How To Build An Audience Of Millions Of Fans

today we're going to talk about how the

largest artists in the world built their

audiences from scratch and how you can

do the same today's topic is what these

artists understand more than most they

are Masters at growing Their audience

and keeping their fans for life all by

understanding the psychology of their

fans and what drives them to follow and

engage if you want to grow your audience

to the level of some of these artists

you're going to need the knowledge from

today's topic because from the business

perspective of your artist project the

size of your audience finds a lot the

bigger the audience you have of real

fans the bigger everything in your

artist career becomes bigger shows

larger fees better slots more dates more

money better lifestyle most artists will

just blindly make things and share

things Without Really knowing the fans

and why their fans are following them

knowing why someone is motivated to

follow you not only deepens your

understanding of them but sets up a game

where you can build a real relationship

with them and deliver on your side of

the relationship even if you never meet

if you can understand this and make good

on the promise of your side of the

relationship you can grow your audience

as large as you

want now who am I to even discuss this I

have a longer video on the neighborhood

Art Supply channel that goes further

into my backstory but I'm Chris Alba I

own a niche creative agency called The

Cult creatives we've done tens of

millions of dollars in business over the

last decade and we've worked with many

household names in the music world as

well as Fortune 500 companies and Brands

we've been blessed to help build

hundreds of Brands and craft thousands

of brand stories and have been lucky

enough to have the real world experience

of what works and what doesn't when it

comes to brand and storytelling I was a

music artist and a creative maker of

things before I ever started cult so it

was by living first the life of an

artist and then living another life

where I was helping artists and creative

teams where many of the things I now

talk about came to light so in this

video I'm going to lay out all you need

to know to both attract new people to

your music and then how to keep them for

Life once you understand these simple

Concepts it will profoundly change how

you approach growing and maintaining

your audience we're going to hopefully

make this easy to follow so let's get

into it people follow other people in

their stories that's a fact the better

the Storyteller the better someone

conveys their position in story and the

better they are at bringing awareness to

their story the more people will follow

the reason people follow stories goes

back to our need to survive as a species

the human brain is wired to hear stories

and can help serve the hierarchy of our

needs I won't spend a bunch of time

going through this on this video there

are really great videos out there on

maso's hierarchy of needs but at a high

level it looks like this priority number

one is physiological needs air water

food shelter basic survival needs

priority number two is safety needs

things that are needed for basic safety

money employment resources Health Etc

priority three is love and belonging so

friendship intimacy family connection

priority number four is esteem so things

like respect self-esteem status

recognition strength freedom and then

priority number five is

self-actualization this is living life

to your greatest potential living inside

of your true self and the reason these

are laid out on a pyramid is that

normally Priority One needs to be met

before you can move up to the next level

of priority 2 priority 3 and so on so

when humans hear stories the brain is

looking for how the story can be used to

serve its own needs early humans told

other early human stories so an example

of an early human story might be so I

was walking the other day in the forest

and I was by the part of the lake where

there's no trees and I saw an angry bear

he seemed very upset and hungry so I ran

before he could see me the person

hearing this story is 100% paying

attention to this one because he doesn't

want to get eaten by a bear and now he

knows where to avoid and two the person

told him what to do if you see a bear

run another example of an early human

story might be a single guy telling a

single woman a story about his bravery

so he goes I was trying to protect our

tribe from these other people who are

trying to come and steal our animals I

hope I fought bravely as our tribe means

everything to me and so the woman

hearing the story is again listening

with two sets of ears one set is hearing

that there's danger there are evil

people out there that are trying to take

our animals and hurt our tribe and then

the other set of ears is hearing and if

he's willing to put himself on the line

to protect us he would also protect me

and that makes me feel safe so maybe I

like this guy so our ancestors told

stories and those stories played into

our basic human needs and this has been

happening for centuries and we are still

playing this game today the only

difference is how stories are told the

reasons why we listen and ultimately why

we follow the Storyteller are the same

now before I get into the exact reasons

of why somebody might follow an artist

project let me preface two things first

people may only follow for one reason

but they may follow for multiple reasons

and it isn't always just one it's often

a more powerful connection for the brain

when there are more than one re reason

to follow second when applying this to

artists all these reasons usually

accompany the fact that they also like

the art if it's music they also like the

music so it's the combination of both

they like the music and one of these or

a couple of these things are happening

on top of liking that music okay so what

are the reasons there are seven main

reasons why somebody will follow another

reason number one people follow because

they are sexually or romantically

attracted to a person they imagine

theirself with the person and this

lights up the synapses in their brain

before we had technology we were in

small tribes of people and it was rare

to find somebody that lit up your mind

this way as a potential mate it is

inherently part of the survival

mechanism in our brain to recognize this

we as people are wired to need love

companionship intimacy and sex so we are

pre-programmed to find people to have

these kinds of relationships with and

even if we are in a relationship

unfortunately this part of our brain

doesn't show off what we do with the

information changes if we're in a

relationship but the wiring is still

there and there's a lot of people I'm

sure that would argue this particular

point and say no as soon as I got with

my significant other that completely

shut off in my brain and that may be

true but a lot of what I'm talking about

is science-backed where they've done

studies with people who are in

relationships not in relationships and

when they see something they're

attracted to it lights up different

parts of their brain reason number two I

want my life to be like this person 's

life I want to be like this person it's

aspirational and inspiring to watch them

consciously or subconsciously I want to

be them and live the life that they're

living this goes back to the survival

part of the brain looking at someone who

has a life that you want and using their

story as a model for what you're trying

to achieve in your own life this doesn't

necessarily need to be a life filled

with wealth and stuff sometimes artists

who are down to earth and kind have a