You may not know what a Kaniac is.
I sure didn’t know what a Kaniac was just a few days ago. After a recent blog post on Country Music Life I was introduced to the passion some country fans have for one particular artist – Christian Kane.
Christian just released a new single to country radio. The song – Let Me Go – is great. Check it out if you get the chance. I shared my thoughts on the song on Country Music Life with Let Me Go by Christian Kane.
What usually happens with these reviews is they’ll get a few hundred views. Fans of the artist will find them through search and share them via their preferred social channels. With this post on Christian’s new song, though, his fans really seemed to get behind it and promote the post…
Country Music Industry Successful Blogging
It was crazy how passionate and involved Christian’s fans got with my small time review on CML. I first realized something was happening with the post when one of the Kaniacs sent me a tweet asking me to turn the comments on for the post. I had turned comments off on posts for a few months testing to see if no comments would make people share the posts more.
So I turned the comments to the post on and the floodgates opened. Kaniacs wrote 20+ comments on the post. That may not be a lot for some blogs, but it’s impressive for CML and everything is relative.
Even more than the comments I was most impressed with the sharing numbers. A fan caught wind of the post and shared the link on Christian’sofficial Facebook page. It looks like another fan posted it on the page of a radio station.
Fans must have followed the link from there and then shared it within their own Facebook streams.
As of last count the post has over 500 likes on Facebook. It had over 80 shares on Facebook and the post was shared on Twitter over 30 times. The Facebook numbers are really the greatest part. Studies are starting to come out showing Facebook is really the king of sharing these days and I’ve certainly seen that with CML.
The Twitter number is interesting too. I’ve found more country fans are using Facebook compared to Twitter, but this post had some strong legs on Twitter including a tweet from Christian’s management team.
Lesson from Blogging Success
So that’s the success story. I think there are a few things to pull from the success that are usable for business blogging.
Find the Audience
It’s important to know and find the audience for your blog posts. For businesses this shouldn’t be too difficult. Most businesses actually have very specific descriptions of their customer profiles. It could be something like:
Lois is a 45 year old woman from New York. She works as an assistant manager at a medium-sized advertising firm in New York City. She is married with no kids. Her and her husband like to spend time upstate on the weekends at their weekend home just outside a small town. She has a cat. Her hobbies include reading, organizing charity events, and watching Desperate Housewives. Her household income is $150,000/year.
That’s a descriptive profile for a customer. It makes it easier for people within a business to understand how to merchandise for this customer. For bloggers, this profile also makes it easier to blog. It makes it easier to know what this person wants to read and where they might be spending their time online.
Know your audience and use their profile description to do some investigating to where they are spending their time online. Cater your blog posts to the keywords these folks are searching for and target those phrases.
I didn’t necessarily target a specific group of people, but a few Kaniacs were searching for articles on Christian’s new song and found the review and things went crazy from that point.
Make the Content Worthwhile
Once you find your target audience and get them to visit your blog you need to make the content worth their while. In most cases people will find a blog post and perhaps find the post interesting.
Interesting doesn’t necessarily lead to success, though.
The part that’s often difficult when blogging is offering something people truly need to satisfy their various hungers in life. In the case of the Christian Kane post I think his fans were hungry for press about their favorite artist. Christian is a new artist in country music. He already has a fanbase from his successful acting career, but he’s just getting started on the country scene.
To support their favorite artist and “be part of the success” as he rises in the country ranks these Kaniacs need to find good press for Christian. My review was positive so they took it and really wanted to spread the word to improve the Christian Kane brand in a small way. I think as he succeeds over time they’ll be part of that success and that’s personally satisfying.
Bigger stars in country music don’t necessarily need those small time good reviews. For those artists writers need to find other things to spark the needs of consumers.
With business blogging you need to find what your customer needs, what they truly need to satisfy them in life. It’s tricky, but when you find those needs you can rally capitalize.
Opportunity for Music Artists
In a side note I really want to point out a huge opportunity for country artists.
I’ve been writing in the country world for about a year now and I really see artists and their management under utilizing blogging. There are some artists writing some interesting tidbits on their personal blogs, but I think the real opportunity is to give stories behind the songs on their sites. It would be almost like liner notes from the LP or CD jacket. Give the fans details behind the songs. Give those passionate fans what they need – understanding about the songs they love so much.
The opportunity is there for artists to really control the search engine results for their brands.