Fans Are an Artist’s Most Prized “Possession” – Get to Know All About Them

Urska Jaksa

Nov 20, 2020

One of the biggest challenges for musicians is building a strong fanbase. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary. Luckily, data can lend you a hand. 

Diving into your audience, we’ll learn about:

🏠 the cities and countries that your fans come from,

🚻 the gender and age breakdown of your fanbase,

🧭 where your Instagram, YouTube and TikTok followers are from, and

🧐 how you can use all this to better target your ads, check the results of your recent promotional efforts, and plan and pitch gigs to promotors when things get back on track.

We've customized these instructions for artists and their teams. If you're a label executive, A&R, promotor, or work in another field of the music industry, look here for a tailored guide.

These are the sections you need to know about (with some tips to help you out):

#1 Audience Map

In this section, you can see the artist’s distribution of followers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok across countries.

❓ HOW TO USE IT:

See if any of your channels are stronger in a specific country. This is valuable for your everyday social media efforts, when planning new releases, and when making promotion strategies. 

To check which countries you’ve grown the most in recently, sort them by “Audience in 1 Month”.

Knowing exactly where your audience comes from is good input when planning gigs and tours (or it will be, when they finally come back). Here, you’ll get an overview of multiple channels in one place. You might even find a country that wasn’t on your map before. On the other hand, this will also help you pitch gigs (even online ones) to promotors in specific countries.

TIPS:

✔️ Use this knowledge in everyday communication with your fans: give them a shout-out, customize your content, engage them in challenges, create Instagram polls, etc. Make them feel special and with time, you’ll have created an engaged and loyal fanbase.

✔️ When planning your new releases, your audience overview gives you a good idea of the right target audience. Target your ads to the countries with the most potential.

#2 Gender and Age Breakdown

Get into the distribution of followers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok by gender and age groups.

❓ HOW TO USE IT:

See which groups your music appeals to the most. Similar to the Audience Map section above, it will help you better target your promotional campaigns.

#3 Instagram Audience City Map

This is an in-depth version of the Audience Map, specifically for Instagram, allowing you to pinpoint your audience. Here, you’ll get the distribution of the artist’s Instagram followers in cities.

❓ HOW TO USE IT:

Promoting new releases and other ventures is easier if you know where your audience is.

Check how your past gigs and promotional engagements in a specific city translated into your audience.

Find specific cities that have the most potential for your future gigs. The good part is that reaching out to your fanbase and letting them know about it will be easy.

To make informed decisions, combine the study of your audience with your other stats, plus research your genre and the local music market. These guides through Viberate analytics will help:

📌 Study Your Fanbase and See How Your Content's Working

📌 Dive into Your Music Channels and See Where Your Audience Is

📌 WTF is Network Respect? + How to Improve Your Connections

📌 Learn from the Music Markets and Get Ahead

📌 Learn from the Best in Your Genre