Last week’s near essay took you through the significant process of setting up your fan database. With that being the crucial foundation of your renewed focus on getting the most from your data, I thought I’d take it easier this week.

Big Data is upon us!

Before you grab the nearest pitchfork and medieval torch to hand, fear not.

Far from being some hideously mutated Star Trek character gone Frankenstein’s monster – although that probably happened at some point, didn’t it TrekHeads? – Big Data is merely the moniker given to the flood of information that has poured forth from the digital era. It is often a catch-all phrase, used to refer to the oncoming storm of making sense of more data than we can realistically hope to deal with.

On second thoughts, you might want to keep that pitchfork handy… 

Facts About Fans

As an artist, if the previous talk of marketing in these pages has irked you, the presentation of data gathering and analysis is likely to be akin to the red rag to (a particularly talented) bull. Hopefully, disarming flattery will calm your creative soul. If not, how about this:

There are dollars floating in that data.

Or at least key information about your fans that will lead you to dollars. Does that quell some of your apprehension?

The reality is, as I’ve highlighted often in this series, that the music industry is rapidly moving on from tried and trusted ways of making money. For many artists they didn’t prove so trustworthy, but at least they were the devil you know, right? Well the devil you don’t know may actually turn out to be the guardian angel of your music career, if you can put in the time to set up some smart incentive and reward mechanisms to capture core information about your fans.

Image Credit: Anirudh Koul

Data can help you to make better decisions about where you play, what you play, what you release and how you release it.

It is increasingly becoming the currency of everything we do online, as consumers and not just fans of music, and it can help you play the long game of forging a slow but steady growth for your artistic career.

Getting Started With Data Gathering

As this is such a huge topic – and one that must certainly be taken in bit-sized chunks – I’ll be publishing an additional Music Marketing Matters later this week on specific mechanisms that you can install to crank up your data gathering efforts. These will be aligned with specific targets for several levels of artist, so that nobody gets left behind  in getting at least some starter info bubbling away.

In preparation for these more detailed action posts, ask yourself the following questions about your current web presence:

• Do you have an e-mail list that you could segment by various  criteria, such as age, location, musical preference?

• Do you have a handle on who are your biggest fans? What they’ve bought, when they’ve seen you, their favorite songs?

• Can you pinpoint communities in which your most active fans participate?

• Are you gathering information about your audience via multiple channels i.e. more than just your website?

• Do you understand how to approach different sections of your fan base in different ways, subject to the point above?

If you answered no to even one of these questions, there will be something for you in these forthcoming articles on data gathering for musicians. If not, I probably want to pick your brains for content!

Stay tuned, we’re about to go deep, deep into that devilish detail. 

I was planning to have the third installment of Music Marketing Matters here today, but this seems as salient as any point I was going to make. Artists need to strive for what’s in the heart, rather than focus on what the head knows from the past.

Stephen Covey understood this and followed his own heart to become an extremely successful, influential author, guiding generations of individuals towards their dreams with his ‘Habits‘. He passed away today, sadly, but not without living up to his own advice to “leave this world better than it was when you got here.”

For all the smarts, tips, and advice one can offer an artist to get noticed, none of it will come to much if that passionate creative streak isn’t allowed to take the lead. That has to be something at the core of every highly successful artist.

Rest In Peace.

Price is a key component in the marketing mix, with music marketing being no exception. And yet, for the past decade, those who control a majority of the pricing mechanisms in the recorded music business have clung on to unfeasible price points for their outdated product.  

Music Price Points: A State of Flux

Historically, the price of a standard, single CD album release could be as high as $18. Most leveled out between $12-15, but the larger retailers could and would push the price to that upper breaking point. Moreover, if music fans couldn’t find the CD they wanted so badly readily accessible in their area, they would pay those prices. Supply and demand: limited supply, rampant demand. 

As we all know by now, MP3′s changed all of that. A price point of $18 (or more) nowadays represents only one of two things:

1) A super-deluxe edition of a release, bursting with physical extras and bonus content or,

2) A massively out of touch retailer who will shortly be shuttering their music section.

Manufacturing plastic discs is more expensive than moving another copy of a digital file. When the marginal cost of a sale tends towards zero, it becomes impossible to justify applying the pricing mechanisms of physical products to the now dominant digital sales environment. At the other end of the scale, enormous artists like Lady Gaga and Radiohead offer their releases for cents, or nothing, causing further confusion in the marketplace.

What is the true value of digital music?

Setting the Right Price

The right price is, of course, the minimum amount you can set that both elicits an impulse to buy and provides you with some level of profit. Set too high and the former takes a hit, limiting sales. Set too low and your music becomes a ‘loss leader’, with you eating the cost of creating the music in the hope of longer term success.

Price setting for music is a lot tougher than it sounds and has no clear rules. 

Follow the industry standard of $7.99 to $9.99 and the chances are you price out a lot of potential new fans, unwilling to risk traditional amounts on what is an unknown quantity. Follow the recent trends towards budget pricing – $2.99 to $4.99 – and you have a much better chance of convincing newcomers to throw a few bucks in your direction, yet you now have to sell at least twice as many albums to hit the same amount.

What to do? In my opinion, this is where your creativity must come to the fore.

As we examined in last week’s ‘Diversify Your Product’, there is far more potential for your artistic offerings than just the music, so why not bring that to your marketing mix? Adding value with varied product offerings is one of the only ways to justify to your end buyer that their purchase decision satisfies. Ignoring the moral argument of art’s value to the world, which is for another day, this  is a matter of psychology. Give your buyer a compelling reason to find the right price point and shell out their hard earned green.

Some suggested levels to guide your price setting:

• Entry level: Your lowest acceptable price. Bare bones, just the music (perhaps not even all of it, if you can stand to separate out tracks into smaller album ‘nuggets’), worth-a-shot pricing.

•  Sweeten the deal: Add a dollar to the entry level, offer some simple yet intriguing extra. A bonus track, access to video content, insights into the making of the album. Given the small price increase, this is likely to be digital content and something that you can easily provide at little extra cost.

• Fans, friends, and family: As you move away from the entry level prices, your buyer in the mid-range is more likely to be the core of your audience. Good fans and your acquaintances who are happy to support your music at a more traditional price point, but the majority of whom will not be buying deluxe. Here you start to introduce physical products, if you can afford to do so, giving buyers the full release, art, and anything that you can relating to it. As this price point covers a lot of your audience, who might have different listening preferences, you will probably be offering several different product option at this level.

• Invest in art: Some can afford to spend more and will happily push the boat out just to give musicians they like that extra boost. If your highest price point is $9.99, though, that’s all they will be able to chip in. Offer your next package at $5 to $10 more, subject to the make up of your later pricing, and throw in some significant personal extras, such as handwritten lyrics, a personal video conference performance of the release, extra merchandise. This is the level at which you start to emphasize just how much difference this extra investment means to your career as a musician. You can also play around with quality of download from this point upwards. Being an audiophile may yet bounce back as a purchase consideration.

• Deluxe: Not everything from the recording industry’s past is a heinous assault on the wallet of fans, the deluxe expanded editions of albums being a case in point (those that came out at the same time as standard editions, of course). Some dedicated  fans are truly interested in listening to acoustic versions, alternate takes, making of commentary, and all manner of other extras that cost you very little to offer, yet mean enough to others for you to achieve this upsell.

• Super Deluxe (and above): What ya got? Plan out as many additional product offerings as you can and go to work to satisfy those with money to burn and the passion to spend it on your work. Introduce packages with all available merchandise types, content extras, access to future performances, meet & greets… whatever you can stretch to that will give the buyer a truly special experience. Even if you get no takers, this is a relative value effect for those considering the lower price points that you have offered.

Over To You…

Pricing is more of an art than a science, so the creativity that you bring to offering a variety of price points will experience varying degrees of success. As ever, your contributions make the difference, so please weigh in with thoughts here in the comments section.

As an artist, what have you found to be the most compelling price points for those who buy your music? Were these acceptable to you as the creator? 

As a fan, what price music? Would you pay more if your favorite artists offered a better product at a higher price?

Last week I got a bee in my bonnet – yes, my part time job is subbing for Little Bo Peep… what of it? – about the lack of creativity in marketing music.

Rather than just whinge and whine, though, I thought I should probably make an effort to turn things around.

“Be the change that you want to see in the world” and all that motivational malarkey…

Music Marketing Matters

And it matters especially on Mondays, which is when I’ll be publishing my contributions to moving music marketing forward.

I have two simple goals for this series:

1. Provide ideas to market your music that offer something new and are practical for you to act upon,

2. Highlight examples of artists who are pushing the envelope in marketing their creations.

Today I can hopefully deliver on both of these, with a look at Amanda Palmer’s recent ~$1.2 million Kickstarter haul and what you can adopt from her methods.

Diversify Your Product

Whether or not you agree that music is a product, if you are striving to be any kind of career musician then you need to accept that it is vital to market your art according to similar principles that govern product and service marketing.

Standalone products are only sufficient if they have vast mass market appeal, which is something that rarely applies to music  (how many artists have made the big time with just one release, on one format?) So it falls upon you to offer your fans a wider variety. Not only variety in ways to experience your music, but also the live experience, the fan experience, and even varying the type of art that you make available.

Image Source: Mela Sogono

Circling back to the curious case of Amanda Palmer, this million grossing Kickstarter campaign was a tour-de-force of artistic diversity. Here are some concrete actions that you can  pull from her success:

• Format diversity - Know your audience. In many cases they will vary from pure digital downloaders to geeky speccy nerdy collectors (these are the folks that you especially need!). You need to offer a cheap and easy format for the former, a beautifully crafted limited edition vinyl for the latter, and anything in between that caters to what you know to be attractive to those purchasing your wares. Put out informal polls on social media, talk to your fans, ask in an e-mail newsletter… whatever it takes to find out what diversity people want and how you can give it to them.

• Build in real world connections - It’s all too easy to be pulled into the digital world and build relationships exclusively with fans online. Palmer offered tangible real world connections to fans in cities across the world, baked into the decision to purchase her new music. Play to the themes of your music and match as many physical events to it as you can afford to deliver. Sound expensive? Cut your cloth accordingly and tailor events to where your fans can gather. Also note, people will often pay more for a real event… and they will feel more invested in your music for having done so. This is especially true if you make a visible effort to make the event special for them personally (song dedications, personalised gifts, private meet and greets…what else would you include?)

• You are more than music - Heresy, I know, but you have a lot more to offer. What’s more, your fans know it and are more likely to part with their cash if you serve it up for them. Don’t panic, music is still at the core of what you do. But offer art work, lyrics/poetry, personal inspirations in the form of unique merchandise, video content, the work of others that you admire or with whom you have collaborated, and you start to stand out  from the crowd. You also have something to offer at higher price points, providing those who want to spend more a reason to do so. Look at Palmer’s art books as just one compelling example. For bonus points here, make some of the alternative products you offer limited edition. Those who snag them will feel an extra sense of accomplishment as your fan; those who do not will be on increased alert for the next time.

• Make it community-based - What characterizes Palmer’s online successes (and they are very much in the plural) in particular is the sense of belonging that she evokes in fans. They remain fanatical (in the positive sense), yet there exists a kinship, a degree of equality, in their relationship with her. True, she has built this up over many years, but it can and should be applied right down to the level of brand new artists building fan bases in small towns.This is also a concept that can be applied to your product diversity. How can you make your live appearances more of a communal affair, rather than limit them to artist broadcasting? Playing more intimate gigs like house parties or word-of-mouth outdoor gatherings brings you closer to your audience. Bringing in fans to help you organize such events, with special access for them and a few friends, makes your music more communal. In the short term, these tiny events placed alongside larger, more standard shows, breed a healthy symbiosis between attendance of the two. Longer term, you’re making memories for fans on a one-to-one level, and their emotional investment is far more likely to yield a financial one.

• Expand into other audiences – Less related to product offering, but nonetheless a useful action point to take from this example, is the idea of branching out into the audiences of other artists and creators. Collaboration is often a smart way to do this, as it breeds unique creations that are of interest to both sets of fans. Reciprocal offerings are another, with a contribution from one artist to your next project and you providing something for them in a similar fashion. Palmer offered books, art work, scripts, photography, and all manner of extras from fellow creators, ensuring cross over into many new networks.

Admittedly, Amanda Palmer has an established base of fans and  can already reach many more people than most independent musicians. But it was the diverse offerings and alignment of them with fan passions that helped her to move from a good Kickstarter campaign to a phenomenal one. $1 million is out of reach, but a healthy return on your investment in music is not.

Take away: Understand your fans’ desires, create a wide range of ways to cater to them at multiple price points, then deliver with passion and flexibility across as many networks as possible.

 

Over to you…

What did I miss? Are there better ways to diversify what you offer to your fans? 

Does the notion of having to go beyond the provision of music offend you as an artist? 

Let’s go at it in the comments section here. We’ll learn from one another and possibly have a good old scrap in the process! 

Image Source: FrikiPix.com

This business of music… it troubles me. 

Not for the age old tension between artistic endeavor and monetary gain (which has troubled me for decades) but for the current lack of invention in delivering music to the masses.

At a time when digital channels open up routes to an audience for almost every conceivable genre, we see ever more artists falling back on the tried and trusted promotional routines of the boom years, flogging them to within an inch of their life for increasingly diminishing returns.

If something is irreparably broken, there comes a time to break down and replace it, rather than patching up another hole and convincing oneself that it will hold out for another passage of use. In some cases, the same applies to an entire business model.

“Every act of creation is, first of all, an act of destruction.”

~ Pablo Picasso

Creators Lacking Creativity

For an industry that thrives on the creative spark and connecting with its audience, there is a distinct lack of creativity when it comes to actually marketing music to people. From tired album release cycles to sweeping dismissals of digital business models, the record industry of the 21st century clings doggedly to the practices of decades ago.

Musicians must now apply the same freedom of thought that powers their art to the marketing of their music. 

There are almost no limits now to what you can attempt, in terms of releasing your music and encouraging people to buy into your work with cold, hard cash. Financial constraints may always apply but everything else is up for grabs. Free platforms, publicity, and free access to people have opened up the doors of opportunity, with the biggest decision being which ones to select and where to spend the majority of your most valuable resource, time.

The Past

In the past, a record label held sway over almost every aspect of marketing your music. With distribution of physical product and limited media channels being the main concerns of disseminating music efficiently to fans around the world, getting signed to a label was at the core of every artist’s career plan.

No longer. Most labels are now  the very epitome of the problem at the heart of the music industry; that same unwillingness to accept that the ‘golden age’ of $15+ albums and radio play payola is dead and gone. Not to discount the labels that do seek out innovative new models, which I warmly applaud, but any look at the latest reformed act from those halcyon days, being dragged out for one last milking in the cash cow shed, will bear out the continued focus of mid/major record companies on music marketing past.

That’s the past. And partially the present, which is a frustratingly sullen plod towards the inevitability of a digital music market place, hamstrung at almost every turn by those seeking to turn back the clock. A transition phase that is agonizingly – tantalizingly? – fluctuating between business models old and new. 

The Future

What interests me most is where we can take the release, marketing, and enjoyment of music in the years to come. Let those clinging to the past wallow in declining sales of physical and increasingly ineffective marketing campaigns. As they sink, let us focus our efforts on innovating.

Innovation means improvement. It means introducing better ways of working, through creative thought and testing out ideas. Some will fail, some will be of moderate success. Here and there, though, an idea will be a runaway success and forge a new path for other musicians to follow, like the massive exposure for Daria Musk with her Google+ concerts or Amanda Palmer’s Kickstarter millions.

Yes yes, I know, talk is cheap. Everything I have written thus far is purely conceptual and lacks any practical, actionable advice. Which is why I will now be dedicating every Monday to ‘Music Marketing Matters’ , a series of posts in which I’ll focus on one idea that you can apply to marketing your music, in a way that will help you stand out from the crowd.

I can’t promise success.

I can’t promise a step by step guide to implementing every part of the thoughts that we’ll unpack.

I can promise ideas that will stimulate discussion and help us to move music marketing forward, together.

So jump on the e-mail subscription option to the top left of the page here and we’ll get the ideas rolling from next week. Let me know in the comments if you have an idea you’d like me to spend some time exploring.

Photo Credit: Emma Rodrigues (click pic for site)

‘Artist Answers’ is a weekly feature that will help to deliver one of my three guide words for this year: Serve. I ask some like-minded creative types for their most burning new media questions, then set about providing some insight into the topics it raises.

This week, Parisian-based pop/folk (polk?!) artist Lynette jumps into the fray with a detailed question about Kickstarter campaigns. Currently in the last few days of a campaign on the platform, to fund recording of her debut album – you can listen to her music here and, if you dig, back the campaign here – Lynette asks the following:

“We started our Kickstarter campaign at the same time as a couple of other similar music projects and  noticed that one, with the same $25K target, met their goal sooner than we have. We have 1000+ Facebook “likes” to our Kickstarter page, while this particular project just cleared 800.  With what looks like more Facebook exposure, how could we translate that awareness into the $1-$50 donor level participation?”

Levels & Layers

As with the fluffy adage about a snowflake, no two Kickstarter campaigns are exactly alike. At least, they shouldn’t be, if the artist is truly seeking to build the project around their own particular fans and the community that they represent. That said, it can be more difficult to distinguish campaigns, especially those related to music, at the lower levels of rewards.

One of the crucial factors is to layer rewards so that each one offers something just a little sweeter than the last. Find the balance between having too many, which can overload a potential backer (paralysis by analysis), and creating enough to suit a number of single and  double digit level backers. The difference between just $10-15 is larger than it seems in this region, so be sure to throw in neat flourishes that will encourage and excite your backers.

Above all, focus on injecting these levels of your campaign with fun and making it accessible to all who wish to support you. Focus on the “every pledge counts!” mantra and show that you value each reward, by weaving some of your (soon to be) famed creativity into each level.

Some examples of neat little extras at these lower levels, that can be achieved with minimal expense to yourself, might include:

• Handwritten, personalized thank you notes,
• A link to their web presence and thanks for donating,
• A blog post on your site, about or including the backer,
• Smaller merchandise items, such as stickers, tattoos, pins, drink koozies etc,
• Oddball random items of your own that are limited in number…song notes, guitar picks…I know someone who gave away socks used in the update video…. (you know who you are

Let the Music Play…

Of course, in all of the excitement about personalized rewards and creative merchandise, it can be easy to forget about the music.

Don’t! 

Your music is the crucial element of these lower reward levels, as it will be the core of what draws people in to support you. Plan to weave as many of your songs as possible into the fabric of your campaign video, project updates, social network promotions, and, of course, the end reward outputs.

Some additional thoughts:

• At the very entry level rewards, up to $10, find ways to include perhaps a song or some advance streaming, so that not only those that pledge at the full album reward levels are included in the musical side,

• Remember that you can send exclusive updates to just the project backers, something that you can communicate in the reward levels, so those who have not yet pledged understand that they get the inside track on the development of your songs once they back you,

• Including exclusive previews of music can be exciting to media outlets such as blogs or local press, furthering your reach into their audiences and potentially bringing in curious new listeners, willing to back at the lower levels to explore further,

• Your existing fans will likely pledge at a level that gets them the full album, regardless of the lower rewards. This effectively acts as a pre-order facility. Newer listeners, perhaps even first timers, however, often need an easier entry point. This  means staggering the music you have available so that they can listen to some for free, get on board, then commit at whichever reward point gets them the music they desire,

• Also remember that once someone pledges, you have them on your updates list and they can be reached with new music, notifications, and any new rewards that you choose to add. This can be a useful way to bring new listeners into the fold, then persuade them to a larger pledge as their relationship with you and and your music develops.

A Note on Facebook

And Your Good Self?

Content.

Is.

King!

We’ve all heard how crucial – royal, indeed – content is to building a strong web presence, especially across social media, so I won’t retread the same old ground on that subject.

Rather, I’d like to zoom in on the preparation and execution of that content, in order to improve its allure for newbie and longstanding visitors alike.

8 Tips To Tailor Your Content

Here are eight tips to tailor your content for a more in depth, satisfying read that elicits return value for your audience:

• Prep your subject matter early, then revisit - Don’t just jump into an idea as you start writing the final post; note it down, expand upon it by brain storming or reading around the subect and adding to your own thoughts. Then leave it and come back when you’re ready to write. Do this for multiple subjects as you prep and you can line up a number of articles in one sitting. This Social Media Examiner article has excellent practical tips for this purpose.

• Define a take-away point for readers before you write – As with brain storming the subject, having a final summary thought that you want your audience to take from you article is key. It not only makes your content more memorable (and likely to be shared) but it helps to guide your final writing, keeping it on point of the final message.

• “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.” – Okay, that’s four tips in one point… just call it value for your attention. Leo Burnett, an early advertising pioneer, had this to say at the start of the 1900′s and it rings just as true about your content today. Don’t over-complicate the topic and send people off confused, looking for a more understandable source to inform them. Even subjects that are inherently complex can be kept simple to read, assuming a certain level of existing knowledge within your audience. Someone writing about website coding, for example, can reasonably expect their audience to understand the basics if they search for an article on detailed programming. Simplicity also extends into the following concepts of good formatting and entertaining writing, as you won’t get too bogged down in difficult language or detail.

• Vary tone and type - Keep your audience coming back for more by alternating the types of content you post. A series of dry, technical posts, for example, could get monotonous and would benefit from being broken up by something more light-hearted like a poll or amusing takes on your specialist subject. Whether it’s something you create or simply sharing the work of someone else, be sure to offer your readers a variety of content to keep them engaged.

• Involve and engage your reader – Although you’re creating the content, using it to connect to readers across social media is a two way street. Find ways to make your articles interactive, by asking questions through the post and at the end for example, encouraging readers to reflect on their own perspective on the subject matter. You could also ask for links to other articles they’ve read or content they themselves have created, increasing the collaborative nature of your work and making links back to it more likely. Another technique is to leave ideas open-ended, prompting free discussion in your comments sections.

• Find your voice – This may take a number of posts but the more you write your own content, the more your ‘voice’ – your unique combination of style and passion for your subject – will shine through. Solicit plenty of feedback from family, friends, and colleagues of varied personalities to better understand how your content is received. Don’t force it too much, but think about your target audience and how best you can adapt your voice to keep them entertained and informed.

• Write first, keyword later – Although your content will naturally gravitate towards certain keywords and phrases of your subject, avoid getting bogged down with the need to include these terms initially. This will only interrupt your flow and make the task longer. Instead, return to your final draft once you’re finished and put on your search engine optimization (SEO) hat. With a list of your keywords (usually already compiled if you have a website) in hand, aim to sprinkle those that are appropriate equally around 10-15% of the content. More on this aspect to come here in future posts (see next point!)

• Follow up – Rather than simply posting your content and wishing it bon voyage, return regularly to review/reply to comments and add further thoughts or links on the subject. Chris Brogan’s “oldie but a goodie” article on 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content provides some helpful pointers for this in the ‘Encore’ section.

So in essence this boils down to preparing your topics before you dive into the content creation stage, having a clear direction in mind as you create it, using your own passion to make the subject matter memorable and engaging, and finally checking back to further the conversation surrounding what you have created.

Master these crucial areas and everything else will begin to fall into place. Happy creating!

Have you been able to establish an effective routine for creating your content?

What tips would you offer others just starting out?

Photo Credit: Luciano Zanardo

Mobile.

Mobile Means More

Photo Credit: Johann Larson

It’s no secret that people are demanding exponentially more from their mobile phones than ever before.

Back to Basics

As a first step, it’s high time to ensure that your mobile web presence is at least an accessible version of your main website. Happily, this isn’t too tough to achieve if you’re using the right platforms.

WordPress, for example, has several plug ins that will do the basic job for you. My picks would be WordPress Mobile Pack or Wapple Architect, but you can explore any of the popular plugins listed under search term “mobile wordpress” to see which results you prefer.

For other platforms:

- Blogger will move you mobile at the flick of a switch. Simply visit your blog home page, click on the ‘Template’ section, then customize the mobile theme to your preferred settings.

- Tumblr offers a similar feature, buried down under Preferences (cog icon) > Customize Your Blog > Advanced > check the box for ‘Use optimized mobile layout’

- For standard hosted websites, you can investigate freemium tools such as Mobify and Onbile. These allow you to create a mobile version of your site based upon pre-defined themes that they provide, albeit with advertising and/or limitations under the free offerings. Be sure to test out any that you choose on a variety of devices to ensure that the look you’re going for has been achieved, especially before you consider a paid upgrade.

The goal here is to have a version of your site that allows mobile users to access the key areas with minimal navigation. This will give you useful practice in road testing your site on your own smart phone and those of others. If you find yourself scrolling all over the place or zooming in and out, it’s back to the drawing board for another try!

Next Steps

One you have this broad base for those surfing to your site on the go, you can begin to explore the more exciting elements of the mobile web.

Just what constitutes exciting for you at this point depends on your art form. Integration with apps, mobile-only content (art as wallpaper for the phone, for example), conversions specific to smartphone users (e.g. one click purchase from their preferred vendor), or many other possibilities exist for your exploration.

To give you some inspiration for each potential creative style,  I recommend investigating the following resources for starters:

The Long Haul

Mainstream smartphone adoption is almost here, yet many of us – the writer included – are lagging behind in making their web presence a user friendly experience for visitors, let alone an outstanding one.

The time to move towards mobile is NOW!

By getting your bearings now you set up for creating a mobile web presence that will get you noticed in the future.

Think about your fans…

• How do they want to access your art on the go?

• What can you add to make this a quick and simple process?

• And how can you capture that all important visitor data that will allow you to communicate with them further, building the fan-artist relationship?

All of these are questions that should be answered sooner rather than later, developing your creator platform to work harder for you as fan habits adapt to the ever more accessible mobile web. We’ve barely even touched upon mobile traffic drivers such as QR codes and app-based access here, by the way, so expect more detail on those areas in the near future. 

Over To You…

Are you already optimized for the mobile web or does the whole thing fill you with dread? What do you most need help with?

And fans, what do you want to see from the artists you follow online? What would make your mobile experience that much better?

As always, your comments are truly valued, either below thanks to the good folks at LiveFyre or over on our slowly developing Facebook page.

Weigh in!