Jan. 20, 2026

Audience vs Community: What Artists Get Wrong

Show Notes
Transcript

In this episode of the Music Business Newsletter with Matthew Rix, I read an email from an independent artist who’s asking a question many artists quietly struggle with:
What does it actually mean to “build a community”?
This artist has:
• thousands of followers
• consistent releases
• people showing up occasionally
But they’re realizing that numbers don’t always translate into real support.
In this episode, we break down:
• The difference between an audience and a community
• Why engagement metrics can be misleading
• How real fan connection is actually built
• Where online platforms help and where they fail
• When artists should stop chasing growth and start deepening relationships
This isn’t about tricks or hacks.
It’s about sustainability.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything “right” but still missing something real this conversation will resonate.
Have a question about the music industry or your career?
Send it to http://MatthewRix.com. Include as many details as possible your experience might help someone else too.

Listen to Mattrix Minute for daily Music Business insight without the music industry hype.
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Hey, this is Matthew Rixon. Today on the Music Business Newsletter,

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we got an email from an artist who wants to

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know how do you build a community as an artist

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that just creates lifelong fans. But before we get started,

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side note, huge congratulations and shout out to my daughter

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Hope and the Middle Tennessee Explosion universe. My daughter Hope

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just hit her first home run over the fence. She's

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been practicing, dreaming about it, vision boarding it for like ever,

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and she finally did it. And I was that annoying dad.

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I got a little emotional and I started yelling at

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all the other parents, saying, that's my daughter, y'all like

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they didn't know. And I just want to say congratulations

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to her, and also to coach Adrian Garcia. After she

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hit the home run, he's like, I better get a

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Facebook post. Coach, you're getting one better. You're getting a

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shout out in the Music Business Newsletter. I just want

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to thank him for the investment he's made with my

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daughter and being a man of his word and having integrity.

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And if you want to be like yours, truly, you

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can get yourself some Middle Tennessee Explosion merch. You can

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be like me. It's gonna look great on you. But

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once again, shout out to my daughter Hope, I love you,

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I'm proud of you. And to the Middle Tennessee Explosion

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and coach Adrian, thank you. Get your merch so you

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can chair for them all season long as they destroyed

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the opponent on the softball field. Now for the email,

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he says, Hey, Matthew, I keep hearing the phrase build

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a community thrown around in the music industry, and I'm

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realizing I don't actually know what people mean when they

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say that. He goes, I'm an independent artist in my

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early thirties. I've been releasing music for a while now,

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and I have a modest following, a few thousand on Instagram,

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a couple of thousand monthly listeners on Spotify, and a

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small group of people who come to shows when I

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play locally. On paper, it looks like progress. So you

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don't you use generic terms few thousand, couple of thousand,

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small group. So I don't know what a few thousand means.

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Is that five thousand? Is it twenty thousand, two thousand,

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and then you got a couple of thousand, Is that

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ten thousand, one thousand? Small group of people. Are we

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talking twenty four we talk in fifty eight? I don't know.

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You don't tell us, but we can only speculate a

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little bit. He says. On paper, it looks like progress. Well,

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it is progress. It depends on you know, did you

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get all of that in the first year and now

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you've been stagnant for the last five, then that's not progress.

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Have you gotten it all in the last year? Massive progress,

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he says. But when I zoom out, I'm not sure

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I have a community. I have numbers, I have followers,

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I have listeners. I don't know how many of those

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people actually care enough to stick around. I want to

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count followers because I think I got like close to

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six thousand followers on my personal Instagram. I know the

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matrics minu has like ten thousand, But a lot of

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those people have been following for you know, for matrics

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men has been ten years. Well, how many of those

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people are dead or how many of those people got

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locked out of their accounts? How many of those people

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just gave up social media? Yeah, created a new account,

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but they're still counted as a follower. I never count followers,

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subscribers as progress, as as momentum I always use. If

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you're an artist, I would use Spotify monthly listeners far

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more important than your Instagram follow number because also people

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buy followers and they can inflate it, and it's not

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a real number. Most of the engagement feel shallow. People

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like posts, skip through stories, add a song to a playlist,

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and disappear. Bro they're adding a song to a playlist,

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Like that's a good that's a good movement right there now.

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The viewing the stories, you got people who death scroll.

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You know. What's always funny is like I could have

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somebody like I could have like twenty three hundred people

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look in my story and I'm like, oh, that's awesome.

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But if I'm expecting one person in particular to look

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at it and they don't, none of it else matters.

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The three it never matters because I'm looking for that one.

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So yeah, people liking posts, skipping through stories, I mean,

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it feels good, but it doesn't really mean. It doesn't

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mean anything. People adding your song to a playlist, that's big.

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That is not only big for you as an artist,

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but it's also big for you on an algorithm standpoint.

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With Spotify, that means people are actually taking the time.

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I mean, there's there's really three things that count when

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you're when you're talking about your music on Spotify outside

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of plays. One of them is when they add it

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to their library, two is when they added to playlist,

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and three is when they share it. You get those

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things going. Spotify recognizes that you actually have fans who care,

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and that's actually what moves the song into you know,

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the playlist or the release radar, and they move it

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up in the Spotify radio. Is that engagement? That a movement?

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So don't don't you know, kind of poo poo on

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people adding your song to a playlist. That's actually so

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you're really good, he says. When I announce a show

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or a release, only a fraction of people respond. When

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I ask a question or try to start a conversation,

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it mostly falls flat. Okay, So here your shows or

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your release is well, I don't know what you want

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when you announce a release because you're saying again, people

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adding it to their playlist, so that is better than

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them responding to your release announcement. A show depends on

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how many shows you play. You know, if you are

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say you live in Mobile, Alabama, and every Friday night.

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You're playing a mobile and you keep announcing shows every

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Friday night, people aren't going to be excited anymore. That's

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the one hiccup that a lot of independent artists have

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is that they're supposed to play out all the time

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to build a fan base, but you keep going back

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to the same well week after week or every two weeks,

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hoping those same people come and they're not obligated to,

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or you don't do anything different, or they're just tired

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of seeing you, or something more important's going on. When

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you ask a question and nobody responds, yeah, that sucks.

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I wouldn't do it like I don't. I do not

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my personal the Matthew Rick's account, there's some there is

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some music stuff. There's some business stuff in there, like

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if I do an interview or promoting a release I'm

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working on. But for me, it's just kind of more

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like dad friend life, you know, like you know, I'm

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at the softball field, but even then I don't really

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post unless I know what I'm getting back in return,

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So I'm never kind of like shocked. So I'll never

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be like, what should I have for lunch? And then

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nobody responds. People would respond, but it probably wouldn't be

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as many as I want, and so I just don't

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do it. A lot of times artists will be like,

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what song you want me to release next? And then

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nobody responds and it just looks really small. So I

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would not ask questions for you to start a conversation.

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You don't see what the conversation starter is. You go

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find them on their page and you start the conversation

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that way. Hey, I hear you got golden doodles. I

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love golden doodles. They're so hyper and crazy. Golden doodles

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are awesome, but they are hyper and crazy. So instead

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of you being like, come to me peasants and talk

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to me, you go to them with what they're interested in,

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which does take more time, and you're fishing them out.

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They're not fishing you out. So if you have a

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fragile ego, it does suck. He goes. So I'm stuck

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wondering what's the real difference between an audience and a community.

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I mean, an audience is people who I would say

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for me, an audience is just passive. I think radio

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listeners are audiences. I think Spotify listeners are community. I

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think if you want to put it in YouTube terms.

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I think YouTube short viewers or audiences people who watch

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long form videos are community because it's easy coming, easy goes.

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It just kind of flies by quickly. So I would

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say that's the difference. An audience is gonna be somebody

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who's gonna be passive. A community is going to be

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passionate about what you're doing. He says, how do you

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build something deeper without forcing it or being fake? Consistency?

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You reaching out? You know, in sales, you gotta do

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cold calling. You got to pick up the phone and

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just cold call people and get hung up and get

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cussed out and everything. You gotta do the same as

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an artist when you're when you're getting started, you gotta

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send messages to people and they're gonna be like, what

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do you want? But then you're gonna get those people

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are like, oh my gosh, you're emailing me. How cool.

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Let me go check your music out. I love you,

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I want your babies. Like it happens. It just it

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just happens, he says. Is community built online offline or

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both both? Because you build a community online of passionate

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people on streaming services to listen to your music, share it,

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try introduce their friends to it, and then offline in

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real world terms, they're going to your shows, they're buying

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your merch, all of that stuff. If you're building a

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community online, you got to figure out how to transfer

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that to offline into the real world. And what do

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I mean by that? You might go, well, you know,

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I live in Kansas and I got people in South Africa.

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How do I get them offline and get them in

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the real world. Get them to buy merch, you know,

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get them, get them from just passively scrolling, to get

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them to do something that invests their time and money.

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And that's how you know you've transferred the community into

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the real world. Back in the day when we were

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when we just launched some metrics minute and we were

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out doing events all over the world, you know, there

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was some wishful thinking that we're doing twenty thousand plays

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a day, well we should be able to sell out,

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you know, twenty thousand room places wherever we went. It's

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like no, because those are people who are just passively listening.

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They're hoping that I would tell them, you know, here's

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the five steps to get a record deal by tomorrow.

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The people who showed up the people who bought tickets,

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the people who played full out. Those were the people

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that I mean, even twelve years later I still talked

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to because I took them from offline into the real world.

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And that's what you got to do as well. You

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got to get them off of instagram S quite as

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swiping or just clicking like and buying merch or coming

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to a show. And until you get that, and then

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your community is pretty fragile and probably pretty unreliable, he says.

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And at what point should an artist stop chasing growth

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and start focusing on connection instead. You don't ever stop

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chasing growth, but it does depend on what your definition

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of growth is. So if your definition of growth is

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a million followers on Instagram, but you don't really care

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if they listen to music. You just want to have

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a huge Instagram number and you just want to have

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a couple of videos. If you dance and going viral,

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that's that's that's a that's a different type of growth.

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If your growth is I mean, I know artists, I

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know platinum artists like personally no platinum artists who they

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sit when their next release and they're trying to figure

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out how to make it better how to make it bigger,

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how to get more fans to listen to it, how

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to sell more tickets. You never stop worrying about the growth.

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The minuing you stop worrying about the growth is probably

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because you're dying. But then how to start focusing on connection.

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Connection happens by you being accessible to the fans, You

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being able to meet them where they're at. Most artists

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grew up because they want the fans to meet them

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where they're at. Come tell me how great my music is.

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Listening to my music like, No, you go and invest

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in their time. You go and ask people what's going

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on in their life. You take the time to care

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to be a normal human being. It's shocking what the

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results are. He says. I'm not trying to obsess over metrics,

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but it's hard when every platform pushes numbers as the

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measure of success. Don't buy into it. We got some

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videos that released on YouTube recently and I mean they've

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done forty plays, and I mean, thank you to you guys.

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We've got three thousand subscribers. So what does that mean?

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Were they was three thousand subscribers all collectively not interested? No,

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it means the algorithm didn't push it out. So what

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do you do when the algorithm doesn't push it out?

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You keep going, you keep being consistent, you keep releasing.

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And that's why you don't follow numbers, because if you

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live for that dopamine hit of when the graph goes up,

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you crash when it goes down. And that's just not

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it's an addiction, and it's not fair to you, and

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it's not fair to your fans that you're hyped one

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day and then you're sad one day because you're on

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the roller coaster. So don't be on the roller coaster numbers.

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Be aware of your numbers, know your numbers, but until

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you get a baseline, until you know what your baseline is.

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Like Matric's minute, we know what our baseline is for

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every release. It's one hundred thousand. Anything under one hundred

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thousands of failure. Anything above one hundred thousand streams it's

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a success. But that's because it's been twelve years of

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putting out Mattrics minutes, and we know we know what

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the line is. Now. Most artists they put something out

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once or twice and they try to get a line,

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but the algorithm is still at that point way too

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unpredictable for you to be able to get a read

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So you just got to be consistent and keep pushing

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stuff out there, he says. At the same time, I

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don't want to wake up years from now with a

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big following. It doesn't actually support anything I do. That's

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why you got to transform from offline into the real world.

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However you have to do it ticket sales, merchandise. I mean,

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if email lists were still a thing, which I don't

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recommend anybody doing an email list because it's just nobody

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checks it. You gotta do something to get them from

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just stop scrolling to pay attention. One of the things

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you could do that could be like a metric for

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you to get them, like to see what your community is.

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It's probably going to be really bad at first. Do

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a live stream on Instagram and see how many people

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tune in, and see how long you hold people. If

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you do an hour long live stream and you have

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ten people and those ten people stayed the entire time,

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and they're not your relatives or your your significant other,

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but they're actually like genuine fans, then would I would

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be honest with yourself and say my solid fan base

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is at ten, Like solid cool. This number sounds small, right,

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but now you can build off of it, he says.

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I'm not looking for hacks or engagement. I just want

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to understand what is sustainable in the music industry, he says,

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And what do you artists look like? What does it

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look like for an artist who isn't aiming for mainstream

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fame but wants a real career. So you don't want

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to be a pop star, but you want to make money.

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I dig that. I would just say you got to

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start small. I mean, if you are putting, if you're

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I don't know how many shows you're doing, but if

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you're doing shows and nobody cares, slow down your shows

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or find a different market to start dominating, you might

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have worn out your market. If you are, you know,

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I'd stop asking questions that you're not getting any responses

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on because at this point, a lot of times artists

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do that and fans respond because they want the artists

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to notice them. But if it's very small, your fans

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aren't going to care. Don't try to get into the

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clickbait era, which I see artists doing because it is

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such an easy layup where they start talking about politics

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because they know they're going to get engagement from that. Yeah,

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it's a short term boost, but at the end of

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the day, what happens then is you're branded forever like

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you're just And if you live in a mayor, it

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is not a good time to be doing politics because

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you're gonna you you will alienate half of the half

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of the country. And as an artist, your job is

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to get as many people to listen to your music

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as possible. And so I and it's but, but it

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is rewarding in the beginning. You get that dopamine hit

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talking about politics, but you'll you'll end up hating yourself

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for it. He says. Any perspective you have on this

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would help. Thanks, Bob, Bob, I hope I gave you

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some advice, but good luck. Just yeah, I mean the

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show things scale back. If you're doing a lot of

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shows in your town and nobody cares, stop playing so

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many shows, or if you do play shows, don't promote it.

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So you give your fans a break from your promotion

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on shows and going knowing that it's probably not gonna

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be a lot of people there. But that gives you

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better opportunities to make new fans from the people that

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are there. Try to get your fans off of the

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Internet and into the real world, buying a shirt, buying

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a poster, coming out to a show, and just have

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fun doing it. Like I think, so much, we get

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so worried about the business of this whole thing. We

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forget that art is fun and art is expressive and

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you should do the same. So thanks for the email.

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If you have a question on the music industry that

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you'd like for me to answer, just go to Matthewrakes

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dot com click submit your question, give me as many

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details as possible, and we will answer it here on

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the channel. I am Matthew Rason. Until next time, I

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will talk to you later.