Sell Your Music With A Tweet
Just to be clear, I don’t have a magic potion to instantly get you $5,000 and millions of fans over night. Sorry to disappoint.
But I do want to show you how one artist may have received $5,000 with a tweet and how you can do the same.
Enter Kanye West
If you don’t know him already, Kanye West is a big personality in the rap scene. He’s not afraid to say anything. Really.
Wait! Before you hit that close button give me a chance to explain.
Kanye always has an opinion. Because he’s so ‘outspoken’ (a very understated statement) he’s gained a massive following on twitter – @kanyewest .
Here’s a look at what his account looks like as of July, 12, 2012:
Kanye is looking not too shabby with his near 8 million twitter followers.
Here’s where it gets interesting. On his official website www.kanyewest.com he’s started to sell singles without the help of iTunes or any other online music distributor.
Here’s what the check out screen looks like:
How Kanye West made his $5,000 from his tweet
I specifically looked at his song, Cold, because last April he sent out this tweet:
Kanye notified his fan list that his song was available for download. Nothing too pushy but it was straight to the point.
Let’s see how much he potentially earned at $1.29/song.
Breaking it down:
Kanye West Followers = 7,909,534
According to Social Skinny, the average % of those who will click on twitter links are 1.17% (if this seems low it isn’t, from my online marketing experience this is on average with many other click through rates).
7,909,534 followers x 1.17% = 92,541 page visits
That leaves us with 92,541 going through to Kanye’s website to listen to the song.
From my experience we could probably expect only 5% of those to actually make a purchase.
92,541 page visits x 5% = 4,627 singles sold
With 4,627 singles sold we now calculate how much he made in total.
4,627 singles x $1.29/song = $5,968
He made $5,968 from one tweet!
Yup, I said $5,000 because it was a nice round number. I would have said $6,000 but it’s not. And I don’t want to lie to you.
These calculations are being really conservative and it only counts for his twitter list. He could have said something on facebook, tumblr or anywhere he has fans online.
$5,000 may be pocket change for him but something you may want to consider.
I’m not as popular as Kanye…yet
Yeah, I get it, Kanye is a big mega star with an established label so he can do whatever he wants. He has momentum.
Agreed. But he has pressures from his side in what he can/cannot do. I can guarantee you that the £5000 tweet didn’t go straight to him. There’s so many layers, marketing departments, labels, etc… it gets divided into.
The amazing thing is you get to control your music destiny and everything you earn most likely will all go back to YOU. How great is that?
So How Can I Do It?
If you already have an audience from any of your social networks: Facebook, Google+, Youtube, Twitter, MySpace, etc… drive them towards a central location and get them on to your list.
If you don’t start building your list from these social networks then you better get on it (I’ll get on to how to increase your fan base on these networks in another article later).
After they are up, try to drive them towards your website to bring together all of your fans.
The moral of this story is that lists are a powerful thing. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and other social networks will help you generate your list. The key is to get them all in one place.
Once your fans opt in, they give you the permission to communicate with them which can lead to this and other successes.
This is no quick over night fix, it will take time and dedication. Just know that if it were easy everyone would be doing it.
Persistence paves the way for success – failures are just pot holes and bumps along the way.
You hear that? Your fans are waiting.
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