How can I promote my Mumford and Sons Fan Group?

Question

I have created years ago a Mumford and Sons Facebook Fan Page from Portugal and I would like to promote the Fan Group. I also created other accounts in other Social Networks, as well as Tweeter (MandSPortugal), Tumbler, etc, but currently are not having high visibility.

The target group I want to achieve is the young essentially layer between 20 and 30, but also intend to achieve the full range of fans of all ages.

At last I created some Facebook campaigns that have had some success but not the desired success. At this point I consider that being the band Mumford and Sons to do concerts in Portugal of around 2500 fans that I should have at least this amount of people to follow the Facebook page.

I am also thinking of creating a web page in CMS (Wordpress, etc...) so that my team can manage the contents and I can manage both, the team as content. Now, I do not know if this is justified, for I know few cases of web pages bands fans and have never had access to anyone has developed.

How can I promote the Fan Group the best way?

Answer 1

Your question is quite broad. I'll copy and paste you an answer of another question which is essentially the same: How can my community grow?

Now we'll head to the disappointing part. Even if you do everything right, you are available, you are open to your community, you can still be not able to succeed. The chances are against you. The biggest factor in community growth is luck. I could list you a lot of start-ups which weren't able to attract customers, they had to reboot several times.

Administering and moderating a community is about your actions, how you interact with your community, how you reward, how you punish. Growth of a community has two factors: your actions and the luck of being discovered. And luck is the heavier factor here.

One positive thing in the end: You'll grow eventually, even if you don't show qualitative videos or streams, there still are people who are attracted to lower quality. You'll grow in the end. How fast is bound to the results of your actions and the odds. And the best thing: As you're getting more and more famous, they factor of luck is steadily decreasing. By getting your name out there, you aren't too depended on luck anymore.

Community growth is something based on luck. There are a lot of methods but you have to realize that your idea is among many others ideas. There are a lot of bytes in the internet, and you are a normal byte as everyone else.

At this point I consider that being the band Mumford and Sons to do concerts in Portugal of around 2500 fans that I should have at least this amount of people to follow the Facebook page.

This assumption isn't right. Although concerts are visited by 2500 people, it doesn't mean that 2500 people use Facebook. Even in this time and age, there are people who don't use social networks because they simply don't like them. Facebook has 1.44 billion monthly active users (March 2015). At an estimated world population of 7.3 billion humans, that just one fifth. So, among five people, there's one using Facebook. This means that just 500 people on a concert actually use Facebook.

Of course, I'll add that you are in a developed country where the use of Facebook is more popular. So, let's say 1700 people who visit the concert use Facebook, it's highly unlikely that they all know of your Facebook page if you're not an official associate of the band. And even if you are an official associate of the band, it doesn't mean that you will gain 1700 likes / followers. There are active, not so active and inactive users. These kind of users have to be added in your calculations, so you'll most likely have around 1400 users. That's also the figure of your current likes.

You also have to consider that there are people who like the music but wouldn't describe themselves as "fans". Fandom is a matter of subjectivity, and there are many ways to express gratitude or obsession through fandom. Not everyone wants to be part of a fan community. How often have you come across someone who claimed that he just is a fan although he's obviously showing obsessive and stalking behaviour? Too often. And this is a negative image of fandom which is widely known. It can harm your growth.

You have to define what kind of fandom you tolerate and accept. By getting away from obsessive and stalking ideas, you'll be able to make your target audience more broad. But you'll also lose these hard-core fans who can contribute to the community in a good way, too. It's just not their way to be in such a casual community. It's a trade-off.

Besides all of that, you have a solid number of likes. 1400 is pretty good considering that the band doesn't seem to be that popular. Even if just 500 people of your fan page visit concerts consecutively, you have reached one fifth of the people attending the concert, meaning that you have achieved a success out of a statistical view. Just keep up your work, and you'll grow alongside the popularity of the band.

(I guess it's worth to mention that you can lose users at any time if the band is pulling of some bad things. Not everyone wants to be connected to a band which has done some bad things.)

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I just want to add a quick thought: I think that communities which were created around the term fandom are doomed from the very beginning. They may flourish really well but someday, well, who is this person? Somewhen, there's probably nothing or nobody to be a fan of.

Answer 2

You want "the full range of fans" but don't seem to know the qualities of that range of fans. Even if everyone is truly a potential Mumford and Sons fan, there is a difference between being open to everyone and targeting everyone. You can either cater to the core demographic and use that momentum to attract the rest of the fandom, or you can try to cater to everyone and end up satisfying no-one.

You're trying to have a presence on a full range of social platforms as well but have you thought at all about what the platforms have to offer?

1. What do you, as the group administrator, need out of a platform? Your own familiarity and comfort with a platform will let you produce more content and participate in more dialogue.
2. What do the members of your group need out of a platform? Music fandom = multimedia features. Easy sharing of hosted videos, for example.
3. What do the fans of the group need out of a platform? Here's where it's important to understand the core demo—are they casual users or techies? Do they get their content from an app, a mobile browser, a full-featured browser? Where do they read and share news about their interests?

You're not going to get very far if you try to be on every platform and speak directly to every fan. The above list is in order of importance; you need to focus on what enables you to contribute most and best, then on what supports and satisfies the existing group, and finally on what will help bring more people in.

It's clear from your question that you want to prioritize the 20-something demographic and the Facebook platform. In which case, the thing to do is focus on building that page rather than stretching yourself and your members across many platforms. Create and share content and use it to start a dialogue between the page (you) and its followers. The whole point of marketing/outreach on social media is that these platforms are basically weaponized word of mouth.

Make the members you already have so excited about what you're giving them that they will grow the group for you. Shut out the hype about whatever other platforms you're not comfortable on, unless you can identify something really important offered by that platform that you're not getting on Facebook.