Most artists try to build a fanbase without paying attention to the structural frame they’re providing their audience with. In this video, we strip away the fluff and look at the structural DNA of a thriving community. If you want to build something that feels alive, resonates with people, and grows organically, consider the structure of the space you’re creating.

🕒 TIMESTAMPS

0:00 – Intro

0:59 – Two key elements: WHAT? and WHERE?

4:10 – Considerations about your WHERE

8:40 – Nurturing your Community

10:08 – Outro

The 2 key elements: WHAT and WHERE

The WHAT describes the shared identity among your community members. If you’re building a fanbase, the shared identity is going to be unique to the music you put out and the story you tell. Your fans may resonate with your message, your vibe, your values and really dig your music.

The WHERE is where your community lives. What’s the home base where your community members engage with the WHAT? Where do they engage with each other? Where do you nurture and build intimacy? This can be unclear and scattered for many artists, because by virtue of what we do – make music – the spaces in which we share our music traditionally have been in the hands of other people. But what if you took ownership of your own community space?

There are a two main considerations I wanna give you, if you’re starting to build your community or fanbase:

• Who owns the relationship between you and your community members?

If you mainly try to connect with an audience through streaming platforms or social media, the relationship between you and your followers is really owned by those platforms. If they make any changes, your relationships may be impacted or even lost. So ask yourself, how you can build connections in a more independent way.

• What infrastructure does your homebase offer?

The infrastructure enables the way your community interacts, the level of intimacy it can develop and how easily it can grow. I personally use a newsletter to connect directly to fans. But a newsletter is very limited for real community building. There are many ways and many platforms you can explore, like Patreon, Ko-fi, Substack or even messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. Ask yourself: What do you want your space to facilitate?

Nurturing your community

Once you have clarity around your WHAT and WHERE, you just need to nurture your community

Nurturing your community will look different depending on what the community is built around. But here are a couple of questions to consider how to nurture it in a sustainable way: How do you want to show up regularly and engage with your community? What do you enjoy doing most?

Whatever it is you do to nurture your community, make sure it’s something you can do on a regular basis. A community takes time to grow and develop!

I hope this was helpful! I’ll see you again next week 🙂

Happy songwriting,

Sonj