and-pray” strategy of uploading to DSPs and hoping the algorithm picks it up is increasingly unreliable in a world where millions of AI-generated tracks compete for the same editorial and algorithmic slots.

Artists who build an audience before release day have a structural advantage: real people interacting with their music from the moment it drops creates exactly the behavioural signals DSPs are now using to distinguish legitimate artists from bots.

Build community before the first release, not after. Fans will search for, save, and share new music.

Engagement by real humans is increasingly the proof that an artist isn’t a robot.

Yes, but..

Building community takes time. Not every emerging artist has the resources or network to generate meaningful engagement organically. I recognise that it’s much easier said than done for introverted bedroom artists.

However, I’m confident this shift benefits the authentic creator. While it’s harder to “lift off”, once you are validated by real human behaviour, you are no longer competing in the same arena as the bots.

Take action now

Emerging artists who haven’t yet released music on DSPs could ask themselves whether their community is engaged enough to support a release. You’ve only got one chance to make a great impression.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• How streaming platforms release thousands of new tracks every day? (PowerOfMusic by Tuned Global)

• Deezer: AI-generated tracks now represent 44% of all new uploaded music (Deezer Newsroom)

• Spotify Strengthens AI Protections for Artists, Songwriters, and Producers (For the Record by Spotify)

• Spotify has deleted 75m+ ‘spammy tracks’ – as it unveils new AI music policies (Music Business Worldwide)

• The Attention Currency: Don Jazzy’s Lesson for African Creators (Ynaija)

• The Music Industry Crosses an AI Tipping Point (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Artists shouldn’t rush releasing music to streaming platforms (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

How to run free AI models on your studio computer

Most musicians with powerful studio computers are perfectly equipped to run AI locally.

Why it matters

Earlier, I recommended artists to navigate AI beyond the hype and build ‘AI intuition’. But experimenting with AI isn’t cheap. For example, basic access to Claude Code or Cowork costs music artists about €18,00 a month, which may be a significant investment for emerging artists.

However, most musicians have a significant advantage over other AI enthusiasts. If you produce music, your laptop or desktop likely has a high-end CPU, ample RAM, and perhaps a dedicated GPU. You are perfectly equipped to run powerful open-source AI models locally on your laptop, desktop, or even smartphone, entirely for free.

How it works

Local models aren’t on the same level as top-tier subscription models (Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, etc), but new models from Alibaba (Qwen3.6) and Google (Gemma 4), both released this April, are catching up at an astonishing rate. For everyday tasks like brainstorming content or drafting emails, they are more than capable.

The best part: Absolute privacy, with exactly zero recurring costs.

It’s quite simple to install your first local AI model:

1. Download an interface: Tools like Ollama act as your host software.

2. Download a model within that interface.

3. Start prompting: Once loaded, you can interact with the AI entirely offline. No data ever leaves your computer.

Here’s what I did:

1. I opened Terminal on my Mac and installed Ollama by pasting
   curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

2. Next, I installed Qwen-3.5
   ollama run qwen3.5

3. After downloading and installing, I could immediately chat with the AI.

Some ideas to get started:

• Because local AI is 100% private, you can safely upload a contract or a split sheet agreement and ask the AI to explain in plain English what rights you’re giving up.

• Like Claude Cowork, you can ask a local model to help you organise your chaotic downloads folder.

• Use it as a sounding board for your music and lyrics without worrying about whether they will be used to train the AI.

• Of course, you can still ask a local AI to help you write your emails and social media captions.

Yes, but..

I’m running the previous Qwen version, Qwen-3.5:9b, and it’s so slow on my last-generation Intel-based MacBook Pro. To run the latest, decent models, you still need good, up-to-date hardware. And I haven’t even mentioned that the download is 6.6GB.

On my laptop, I’m better suited to a lighter model, like the ultra-lightweight Qwen-3.5:0.8b (1GB), which can even run on a smartphone. It’s very capable for its size, but noticeably less powerful than the 9b version.

Take action now

If you have a decent laptop or desktop for running your music production software, give a local AI model a try. Approach it as a fun, geeky project to further experiment with AI and build AI intuition, rather than trying to embed it in your daily workflows immediately.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Qwen3.6-35B-A3B on my laptop drew me a better pelican than Claude Opus 4.7 (Simon Willison)

• Google’s Gemma 4 finally made me care about running local LLMs (XDA)

• Navigating AI beyond the hype in 2026 (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Why artists play it safe

Would you rather lose 500 long-term fans or gain 1.000 new fans?

Why it matters

Great artists make bold, creative decisions.

• Changing their sound between albums.

• Changing genres when their interests change (for example, from pop to indie).

• Embracing activism into their brand.

• Changing their aesthetic through fashion.

• Etc.

These decisions feel enormous. Creative instinct pulls in one direction, but the way the human brain processes potential loss pulls even harder in the other.

Artists often play it safe because the fear of losing what they have outweighs the excitement of what they might gain.

How it works

Prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) is a psychological framework that helps explain why artists resist creative risk, even when doing so might benefit them.

The theory suggests that losses feel roughly twice as painful as equivalent gains feel pleasurable. Gaining 1.000 new fans doesn’t feel as significant as the prospect of losing 500 current fans.

The existing fanbase, no matter its size, feels like something to protect rather than something to build upon. The asymmetry between imagined loss and imagined gain distorts decision-making.

Loss aversion is prospect theory in action:

• Fear of public outcry when moving away from an established sound.

• Reluctance to drop a visual identity that’s ‘working’.

• Hesitation to alienate current fans by targeting a new audience.

• The belief that what’s already been built could collapse overnight.

We tend to be more risk-averse when things are going well, and opportunities for gain are apparent. Simultaneously, we are much more risk-seeking in a loss domain, where we are more likely to take risks to recover a previous position. This is why struggling artists are more likely to attempt radical creative reinventions, while commercially successful ones often play it safe.

Artists adopt more fan-first, outside-in approaches within their authenticity-first, inside-out strategies. But loss aversion often prevents this balance, locking artists into audience-pleasing behaviour that quietly erodes the artistic identity that attracted fans in the first place.

Artists who avoid all risk to protect their fanbase may end up with a fanbase that no longer reflects who they are or where they’re going.

Yes, but..

These aren’t irrational fears. The music business is driven by vanity metrics. Some festivals book their line-ups solely on follower counts. When market value is tied to visibility and follower counts, creative reinvention carries real commercial risk.

Too much focus on authenticity might limit commercial success, while excessive market adaptation risks undermining artistic credibility. The risk isn’t zero, but it’s rarely as high as loss aversion makes it feel.

Take action now

Do not let loss aversion dictate your discography. Take action now to bridge the gap between where your sound, brand, and reputation are and where you want them to be.

Name the fear explicitly. Write down exactly what you think will happen if you release that niche track. Be specific. “I will lose 200 followers.” Seeing it on paper reduces its subconscious power.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk. Econometrica, 47(2), 263. (full-text)

• Finding the metrics that matter (The Fanbase Builder)

• Market value is the music industry’s hidden currency (The Fanbase Builder)

• The hidden power of casual fans (The Fanbase Builder)

• The psychology of scarcity (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

The hidden power of casual fans

Superfans are essential, but casual listeners are the bridges to new audiences.

Why it matters

In 1973, sociologist Mark Granovetter published a paper about how professionals in Boston found their jobs.

Surprisingly, the overwhelming majority didn’t get hired through their closest friends or family members. Instead, they found opportunities through acquaintances: people they saw only occasionally. Granovetter called this “the strength of weak ties.”

We can apply this to artists by differentiating superfans (strong ties, “close friends”) from casual listeners (weak ties, “acquaintances”).

Many artists are now advised to focus on superfans. However, there is a risk: we assume our closest followers will naturally grow our fanbase, but many superfans operate within the same tight-knit communities that often become echo chambers.

Your superfans all know the same people, listen to the same playlists, and attend the same shows. To break out of this bubble, artists need bridges to entirely new social clusters.

Those bridges are casual listeners, your weak ties. They are the ones who carry your music across the borders of your current audience and drop it into uncharted territory.

How it works

Here is how the mechanics of weak ties function in music marketing:

• Network bridges: Strong ties (superfans) are deeply connected to each other. Weak ties (casual listeners) are connected to diverse, distinct networks that your strong ties cannot access.

• Information flow: When you share an announcement, your core fans see it at the same time. But when a casual fan shares your track on their Instagram Story, they introduce it to a network completely insulated from your usual marketing reach.

• Removing friction: Treat your easily shareable content like a landing page. Weak ties won’t do the heavy lifting of explaining your lore. Remove friction from the listener’s journey by making sure your music and visual identity clearly convey the vibe so casual fans can share it effortlessly.

• Algorithms: Recommendation algorithms favour novelty and diverse engagement. When a track spans multiple user clusters, platforms categorise it as having broader appeal. This boosts algorithmic reach.

Yes, but..

Don’t ignore superfans. Your core audience pays the bills, buys the merchandise, and creates the vibrant culture that makes your project special.

However, hyper-focusing solely on monetising the core while ignoring the casuals is a recipe for long-term stagnation.

You need the strong ties for stability and the weak ties for discovery.

Balance your output to reward loyalty while leaving the door wide open for passing strangers.

Take action now

Look at your recent posts. How many were inside jokes meant for your core fans? How many were open invitations meant for discovery?

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Granovetter, M.S. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380. [pdf]

• The strength of weak ties in fanbase building (The Fanbase Builder)

• People discover music through social media (The Fanbase Builder)

• New fans come from the actions of current fans (The Fanbase Builder)

• Show ads to people who already know the artist (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Simplify your marketing strategy

I used to overwhelm artists with complex data and strategy. But artists don’t need to be marketing scholars to build sustainable careers.

Why it matters

This weekend, I listened to a Dutch podcast interview with a world-class running coach. Instead of lecturing athletes on VO2 max and lactate thresholds, he gave them very simple instructions.

He told them their runs should feel either “easy,” “doable for two hours,” or “hard effort.” Behind those simple words lay complex physiological theory, but he knew that explaining the science would only distract the runner from the actual running.

I used to make the exact opposite mistake in the music industry. Because I love marketing theory, I naturally assumed it was vital for artists to understand it too.

I’ve spent countless hours explaining the theoretical foundations of brand positioning, narratives, and fanbase mechanics, only to watch their eyes glaze over.

Nowadays, I understand that my enthusiasm for marketing theory is causing friction rather than easing it.

When artists are forced to think like marketing academics, they lose the intuitive, creative energy that makes their music special in the first place.

The goal is to provide actionable insights, so artists know what they must do rather than becoming passionate about marketing theory.

How it works

The underlying mechanism of a theoretical shortcut is translation. Effective strategies reduce cognitive load from the artist. You are converting an abstract, macro-level concept into a tangible, micro-level action.

• Identify the main goal: Before doing anything, remove the jargon. Are you aiming to get more email subscribers, or are you simply trying to build a closer relationship with your core audience?

• Summarise the theory: Acknowledge the complex marketing theory but avoid dwelling on it.

• Formulate the cue: Translate the theory into a simple, actionable rule. Instead of saying “we need to focus on our core audience”, say “try to create content with an inside joke in it”.

• Focus on the feeling: Use qualitative benchmarks. Instead of obsessing over algorithm metrics, ask if a task feels “easy,” “sustainable for a month,” or “high effort.”

Yes, but..

Artists should not be ignorant of how the music business works. It’s always beneficial to have a basic understanding of the landscape they operate in.

However, there is a hard line between being informed and being distracted. You don’t need a degree in music to play piano. By relying on simplified operational cues, artists can navigate the industry without letting the mechanics of marketing overshadow their art.

Take action now

Look at marketing tasks that seem overwhelming or too technical. Remove the jargon. Turn one complicated goal into a simple, actionable cue that you can complete today.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Why losing followers isn’t a bad thing for artists (The Fanbase Builder)

• How artists can regain control over their marketing efforts (The Fanbase Builder)

• The limits of business logic in music (The Fanbase Builder)

• Why artists should stop trying to please everyone (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Why losing followers isn’t a bad thing for artists

Forget churn, it’s irrelevant for artists.

Why it matters

Rejection is tough for everyone, but perhaps especially for artists. When you invest so much of yourself into your work, it can feel disheartening when people walk away or show disinterest.

For artists, a useful measure of rejection is a declining follower count. However, there’s a 0% chance that everyone will like your work.

When artists lose more followers than they gain, they might avoid taking creative risks to prevent their numbers from dropping. That’s why it’s helpful for artists to realise that losing followers isn’t actually that bad.

How it works

The business metric that measures customer churn could be applied to followers:

So, if an artist has 100.000 followers on March 1 but loses 100 followers, the churn rate for March would be (100 / 100.000) x 100 = 0,1%

While this business logic may seem perfectly applicable to artists, I think this is a metric that artists should avoid.

Artists shouldn’t worry when fans leave a fanbase, because it’s nothing to be concerned about.

In most cases, it’s perfectly fine when people unfollow accounts. Some valid explanations:

• Friction: Churn is a valuable metric for businesses that sell utility. Music fandom is a cultural identity and a sense of belonging. Friction is a necessary filter.

• Seasonality: Fans go through phases that often do not match an artist’s development. Active fans might drop off, but stay casual listeners for a decade.

• Core audience: Strong brands attract and repel in equal measure. If you’re not losing followers, you’re probably not outspoken enough or not saying anything significant. While emerging, artists should focus on making their core target audience smaller rather than larger.

• Algorithmic advantage: High engagement from a small, dedicated group is far more valuable than a large, silent list.

• Fake followers: Platforms frequently remove fake accounts, such as bots. Artists cannot control the presence of fake accounts in their follower list, but their follower count decreases once those accounts are removed.

• Nobody cares: Nobody pays attention to a declining follower count. Of course, there are industry geeks who notice a drop in follower count. But they monitor the wrong metrics in the first place, so why bother?

Yes, but..

Sometimes, churn is problematic. For example, people walking away during a festival show represent a highly visible form of churn, affecting both artists and the crowd. It creates a negative perception and could damage your reputation. Artists should always aim to deliver a great show to keep the audience engaged.

On the other hand, the cause might be poor booking: a mismatch between the festival and the artist. It’s not always due to a bad gig. When it happens, view it as a learning opportunity that not every booking will benefit your career.

Obviously, bad PR and scandals lead to churn.

In any case, we must distinguish levels of fandom when discussing churn: When superfans are the ones leaving, you have a product problem. If casual observers are leaving because you’ve become too niche, you’ve won the brand battle.

Take action now

Are you an artist or creator worried about losing followers? Change your mindset and start taking creative risks. You might lose some followers, but your connection with your core audience will grow stronger.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Friction in the sea of sameness (MusicX)

• Why artists should stop trying to please everyone (The Fanbase Builder)

• Finding the metrics that matter (The Fanbase Builder)

• The limits of business logic in music (The Fanbase Builder)

• Why your live show should be more than just your album played loud (The Fanbase Builder)

• How to leverage user intent (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Finding creative clarity in unlikely crossover interviews

Why an interview in a running magazine might be the best piece of music strategy you read this week.

Why it matters

Academics read scientific journals. Advertisers read advertising magazines. Finance professionals study market and trend reports. Every field of expertise has its own specialist literature to sharpen its practitioners.

But what is the professional literature for music artists? You could argue that reading magazines about gear, plugins, and music production keeps you up to date on the craft.

However, being an artist is about much more than creating great music. It requires an understanding of how to communicate your perspective to the world.

I believe that to become better professionals, artists must step out of their own echo chambers and peek into the creative frameworks of others.

How it works

When I heard that Harry Styles was interviewed by Haruki Murakami for Runner’s World, I was immediately intrigued. I am an avid runner, and so is Haruki Murakami, who is also one of my favourite authors. Within my hyper-specific niche of running enthusiasts who also love music, Harry Styles is known for running a sub-3-hour marathon.

Strategically, the interview and accompanying photoshoot are a brilliant piece of PR to promote Harry Styles’s new album and Haruki Murakami’s upcoming book. However, between the lines, the conversation reads as a masterclass in creative positioning.

Two core takeaways for building an ecosystem around your brand:

• Artists as consumers: During the interview, Haruki Murakami rejects the romanticised notion of the divine creator.

  “I don’t even think I’m a creator; I’m just a recipient. I love to listen to music, I love to read books, but I’m just a reader, just a listener.”

  I believe it’s great that he perceives himself as a consumer or a fan first. To become successful, you must be a passionate recipient of culture.
  I cannot understand artists who expect people to buy their records when they do not actively buy music themselves. Support your scene, buy concert tickets, buy physical media, and remain a music fan.

• Artists as observers: Harry Styles consciously distances himself from the interpretation of his work.

  “I think I’m of less importance... my job here is to just remain a person, and to keep recording that. That’s what my job is. Rather than me being supposed to deliver the answer and let everyone know what life is about.”

  For some artists, it can be hard to accept that once a song is released, it no longer belongs solely to the creator, and listeners interpret it in ways that differ from the artist's original intent.
  Harry Styles encourages listeners to discover their own interpretations. By removing obstacles from the listener’s journey and avoiding dictating a “correct” meaning, he enables his community to project their own understanding onto his music.

Yes, but..

I understand it is a stretch to frame a promotional magazine interview as “professional literature” for independent musicians.

We create mental frameworks to make sense of our complex industry. When two highly successful people from completely different creative fields sit down to debate their similarities and differences, they step away from their heavily rehearsed, pre-framed PR answers. That is where the genuine, actionable insights hide.

Take action now

Read the full interview. Study how both creators discuss their routines, their audiences, and their creative boundaries. Then find other interviews in which two creators from entirely different disciplines interview each other. Take notes on how they describe their connection to their audience.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Harry Styles Is One of Us (Runner’s World)

• Why listeners interpret songs differently than songwriters intended (The Fanbase Builder)

• Artists should normalise buying music again (The Fanbase Builder)

• We’ve forgotten how to buy music (The Fanbase Builder)

• The Guanxi approach to networking in music (The Fanbase Builder)

• Four industries that beat artists at fan growth (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Navigating music industry gatekeepers with stakeholder mapping

The Power-Interest Grid helps artists prioritise their industry relationships.

Why it matters

The music industry is heavily gatekept. At the same time, artists are selling music, which is a product rooted in human emotion. In many ways, success in music relies heavily on relationships.

For artists, it’s important to distinguish between those who can move the needle and those who are simply along for the ride.

How it works

A well-known business model for identifying, analysing, and strategising with gatekeeper stakeholders is the Power-Interest Grid, developed by Aubrey Mendelow in 1991.

Mendelow’s matrix categorises stakeholders by two variables: their power (ability to influence your career) and their interest (how much they care about your brand and music).

|  **High Power** |  Sleeping Giants    |  Key Players       |
|  **Low Power**  |  Generic Audience   |  Fans              |
|                 |  **Low Interest**   |  **High Interest** |

• High Power / High Interest (Key players): These are the people who have already invested in you or hold the keys to bigger stages.

  • Examples: An established artist mentoring you in the scene, industry moguls, or a high-profile journalist championing your sound.

  • Strategy: Manage closely. Involve them early in your creative and business processes. Keep them consistently updated.

• High Power / Low Interest (Sleeping giants): These stakeholders have the influence to alter your trajectory, but currently do not care about you or your music.

  • Examples: Festival bookers, major label A&Rs, radio playlist editors, or even potential bad press.

  • Strategy: Keep satisfied. You must figure out how to transition the useful ones into key players, while ensuring the others don’t become roadblocks.

• Low Power / High Interest (Fans): They lack the industry leverage to book you at a major arena, but they are deeply invested in your journey.

  • Strategy: Keep informed. Involve them in the narrative. They represent your market value. As a group, they open doors to bigger stages.

• Low Power / Low Interest (The generic audience): The broader public who might hear a track on the radio or a playlist, but don’t actively engage.

  • Strategy: Monitor. Keep an eye on broad trends, but do not expend your primary marketing resources here.

Yes, but...

It can be frustrating to classify your most devoted listeners as “low power” in a traditional business matrix. But in the context of industry gatekeeping, individual fans rarely possess the structural leverage to secure a sync deal or a headline tour. However, collectively, their high interest is the proof of concept you use to awaken the sleeping giants.

Take action now

Grab a piece of paper and draw a cross to create four quadrants. List the top 10 people in your professional network right now. Place each name into the appropriate quadrant based on their power and interest.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Mendelow, A. L. (1991). Environmental Scanning: The Impact of the Stakeholder Concept. Proceedings From the Second International Conference on Information Systems 407-418

• What Is Mendelow’s Matrix And How Is It Useful? (Oxford College of Marketing)

• The Guanxi approach to networking in music (The Fanbase Builder)

• The strength of weak ties in fanbase building (The Fanbase Builder)

• How to make your album announcement newsworthy (The Fanbase Builder)

• The limits of business logic in music (The Fanbase Builder)

• Market value is the music industry’s hidden currency (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

Get found by bots using Schema markup

Understanding the hidden code that feeds crawling bots like Google’s.

Why it matters

Humans are not the only ones who visit websites. Behind the scenes, thousands of robots crawl the web methodically to gather information for search engines like Google and LLM AIs such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

In an industry where many talents strive to ‘get discovered’, it’s valuable to understand how to please those crawling bots. Especially now, as we enter an era where vibe coding lets anyone create a beautiful website in seconds, the sheer volume of noise makes it harder for bots to distinguish between a legitimate artist and clever growth hackers.

How it works

When an LLM or a Google bot visits your URL, it’s looking for structure. The simplest way to add structure to websites while maintaining brand identity is to use a small piece of hidden code called Schema markup.

Think of schema markup as a direct translator between your website, search engines, and LLMs. It’s like a landing page designed specifically for non-human audiences. Instead of making Google digest your bio text to understand you’re a musician, this code presents the information clearly on a robot-optimised silver platter.

For example, take Knowledge Panels, the large information box that appears on the right side of Google when you search for artists. Schema markup is one of the main ingredients that helps Google connect the dots to create one of these for you.

Using structured data makes your site appear more professional to algorithms, helping your official domain outrank competing domains that publish about you, such as media outlets, DSPs, music stores, venues, and festivals.

Yes, but..

For those of you who find this a bit too technical, stay tuned for a copy-paste example in the next paragraph.

Take action now

I have drafted a simple and generic Schema markup code snippet for artists.

1. Replace the placeholder text below with your details.

2. Paste this entire block of code into the <head> section of your website. If you use a website builder like Carrd or Squarespace, look for header code injection or custom code settings.

3. Once live, use Google’s Rich Results Test to ensure the bots can read it.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "MusicGroup",
  "name": "{{YourArtistName}}",
  "url": "{{https://yourwebsite.xyz}}",
  "image": "{{https://yourwebsite.xyz/your-press-photo.jpg}}",
  "description": "{{OneSentenceBio}}",
  "genre": [
    "{{YourGenre1}}",
    "{{YourGenre2}}"
  ],
  "sameAs": [
    "https://open.spotify.com/artist/{{ID}}",
    "https://music.apple.com/us/artist/{{ID}}",
    "https://www.instagram.com/{{ID}}",
    "https://www.youtube.com/c/{{ID}}",
    "https://soundcloud.com/{{ID}}"
  ]
}
</script>

Go deeper

Besides the MusicGroup code shown above, Schema Markup includes other Schema types that are useful for artists, such as:

• MusicEvent for shows.

• MusicAlbum for albums.

• MusicRecording for songs.

• Product for merch.

And many more. Explore the Schema.org documentation, or use AI to create custom Schema codes for your website.

Your thoughts

Further reading

• Schema.org

• Introduction to structured data markup in Google Search (Google Search Central)

• How artists can get recommended more in ChatGPT and Claude (The Fanbase Builder)

• Why artists should focus on what they can control (The Fanbase Builder)

• Simple things artists can do to attract music supervisors (The Fanbase Builder)

• Retrieving catalogue data using the Spotify Web API (The Fanbase Builder)

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Let’s dive into today’s topic:

The strategic choice between raw and polished content

The multiplier effect of substance and polish.

Why it matters

Many artists recognise what I often call the ‘perfection trap’. They believe content, and often their music as well, isn’t worth publishing if it’s not perfect. These artists aim to edit or colour-grade their content to a professional standard.

Most of the time, perfectionism causes delays, creating friction that kills momentum, even though today’s media landscape doesn’t require perfection.

What scales are the message, the emotion, and the meaning, not the polish. However, posting only raw, unpolished content doesn’t fit the purpose either. When should artists post raw content, and when should they polish it?

How it works

Let’s introduce another dimension to the raw-versus-polished debate by categorising content based on two variables.

• The level of substance: the value or significance of the content.

• The level of polish: the production value of the content.

Polish acts as a multiplier, not a requirement. The formula is simple:

If your substance is zero, no amount of polishing will yield anything other than zero.

The two variables combined generate a matrix:

|                    | **Low Polish**   | **High Polish** |
|--------------------|------------------|-----------------|
| **High Substance** | Authentic virals | Masterpieces    |
| **Low Substance**  | Noise            | Empty calories  |

• High Polish / High Substance: Masterpieces. This is your 20-minute documentary, your official music video, or a deeply researched long-read Substack essay. These demand more time but contribute significantly to brand value.

• Low Polish / High Substance: Authentic virals. An honest insight, a brilliant songwriting tip shot on a phone, a genuinely supportive comment, entertaining TikToks or Threads. This is the sweet spot for growth because it feels human and accessible.

• Low Polish / Low Substance: Noise. These are the pointless posts with no story or purpose. Post just because someone told you to. They add friction to the fan’s feed without offering any value. Avoid these.

• High Polish / Low Substance: Empty calories. Over-produced fluff. A heavily edited video that says nothing at all. It often feels “cringe” because the effort outweighs the reward for the viewer. You probably wouldn’t even share it in a group chat.

We generally see that long-form channels (YouTube, Substack) favour polish, while short-form platforms (Shorts, Stories, Threads) depend on the raw and immediate. In between (Photos, Caroussels, Reels, TikToks, etc), there are many variations where rules are more relaxed.

By varying your production levels, you enable your fans to engage with your brand more mindfully rather than scroll aimlessly.

Yes, but..

This matrix is a model for content like many others. On its own, it provides some key insights. But when integrated with other models, its practical implications become evident.

Take, for instance, the Hero-Hub-Help content model. Using the matrix helps creators avoid the trap of trying to make Hub content look like Hero content.

If you spend 20 hours editing a short tour video (Hub), you’ll burn out and post less frequently. By using the matrix, you give yourself permission to be raw in the Hub, as long as the substance remains high.

Posting raw and unpolished content isn’t laziness, it’s often a strategically backed decision.

Take action now

Artists could audit their latest five weeks of content and plot them on the matrix. How many of them were ‘empty calories’?

Your thoughts

Further reading

• I think the Head of Instagram is wrong about Instagram... (Future Social)

• Instagram is betting on the momentum, not the reaction (Rachel Karten)

• How to develop a content strategy using a model for YouTubers (The Fanbase Builder)

• Help content doesn’t naturally fit artist brands (The Fanbase Builder)

• Quality versus Quantity: Two content strategies for artists (The Fanbase Builder)

• A simple trick to create content that doesn’t feel cringe (The Fanbase Builder)

• The anti-content strategy (The Fanbase Builder)