Offering exclusive content to a certain group of customers is an old and often used idea, and it can be a very effective way of doing business if you use it right. A recent successful example of this in the music industry is U2’s song Wave of Sorrow, which was exclusively released through online social music network iLike and accompanied with Bono’s interview. The result was a massive amount of new iLike users, who are now following U2’s latest news and events via iLike Music Feed, and a lot of free publicity for U2. In this article I try to explore how independent artists can use exclusivity to market their music and to keep their fan base more active.

Knowing your audience is crucial for any artist. A while ago ReverbNation announced a new feature on their social network called Fan Exclusives, which allows artists to offer some of their songs exclusively to “real fans”. By real fans ReverbNation refers to people, who sign up to the artist’s mailing list and provide some information about themselves (age, gender and location). If an artist chooses to offer exclusive songs to fans, non-fan listeners can only listen to 30-second teasers of the exclusive songs. The idea itself is good, and it might actually work pretty well for some better known artists, but I’m not so sure if it’s functional for unestablished artists.

Musicians can use exclusive content for various purposes: to create hype, to get more information about their fans, to get more people on their mailing list, to recruit more people to their street team, etc. However it is important to understand that the strategies that work for international rock stars don’t usually work so well for emerging artists, who are still finding their audience. If an unknown band would release one of their songs exclusively via iLike the effect would most likely be quite different than on U2’s case. In fact, offering songs exclusively through certain channels can have an indirect negative impact on the spreading of your music, because you are at the same time restricting the spreading of your music, which is something that unestablished artists should most definitely avoid. Besides, nowadays your music will most probably end up being distributed freely through peer-to-peer and BitTorrent networks. The free sharing culture on the Internet is blossoming and exclusivity doesn’t fit in the picture so well.

Exclusive interaction vs. exclusive content

So, how can independent musicians, who have only a small fan base or none at all, use exclusivity as a marketing tactic? The trick in my view is to offer something special to fans, which can remain exclusive. For example, if there is enough demand your songs end up in free distribution very quickly, whether you like it or not. The same thing can happen to all your exclusive videos, pictures and basically anything that can be copied and shared. Exclusivity works best if the content you are offering stays exclusive, which is rather an impossible equation in the online environment. Instead of digital content, you could offer interaction – more specifically, exclusive interaction.

You could for example share your Messenger user name or your Skype user name with every fan, who signs up to your mailing list. Instant messaging is in my humble opinion better way to build a relationship with your fans than sending emails. I believe that “true fans” appreciate communication with the artist much more than exclusive songs, which probably won’t stay so exclusive on the Internet anyways. This same tactic could and should be used with your street team members. If you are up to it, you could also think about doing exclusive video calls via Skype. Naturally, all this might be very stressing at some point and you should definitely limit the number of people you let in your “inner circle”.

A more easily manageable way to offer exclusive communication could be using Facebook. Create a normal profile with your artist name and add all the fans as your friends, who have signed up for your mailing list, “liked” you on iLike, taken a survey on your official website etc. Then just hang around once a day with your fans on Facebook doing what people usually do there – bond. Take quizzes and compare your movie taste with your “inner circle” fans. It’s really up to you what you want to achieve with this exclusive interaction stunt, but it provides a much stronger incentive for your fans to participate in something than offering exclusive digital content.