As a new artist the hardest part is finding new fans.  Fans are going to be the ones who will be buying your records so it makes since that you start gaining them as soon as you can.

In the old days you would have to get airplay, interviews in print magazines and go on tour to gain new fans.  Although very expensive those methods still work to this day.  But now as a new artist it’s a little easier with online marketing and promotional tactics.

I’ve learned that the best way to stay motivated is to see your results happening rather quickly.  And thanks to sites like Twitter and Facebook with millions and millions of potential fans using them every single day the opportunity has never been easier.

So the easiest way to get your first 100 fans as quick as possible is putting time and energy into building your Twitter and Facebook profile.

With Twitter Do This:

1. After creating your profile start following people and companies in your genre.  If your into Hip Hop follow other artist, and Djs, and Labels who fit your particular genre.

2. Perform keyword searches on Twitter for keywords related to whatever genre or industry you’re in.  Also start following 100-200 of those people each day.

3. Start tweeting about topics related to your industry not just about you or your music.  (This draws interaction and builds interest)

4. After a few days 20-30% of the people you follow will follow you back.  You can start manually unfollowing the people who don’t follow you back.  If you don’t have the time you can use a service like Tweet Adder which can do this for you in an automated fashion.

5. Start participating on Twitter by tweeting people or companies who would fin into your genre.  You can also retweet some of their tweets also.

6. At this point you should have been on twitter for more then 5 days nd now you can start tweeting about your music and your brand.  Do not do a hard sell and still tweet about stuff that is not related to you or your brand 80% of the time.

Now With Facebook Do This:

Friend the leaders in your genre’s industry.  The ones behind the scenes and in the spotlight.  A large percentage will not accept your friend request but at least 10% of them should.

1. Friend the leaders in your genre’s industry.  The ones behind the scenes and in the spotlight.  A large percentage will not accept your friend request but at least 10% of them should.

2. Engage with your audience by posting stuff on your wall.  (Not about your brand)  Post things like industry news or events that are in your industry.

3. To get the most out of engaging with your audience post things that are short and during the times you think your “targeted friends” are online.

4. Start commenting on your friend’s wall and like messages that you like within your feed.

5. Ask industry related questions.  By asking questions you’ll start seeing more engagement from your target of friends.

6. After about a week engaging more heavily on Facebook you’ll start to see more friend request.  Instead of turning people away accept them because these are potential fans.

7. Now at this point you should be posting information about you and your music 30% of the time.  Keep in mine not to hard sell your product – only do soft pitches for now.

Spend about a month or so building your Facebook and Twitter presence it shouldn’t be hard to get your first 100 fans from these two sources.

You can also use the source in this 10pg report to find people to do these services and others like them for dirt cheap.

And that’s all there is to it.  It’s far from Rocket Science and anyone telling you differently is trying too hard to sell you something.

If anything, I want you to take away from reading this article a understanding of how social media fits into your marketing strategy.