PHISH, the ‘Death of the Follower’, and Finding a True Following for Your Brand
It’s hard to believe a household name like PHISH hasn’t had a single hit. Right? No hits. None. Zilch.
And their albums aren’t big sellers, either. Yet…they got the opportunity to be the second band to play the Sphere in Vegas, the hottest venue for any performing artist, currently. How could a band that has zero hits and sells few albums compared to big acts like Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, and Billie Eillish be trusted to pack the Sphere?
Because PHISH, unlike many bands, has 1,000 true fans.
OK, it might be 500,000 true fans, but the point remains. PHISH doesn’t need 5,000,000 fans to sell out shows. They need 500,000 true fans built over a 40 year run. As of this writing, they have 494,000 monthly Spotify listeners while Taylor Swift has 106,742,664 so that tells you something. That is not a typo, FYI. 106 million compared to 500 thousand.
Let me rephrase: compared to Taylor Swift, PHISH has 1,000 true fans.
Kevin Kelly shared this theory in 2008 and it seems to have stood the test of time. The theory states that an artist doesn’t need as large of a fanbase as possible in order to make a living. Instead, they need 1,000 true fans. The 1,000 people who are willing to pay them $100/year, which provides the artist the ability to make a living. A pretty good living, at that.
“The Death of the Follower” was the title of Jack Conte’s insightful presentation at SXSW 2024. Fascinating title, even more fascinating talk, backed up some very good data and opinions. Let’s dive into those for a minute. While I don’t actually want to go deep on the fact that algorithms run our feeds these days (Jack already does that, this isn’t a recap article…), I do want to pay attention to a few very important slides.
Reach vs Depth
We need to understand that we are creating specific content for ‘Reach’ and different, specific content for ‘Depth’. The goal of ‘Reach’ is to expand your audience so that you can have deeper, more meaningful connections that end up creating change for your organization. Ranking has changed the game, and that’s a really important takeaway from Jock Conte’s presentation.
If I had to pick one, I’d pick Depth. But you don’t have to ‘pick one’, you can (and should) do both. Reach is ‘Step 1’, Depth is ‘Step 2’.
PHISH has ‘Depth’, and So Should You
PHISH being able to thrive, not just survive, a 40+ year career without any hits and be the second act at the Sphere tells you that they have achieved Depth with their audience. Their reach is weak-sauce compared to someone like Taylor Swift or anyone else trending on Spotify. But that’s not important, because they have Depth. They have ‘True Fans’ who will show up at their shows, buy their merchandise, subscribe to their App, engage on their Social platforms, share their music with friends, and once in a while, those friends become ‘True Fans’.
This is exactly the approach we recommend to our clients. Create for ‘Reach’ to expand, then create for ‘Depth’ to strengthen the relationship. ‘Depth’ translates to more revenue if you’re a commercial organization and increased donations if you’re a non-profit. Increasing ‘Reach’ starts new relationships, focusing on ‘Depth’ maintains, develops, and evolves the real relationships that translate into impact for your organization. Don’t sleep on ‘Depth’.
