Who is YOUR Street Team?

Last week in my blog I was referencing clichés and while this might not get that label, “street team” has become a very heavily used expression over the last several years in the music industry.  The concept of having other “boots on the ground” (okay, I’ll stop with the clichés, I promise) to help get the word out about your music is helpful when you’re trying to do everything yourself.

Even if you’re in business for yourself, no solopreneur can be in two places at one time, so it becomes important to go out to networking events and chamber of commerce meetings to get other people thinking about your business when an opportunity presents itself for referrals.

Don’t overthink this.  A street team doesn’t have to be a big formal group that you have to worry about managing on a day-to-day basis and holding formal meetings with and taking time away from the core of who you are and what you do to oversee them.  After all, that would contradict why you have them in place to begin with.

Even when you have a manager you still have – and know – people who genuinely like what you do, want to support you, and are often heard volunteering to do favors for you.  Guess what?  They are your street team!

Take it one step further, though, and you’ll see more and more of these folks multiply and take ownership.

What I’m suggesting is a nickname for your fans.  On Episode 2 and Episode 52 of “Now Hear This Entertainment” the guest was singer/songwriter Alyssa Jacey, whose fans are known as the Blue Crew.  Episode 46 and Episode 62 both featured interviews with singer/songwriter Alayna, who calls her fans Alayniacs.  Both of them are based in Nashville, and right here in Tampa Bay we just had singer/songwriter Thanecha performing two days ago at the Hillsborough County Fair.  She calls her supporters Fanechas.

You will literally see the activation of named groups.  Alyssa Jacey’s “Blue Crew” comes to her shows – you guessed it – wearing blue!  (Listen to Episode 2.  She explains the connection to a charity relative to people coming to her shows in blue.  Another clever strategy.)

We all know that sports teams have fan clubs.  When I was a kid it was very common then for fans to write to celebrities for autographed pictures and invariably the fan club would respond.  That exact model might not be appropriate for where you are right now, but you can learn from it.  Here’s a suggestion: use your website, social media, and e-newsletter and even the website Meetup.com to simply get your fans together for a “fireside chat” (to use another expression from “the old days”) and to just THANK THEM.  They’ll value the interaction that isn’t limited to between sets of your live performance.

So, what name do you have or can you come up with for your fans?