Do you know your fans as well as you think you do?

Some fans know everything from the words to your songs to your favorite food, but do you really know them? And what really qualifies someone to be more than just a listener?

from ArtistVerified

A lot has been written about how to verify who is indeed a fan of a music artist and to what degree. One prominent company has decided to use the term “Verified Fan” based entirely around the sole determination that if an attempted purchase is not being made by an algorithm or bot, then indeed, the buyer must be a fan. There are many other platforms which have established a “blue tick” verification process for users, in some cases the associated processes are robust, in other cases, you can simply buy the verified status by paying a monthly subscription.

But not so fast…

At the core, what is a fan?

Let’s take a step back and try to understand what is required to determine whether a person is indeed a fan. The first thing we must do is agree on what defines a fan. Wikipedia cites Merriam-Webster, the Oxford dictionary and other sources to define “fan” as a shortened version of the word fanatic. Fanatic itself, introduced into English around 1550, means “marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion”. In contemporary terms, a fan is someone who is a passionate admirer of someone or something, usually a celebrity, artist or sports team.

Fans and tickets

If we’re all in agreement on what the word means, we next need to quantify what exactly it means to be considered a fan. Is it someone who listens to a song a lot? Is it someone who has purchased a concert ticket or multiple concert tickets? Is it someone who follows an artist on socials? Short answer: maybe?

When it comes to ticketing and the data on ticket-buying behaviour equating to fandom, there are a number of issues to consider, especially (but not exclusively) in the music industry. First, the prevalence of resellers. The fact is, even if a ticketing company can block bots, there are still vast amounts of people who purchase tickets with the sole intent to re-sell the tickets for a significant profit. So, though not a bot, is this person a fan? Definitely not.

Next, we need to consider that often the person purchasing concert tickets for some of the most popular acts in music are in fact parents of fans. Are the parents fans? In a few cases, possibly. In most cases, the opposite, they simply are a necessary over-age and payment-capable conduit for tickets to be provided to fans. Finally, consider the fact that the average number of tickets sold per order is somewhere between 2 and 3. For every ticket purchased for a concert, there are likely 1.5 people going that the ticketing company has no data on.

Based on all of this, if you are a music artist and a ticketing company tells you they know who your fans are, understand that the number of actual fanswho purchased tickets in the initial onsale whom they have data on is likely somewhere around 10%-15% of total concert attendees. The reality is that most artists playing arenas look out at an adoring audience and they have no idea who those people are.

So what about fans and streaming?

Streaming is another beast when it comes to determining fandom. The main issue with streaming and fandom lies with the mechanism by which artists are compensated. It’s based on stream count. And while its widely known how little artists are paid per-stream, what we may not all know is that billions of the streams that take place on DSPs are not legitimate plays. Playlist promotion companies charge artists to be added to playlists that are simply run by multiple computers with multiple browsers playing the playlist on repeat. Not real listeners. The promotion companies add popular songs by major artists to the playlists in order to appear legitimate and potentially get a real listener to stumble across the playlist. On top of this, many streaming services offer family streaming plans or people share accounts with friends. The account holder may have vastly different tastes than the person listening.

And that’s before we consider that streaming services do not provide artists with individually resolvable data on their listeners. At best, an artist gets precanned reports that gives rolled up data.

So again, if you’re an artist and a streaming service tells you they know who your fans are, remember that it’s not that simple.

Fans in social commerce

Merchandise may be a little more transparent as a measure of fandom. If someone purchases a t-shirt, the likelihood is it’s either a fan, a parent or someone gifting the shirt. Let’s say potentially 50% of purchasers are the actual fans.

What about social media? If we follow someone on social media, does that make us a fan? Short answer: possibly? It’s not a huge commitment to click “follow”. In fact, it’s not a commitment to anything other than possibly seeing posts from that artist. Most people follow numerous music artists on social media that they wouldn’t support by attending a show or buying a merch item. Streaming a song? Maybe. Maybe not. And the biggest issue with social media platforms and determining fandom is that the platforms aren’t designed for fan engagement, they’re designed for selling ads and clicks.

Music artists who spend money targeting a sub-sect of users on a social media platform that they hope are fans should bear in mind that of these targeted users, only a small percentage of those that actually see your ad are likely in-fact true fans.

So what?

Where does all of that leave us in verifying a fan of a music artist?

We arrive at the understanding that it’s not any one activity or engagement channel alone that defines fandom. It’s a combination of activity and engagement which is unique to every individual fan; on multiple platforms and in any number of ways and degrees. Establishing a measurement therefore requires minimally 2 things. First, a unique digital identity must be established by cross-referencing account data used across multiple platforms. Second, there must be an aggregation mechanism to connect cross-platform activity and engagement to that digital identity. Only then can you begin to accurately identify, or indeed verify, a fan.

In a perfect world, that aggregate digital identity could be owned and controlled by the actual human being such that they could be rewarded for their fandom. And if the fan shares their digital identity with the artists they love, those artists could start aggregating engagement data tied to an actual fan that they could then use to organically grow their fan relationship and ultimately their career longevity.

At ArtistVerified, we’re building a solution that provides music fans with an identity service that rewards them for their fandom, and provides artists with the means to really understand who their fans are and engage more authentically with them while protecting their brand and IP across Web2 and into Web3. If you’re interested, please visit us at: https://artistverified.com