What Changed For Musicians Going From 0-1,000,000 Fans In 2024

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Every year one of my most popular videos is on How Musicians Go From 0-1,000,000 Fans, and, to be honest, the rules generally remain the same, but some small changes happen every year. Here are the ones I think are important that most people missed.

Minimum Viable Videos (MVVs)

While the trend was coming for a while, this is the year we saw the Minimum Viable Videos memo get read across countless genres. Whether it’s Shaboozey doing one for the longest running number one hit from a indie artist in chart history or Dasha seeing mega viral success and breaking into Country music’s fortified gate with one, this was the year everyone realized that when most of the users you are converting are coming over to listen from Short Form Video apps, their broken brains need a video to watch, and it can be something cheap you made in a few hours and shot on your phone.

We Live In A For You Page World

Now that the short form texts and videos you put out on the platforms are being shown to more strangers who don’t know you than ever, you need to understand How To Talk To Strangers. One of the main reasons why musicians don’t get engagement on their content is that they tell a multi-part story and they talk only to their fans, which was the right thing to do in the past. However, in this new world, if you are talking only to fans, you are not going to get adopted by the new potential listeners who know nothing about you.

Charli XCX Changed How We See Album Rollouts

The WTF Area after an album release seemed to puzzle artists on how to promote their music in the streaming era, but Charli showed this time is meant for changing the conversation around your music repeatedly. Promoting music past an album’s release was largely seen like that period in high school after finals where they make you still show up for a week or two. No one knew what it was for, and the effort was real low. We now have a blueprint for how any artist can see this time period and turn it into one that builds conversations and momentum around a release.

It’s Easier Than Ever To Find The Fans Most Likely To Enjoy Your Music

Similarly, For You Pages make it easy to use keywords and prompts using what I call “Audience Finding Videos” to get you to the people who are most likely to be your fans. By starting discussions on keywords that describe your micro-genre or cultural touchstones that people into your style of music enjoy, you can find the people most likely to enjoy your music. Starting your campaign with these videos can help get it to the right people for the algo to test out your future videos and make it more likely they get to eyes that are attached to thumbs that will be sedate enough to get through your video and maybe even click on the screen till they find your song.

Pre Saves Got A Lot More Interesting

I have been cold on Pre Saves since we found out how little they did for musicians. Sure, they are great for getting email addresses, and that is really why larger artists push them, but there’s always been something missing. Then came Tribly, a free tool that I had long dreamed of, which can trade lifetime pre saves (the ability to pre save every track an artist releases in the future), texts or emails for snippets or track downloads, including ones your fans can name their own price for. Being able to use Tribly to trade an alternate version of your song, an exclusive cover to mailing list sign-ups, can be a powerful way to get direct content to fans to use for announcements and drive your numbers in a sustainable way.