Oakland, CA — As an artist, producer, creator, designer, etc., keeping your fans consistently interested in your brand is essential, especially when promoting yourself. One way to do this is simply by communicating with your fans directly and making them feel important. The honest truth of the matter is... they are! Without fans, celebrities wouldn’t even be celebrities, and brands wouldn’t be able to survive. Any successful brand knows the importance of engaging their fan base in a way that keeps them authentically wanting to come back for more. Thankfully, platforms like Instagram have implemented a lot of fun, interactive ways to directly talk to fans. For example, you can try utilizing Instagram’s polls feature on your story, or liking comments or playing around with Instagram's quiz feature. In this How-To we'll go over some basic strategies on how to interact with and grow your fan base by keeping them interested in whatever your brand is.
Step 1: Figure Out Who You’re Catering To
When growing your brand as an artist and in general, you want to make sure you really know your audience and the demographic information of your followers. One way to do this is by setting yourself up with a business account so you can view and analyze insights on who is following you. If you don’t have a business account you can simply make a post on your Instagram timeline and ask all your followers where they’re from, what content of yours they enjoy most, or other questions you feel will give you valuable feedback.
Step 2: Start Implementing Instagram Interaction Tools
Utilizing tools like IG Story polls, questions and quizzes makes interacting with your fans fun and easy. I would suggest consistently using these tools a couple of times a week or more to keep your fans interested and engaged. Here are a few more suggestions about how to use each feature:
IG Story polls: You can use polls to get feedback on anything. For example, creating a poll with the question “Should I drop new music?” with answers like “yes” or “no” or whatever you want their responses to be (Instagram allows you to type in a custom response other than a regular “yes” or “no”). This feature can also be a way of seeing if it's the right time to put out new music and make your fans feel like they’re engaged/involved in your creative decisions and process.
IG Story questions: With IG Story questions you allow your fan base to ask you anything or respond to anything. For example, your question could be “Ask me something?” and your followers will be able to respond to your story with an anonymous question (the questions won’t be anonymous to you but only to others once you repost). This also brings you closer to your fans, as you’ll be letting them into your life in ways that will make them feel closer to you and your brand.
IG quizzes: This is a fun way to interact with your fans and doubles as a great way to get information about them to help build your brand or see how well your fan base knows you. You can type any question in and use any answer for the responses. Or you can go the route of doing a quiz to get information about your fans to get to know them better.
Step 3: Start Liking Comments And Creating Interactive Captions
Liking your fans individual comments is a very effective way to show your followers you care and are paying attention to them. It shows that you acknowledge their support, which always makes people feel good. It may not seem like much, but I guarantee liking comments is much appreciated.
Step 4: Show Your Fans That You Appreciate Them!
It always feels great to be appreciated! Every once in a while show your fans that you appreciate them with an appreciation post. This could be something like you posting your streaming information and thanking fans for streaming your music (or whatever else you’re promoting), posting a picture of you with a caption showing love to your fans (example: “Thank you to all my fans supporting me! Y'all are the best fans in the world #TeamMoneyMaka), or anything that feels authentic to your brand narrative. Even taking the time to reply to direct messages goes a long way, even if you reply with a single emoji or a “Thank You.” Really, just taking the time to do anything that expresses your gratitude to your fans because they will be the reason you blow up and have success or not!