Thinking About Super Fan Engagement (As a Super Fan)
This article is cross-posted on Medium, available here.
So-Fi Stadium shortly before BTS’s Permission to Dance LA concert
With Super Bowl Sunday quickly approaching, it’s impossible for me to not think about super fans. Just a few weeks ago, fans of the Buffalo Bills, aka the “Bills Mafia”, lined up to shovel the stadium in freezing temperatures for hours ahead of the NFL team’s playoff games (and others sacrificed themselves to a pit, but we don’t need to talk about that here).
As someone who is more into music than professional sports, my Super Bowl happens every time my favorite artists announces a new project, tour, or festival appearance. And I’m not alone! According to a 2023 Live Nation study, 66% of surveyed fans had attended more than 5 events in the past year, and 88% say that they will always find a way to see their favorite artist.
Despite this, music fans have little to no loyalty reward systems that I’m aware of. Airlines have frequent flyer miles and Gold Status, but there’s a gap when it comes to the music industry and its super fans. Some sports teams even have fan representatives sit on their boards. I want my favorite artists and their labels to give me my own proverbial stadium full of snow to shovel alongside my fellow fans, and reward me for it. I’m even starting to empathize with the Buffalo pit dwellers (although I can’t say that I’m ready to send myself to the emergency room even for my favorite artist).
Seeing everyone’s Spotify Wrapped is another annual Super Bowl moment for me
Who is a “super fan”?
I would call myself a super fan of several artists: Spotify Wrapped once called me out for being in the top 0.005% of listeners of my top artist of the year and I have traveled across the country to see multiple artists before. I’m learning to proudly carry the label of fan girl and super fan these days (expect more blogs like this ☺️).
Several definitions exist in the music industry — you’ve probably been tagged as a super fan without even knowing it! Luminate Data, who collects and reports streaming data to Billboard and other industry partners, defines a super fan as someone who interacts with an artist and their work in at least 5 ways. Spotify categorizes users as “super listeners” based on how they discover and access an artist’s work as well as how often they stream it.
Why should the industry care about super fans?
Super fans show up. Across the industry, we invest in our favorite artists and their music, with Luminate Data sharing in their year-end report that super fans spend 68% more money on music each month than average U.S. listeners, and also spend much more on both physical music and artist merch than other fans. Super fans also play a disproportionate role in music streaming, making up an average of 2% of an artist’s monthly listeners, but 18% of monthly streams, according to Spotify’s super listener analysis.
From Spotify’s Super Listener Analysis — super listeners make up an even larger proportion of mega star streams relative to smaller artists
The potential impact of super fans cannot be understated — Goldman Sachs identified a $4 billion opportunity in what they call “super fan segmentation”, or the value that goes uncaptured when everyone pays the same cost for music (streaming subscription fee). Capturing the attention and maintaining the loyalty of these super fans and listeners can be well worth it for artists and labels while building strong fan-artist partnerships and benefiting the fan community as a whole.
What Super Fans Want
According to Luminate Data’s Year-End Report, super fans value:
social signaling
expressions of identity
the community
This sounds right to me, although I would also add that beyond the social benefits of fandom, we also want to receive some sort of real reward, tangible or not. Being a super fan requires investing a substantial amount of time, effort, and potentially resources, so it always feels good to be recognized and rewarded by the artist and label that you support.
PWC, the accounting and consulting firm, even has something to say about interacting with super fans: “remember, all human relationships are two–way: the super-fan’s commitment to your brand is emotional — so you need to show the same emotion in return”. Recognizing super fans and giving them a community to engage with each other while receiving some sort of recognition or reward can help build career-lasting symbiotic partnerships with the most dedicated fans.
Rewarding Community Building & Participation
As a super fan, there are a few apps that I know of that are working on building communities around music listening behavior (if you know of more, please share!), but none have quite hit the recognize and reward aspects that I believe super fans crave. However, they do show an eagerness to share listening behavior and interact with others, including artists, that I think brands should leverage in their efforts to engage super fans.
Airbuds allows listeners to share their streaming history live with friends, and react to each other’s streams. It also includes a widget that can sit on the home screen of your phone that will alert you when you’re twinning with a friends and other fun features. I’ve had Airbuds set up with a few friends for several months now, and while checking the app isn’t an integral part of my day, it’s fun to get pinged every once in a while from a friend reacting to a recent listen (my favorite was a friend going “u ok?” after I streamed too many Phoebe Bridgers songs in a row). I can imagine that the right brand partnership with an artist or label could help make it more mainstream to share and react to each other’s listening, making super fan engagement even more pertinent.
Stationhead is a success story of sorts in this way — it is a platform that allows group listening parties, linking to streaming platforms to create real streams that count for Billboard charts and other records. It was originally used by super fans of various artists to host streaming parties, and now also works directly with major artists like BTS. By following super fans to the platforms they were organically drawn to, artists on Stationhead are able to more authentically engage with them and leverage their passion to create results.
screenshot from Stationhead’s website, showing Machine Gun Kelly hosting a listening party with fans
Further Incentivizing Super Fan Behavior
As I mentioned before, airlines have loyalty programs so why doesn’t music? While fan clubs for specific artists exist, it would be incredible if this was a wider phenomenon — or maybe one that existed on a different level, like for your nearest venue or favorite annual festival. An early entry into this world, although not well adopted as far as I’m aware, is Fave, an app where users log fan-related behavior like going to a concert, posting about the artist on social media, or engaging in discussions on the platform in exchange for points, used for status on the platform.
While this is a great idea that I support, it’s unlikely to reach mainstream status until its either picked up organically by a dedicated fan base (like Stationhead) or manages to partner with industry brands to provide tangible rewards like access to presale tickets, exclusive experiences, and recognition from artists themselves. Much is said about how ineffective Verified Fan Status can be for getting concert tickets, and I could imagine a world where status is defined by points in apps like these or ones built within the industry itself.
Another interesting development that has the potential to be developed into an engagement strategy for super fans is the idea of royalty shares, or fans explicitly profiting off of the success of the work of their favorite artists. (I know of SongVest, A Note Music, and JKBX as leaders in this space, if you’re interested in learning more). This is a relatively young effort, especially in the United States, and one that will take time to be understood and accepted by the general music loving public.
However, if the right songs and artists are included in these platforms, I could see super fans becoming powerful early adopters of this, as we are typically looking for any way to engage with and help support our favorite artists. Royalty shares can not only help raise funds from super fans, but allows them to become a part of the success story of a given track, and actually benefit monetarily. There’s a few setbacks, like the fact that these aren’t legal in the U.S. yet and the magnitude of the financial reward to fans is yet to be seen, but honestly, as super fans, we just need the slightest reason to pick up our shovel (or jump into a pit, I guess).
