”Follow my band and i follow yours?”
”I add your band to my playlist if you post a screenshot of you following it”
Follow for follow campaigns..
Does this make any sense to you?
Let me tell you why this doesn’t make any sense to me.
What we are discussing are growing the platforms with numbers.
The usual misconception is that you ”boost” your career getting high following numbers. The more people liking your page, the more will see your content! But, what if they don’t care?
Here’s my view on quantity and quality.
Facebook (and others) have over the year drastically reduced the visible amount of content on your feed. It’s just too ”fed up” and there are all too much information to handle for a users wall.
A common number is that 10% (or less) of people liking your page will actually see your posts.
But the more engagement (likes, comments, shares) your post are receiving, the more of your followers will see your post. People who continuously engage with your content will have your content higher up in their feed to increase the chances of them seeing it. (This is what you want to achieve).
This applies in different ways on different platforms. Algorithms being the most known aspect of why engagement is important. Pushing your post to more people in feeds, explore pages or by adding your track to a playlist.
More engagement means:
- Your content rates higher in your followers feed
- The algorithm notices and push you out to more - Explore (ig) - Discover weekly (Spotify)
- People actually care and wants to see your content (fan building)
- You can use your insights to target more potential fans when running ads
Being persistent with your content creation and marketing will eventually get you followers who want to follow you because of what you do.
This will be a part of the long build, the consistent, solid, build.
Often overlooked by wanting to achieve numbers. The ”lifetime” fans are why there can be a possible ROI (return of investment). The stats are how you can find more people that could be a potential lifetime fan. The stats let you reduce the cost per conversion on ads and a BIG part of your marketing strategy. Follow for follow doesn’t benefit to this.
Any reasons to do follow for follows then?
Well, technically you get on the release radar of every person who follows you on Spotify. That can trigger the algorithms to your benefit. Or, they won’t listen to your track, skip the track and the save rate (amount of listens/saves) will be low. In this case. It won’t benefit you. Engaged fans is the key once again!
Another reason would be that you want to achieve the 10k following on instagram to get the ”swipe up” feature. Again, let’s be honest. Doing 10k follow for follows would dig you deep down a harmful funnel as your engagement would be awfully poor regarding the following numbers.
A person who are close to 10k wouldn’t need a follow for follow as they obviously got content people like to follow.
I see lots of posts on social media where a Spotify curator adds anyone who follows his/hers playlist. Same issue applies. High number, no engagement. This is likely to enable the curator to gain leverage either by being able to sign up to places like Submithub, making playlist exchanges with other musicians claiming theirs to be successful or (the worst) charging for placements once the playlist reaches a certain amount of followers.
The conclusion comes downs to not look solely at the shell. I know, it looks successful. But it is short term and not consistent. Build healthy and with a plan.
Making good content and smart marketing will eventually pay off.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint!