Online Community Building - The Basics

Building your community takes planning, attention, and patience. Here's three key things artists should keep in mind when making connections:

Do Your Research

The fatal failure of any strategy is to get down to work without understanding the landscape - and that goes for social media as well. The tendency is to think that your potential audience is EVERYONE - in order to make the most of your efforts and resources, you need to focus. And a little research goes a long way.

Your research brief should include:

- which artists do you compare yourself to? Pick ones in similar situations to yourself (local artists, with the same musical profile in a similar stage to your career - don't put yourself in the Lady GaGa league!) Choose five favourites to focus on and dig deep into.

- build a profile of their fanbase. What type of people do they attract? Look across the usual channels - MySpace, Twitter, Last.fm, Facebook.

- what does this audience care about? Examine how they react to engagement with the artist. Do they like new tracks? Live shows? Videos? Exclusive interviews?

- look at their tastemaker champions - which blogs have written about them? what radio shows support them? 

Putting all this together will give you valuable insight to create a profile of your potential online community.

Construct Your Content

Now that you know the community you could attract, make a plan of the content you to engage them with. This is key - you need to plan this out in advance to be proactive. 

Think about this as you build online tools, like your website or Facebook fan page - and how it links to the other social media channels you could use (like your own blog, SoundCloud page, YouTube channel etc).

Check out this great post about Lady Gaga's social media success - which points out how she used great content strategically across various online channels. 

Start Conversations

Twitter is the best place to keep the engagement going. Remember that your community isn't just an audience - it's bloggers to support you, potential people to collaborate with, and other artists to form connections with.

Find a tone of voice and topics to chat about that relate to your content (and avoid talking about what you ate/what your cat ate!). Follow people, listen to their conversations, and retweet the things you like. And above all, make a contribution. 

This is jus the start. Eventually the community will build, and will become the megaphone of your voice. Communities support each other. It's about being authentic, and getting involved - and about making a quality - not quantity - connection.

Image from Flickr by alles-schlumpf

Manifesto Fundamental: Artists Connect Communities

Community is the next fundamental of the Manifesto. One of the major differentiating factors of the new industry is the ability of artists to interact with others on a global scale. MySpace was a turning point for this - suddenly musicians had the ability to connect with their audience on a daily basis, build a fan base, and make contact with other artists. Free, simple and easy.

Artists have always been at the centre of networks, and their work has often found a key place within subcultures (think disco, goth, trance etc). The difference now is that artists are connectors on an even greater scale. The rise of social media has put artists at the heart of online communities - where their own participation is crucial to the establishment of their audience.

And audiences are developing an expectation that their participation and interaction with the artist will be valued. In the old industry, where fans would make contact hoping for a response from the band they admired, the artist had the ability to remain removed from their audience - connecting primarily through live performances. Contact was essentially one way, with the artist kept at a distance from direct interaction.

Over the past few years we have seen a dramatic shift in media from passive communication to one where anyone can be active and interact. Social media is based on communities of people involved in conversation. Some in the creative industries, such as Stephen Fry, understand this and invest heavily in building strong communities.

The new industry directly connects artists to their community. It's a powerful way of increasing feedback and building loyalty; for new artists, this power is priceless. Simon Curtis is a prime example of this - building up a community via social media alone that has resulted in tens of thousands of downloads of his material from people around the world. Hard to imagine that only a few years ago that level of exposure would have cost a label serious cash investment.

The fundamental of Community works in conjunction with the first of the Manifesto. If music is art, and artists connect communities, the key principle here is that an artist is defined by their ability to deliver their work to the world.

With creative production democratised, anyone can now make music. Technology makes it easier to output creativity - but this act of creation does not make an individual an artist. Only those with the bravery to ship their work to a community that respects what they have created can be termed an artist.

The ease of production and distribution means a high volume of music is being made - a fact that many musicians bemoan. Their fear is that more music on the shelf means their own work will not be heard or recognised. The Manifesto's fundamental of Community addresses this. Artists that make their own connections - with an audience, partners, and other musicians - and nurture them over time, will benefit. The days of the recluse artist reliant on big label marketing spend are over - the Community is critical to supporting an artist's work.

Do What Radiohead Does - Four Artists Who Make It Work

So Radiohead have done something quite different in releasing their latest album without a mainstream above-the-line ad campaign, and by distributing via their own website. Which they can do - because they are big already, right?

The new industry is preparing itself for any artist to do what Radiohead does. All the means to create, distribute and connect are available to anyone. The problem rests in our own belief as artists that it's not enough - that we need to rely on others to build our success for us.

Yes Radiohead have benefited from mainstream support. However, the last five years of their career has shown them breaking from the status quo to take more and more control of their work. Their confidence must stem from the fact that they are supported by a great community of fans that shows no sign of dissipating. A community that with which they have always had a relationship of mutual respect.

To demonstrate that this is happening across the industry, here are a few examples of individuals who are brave enough to step ahead, build their communities, and try out a different perspective:

Robyn

The Swedish electropop queen has been making music since she was a teenager, but her biggest success did not happen until she packed in the major labels and went on her own. Her top album Robyn was released in 2005 on her own Konichiwa imprint, which she tirelessly promoted and used to build an international fan base - in fact it took several years for the record to stick in markets outside Sweden. She followed it up with a triple album - Body Talk - released across several months. Her strategy is to work hard, create, and give back to her fans. And it's paying off. Yes she has support from the big players now - but she's in control. Inspirational.

@robynkonichiwa

MaJiKer

An artists' goal does not always have to be based around global stardom. Matthew Ker's debut album Body-Piano-Machine was released after his career as a producer took off via collaboration with French artist Camille. MaJiKer and I worked together with the aim of increasing his solo profile amongst key tastemakers in the industry. Since then he has played at London's iconic ICA, remixed Fever Ray, and earned the praise of Janice Long, Ken Russell and Nico Muhly. Tracks from new album The House of Bones was recently featured on David Byrne's podcast. Proof that targeting your PR pays off.

@MaJiKer

Simon Curtis

This electro pop robot boy has become an internet success story by using the free model to build his community. With over a million downloads of his debut album from his site, Simon has tapped in to social media to capture a fan base of tens of thousands via Twitter and Facebook. What happens next is up to him - but with that level of support he is certain to move forward confidently to the next stage of his career. His community will follow him and amplify his intention.

@simoncurtis

Raj Rudolph

The maestro behind top pop blog Electroqueer continues to build his empire with devotion that shows no sign of letting up. Although not a musician, Raj and other bloggers like him who are serious about what they do embody the spirit of the new industry. They focus on their craft, remain independent, and create communities of support. And they innovate; Raj's EQ London live nights hold sought after slots for emerging acts keen to gain their own audience.

@electroqueer

While none of these artists are yet at the stratosphere of Thom Yorke and friends, each are working within the very same playing field as Radiohead. In the new industry, the game is up to you. Take a chance, poke the box, and see what happens. The only thing stopping you is your belief that it can't be done. Artists now have the ability to take control of their own careers. It's liberating - and it works.

Radiohead image from Flickr by Ben Ward

The Volume Issue

Having the capability like never before to produce, distribute and market your music comes with a catch - too much volume.

The democratisation that allows anyone to get in the game and release their work means that more people will take advantage of the opportunity. More releases = a greater volume of choice.

And with this wave of availability comes an even greater volume issue. Shouting.

Artists and labels still believe that the louder you shout about your work, the more it's likely to be noticed. The problem is - you can't outshout the big guys. Major labels with more manpower, access to the mainstream media and advertising spend are great at shouting. We've suddenly realised they are all yelling at us about the same thing:

LOOK AT THIS NEW ARTIST AREN'T THEY THE BEST EVERYONE LIKES THEM SO SHOULD YOU.

For the rest of us, the temptation is to shout along - especially as there are more voices vying for attention. With this much noise going on - not only from the music industry, but in every consumer market - people just stop listening.

The only way around this is to start a conversation amongst your community with a great story. Its not good enough to be a fresh new artist and next big thing. You and your art must speak to a community that wants to engage because they get something out of the connection.

This is why social media has become such a powerful tool for musicians. Those that use it well will be able to form strong ties with their fan base - and keep it alive. Those that use it simply to keep shouting will fail to see the benefits.

Amazing photograph of Žilvinas Kempinas' work - www.transmediale.de/en/white-noise - by weexinsitu on Flickr