By: Vinny Ribas

Many artists believe that the more friends that they have on their social networks, the more popular they are. It certainly sounds impressive to say that you have 20,000 friends on your MySpace site. From a numbers standpoint alone, you have certainly increased your odds of finding real fans by your aggressive marketing tactics. But the truth is that what makes you money are serous, tried and true fans. What is a tried and true fan? It is someone who does one or more of the following:

•    Likes you and your music so much that they tell all of their friends about you
•    Signs up for your mailing list and reads your newsletter
•    Purchases your newest CD
•    Purchases your older CDs
•    Purchases downloads of your music
•    Puts your music on their website or social network pages
•    Comes to see you perform live, even if they have to buy tickets
•    Talks all of their friends into coming with them to see you perform
•    Buys your merchandise (t-shirts, pictures etc)
•    Joins your street team
•    Puts links to your website or page on their website or page
•    Requests your songs on the radio

Think about the numbers. If you focus your efforts on finding and cultivating 1,000 true friends, each of whom are willing to spend just $100/yr. on your CDs, merchandise tickets etc, you have generated $100,000 in sales!

Vinny Ribas is the founder and President of Indie Connect, a company that helps independent singers, musicians and songwriters make money using their talents.