Do Your Fans Even Care About You?! Passive vs Active Listeners and what that means!
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So I had this thought the other day when comparing the band I played in my solo music and some stats stood out to me. Even though my solo music gets about double the streams in a month, my band is getting more followers consistently.
Even though it’s getting half the streams, half as many people are listening to it but it’s getting more followers. So because of the stats I pulled up, it really started making me think, “what is a passive listener base versus an active listener base?”
Another thing I found interesting was the amount of streams it takes to get one save and this is where the whole passive versus active fan base listener thought popped in my head.
So what I did is I pulled the two top performing songs one from the band and one for my solo music. For my solo music it’s a song called Morning, for the band it’s a cover of Billie Eilish’s, You Should See Me In A Crown. And for the band every 18.5 listens garners one save. Which to me, I think that’s a good ratio… it seems like it’s a really good ratio? So every 18 and a half listeners or streams someone goes, “yes I enjoy this song enough that I’ll like it”, and they engage and they hit that like button. I think that’s pretty good. I’d be curious to hear what your ratio is! So let me know in the comments on the video!
Anyways, jumping over to my solo music, every 31 streams gets me one save and again before pulling these numbers I thought that would seem like a pretty good ratio as well. If you were to ask me, you know before looking at this information, what would be a good ratio, I’d say maybe one out of a hundred? So both of these numbers I think are solid but like I said before it’s interesting the band outperforms my solo music when it comes to saves per listens.
But like I said I find it so interesting that the band strongly outperforms my solo music when it comes to streams equaling a save, so it got me thinking… most people I feel listen to my music when they’re at home, relaxing at a spa, in yoga class ,something where it’s more of a passive way of listening to music. Where I feel like the band you’re going to be looking up you want. Something that’s vocal driven that you’re going to the gym to listen to or going for a run. I feel it’s something you seek out more. I don’t know if that strictly comes down to being a vocal driven type of music and then having my solo music be instrumental? So that’s where the whole idea of a passive fan base and an active fan base started rolling around in my head.
Is it good or bad to have a passive fan base?
So my thought is I feel like most of the music we consume is passively. You know, think of tv and film unless it’s a big hit song, most of the scenes music is kind of just secondary but it plays a super important role. When you go to the store, if you’re at the spa, you’re in yoga class. I feel like those are ways to really passively consume music. Now do I think a passive fan base is better than active…? Probably not. Knowing that an active fan base will seek your music out and engage with it more often. Not saying that if you have a passive fan base they won’t do that. But on Spotify for example I think a lot of my streams come from just having my music on in the background. I do think people seek it out and listen to it but I feel more people seek out and listen to my band’s music.
Can you be successful if you see your fan base as a passive fan base? Absolutely I believe that you just go down the Spotify rabbit hole and look at all these different instrumental bands that are “background music” and look at how many monthly listeners they have and how many streams they have. They’re clearly doing something right! Maybe they’ve done something different? Maybe they’ve taken that “background music”, that instrumental music, and put a face to it and now it’s more of an active fan base that will follow them because it’s not just noises and music.
And that’s how I think you might be able to take your fan base and make them more active. Is if you give them something to look at. When they’re listening to certain music and there’s vocals, that’s something for them to grab onto. I feel like a lot of people who listen to music don’t necessarily grab onto instrumentals the way they do vocal driven music. But if you don’t have any vocals, how can you put a face to the music? Run ads and run the type of ads that will make it seem like there’s someone or some people behind the music.
Give them a reason to be an active fan.
These are all things I’m thinking about and wanting to do with my music.
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- Shot & Edited by: Zach Wirchak
Zach Wirchak 