Another analogy, but hopefully it will prove a point. Bare with me once again…
Let’s say you were going to bake a few apple pies. In order to bake ‘em, you decide you need 20 apples, so you head to the grocery store.
When you got there, would you go to the produce section, pick 20 apples up, and carry them to the front? No, most likely the FIRST thing you’d do is get a basket, or at the very least a bag, to put em in. Otherwise, you’d lose some on the way to the check out.
If you’re a touring band, and you’ve chosen to build your fan-base by playing live (yes, there are other ways), then you need to realize that your fans are apples. Success, in this case, isn’t having 20 pies at the end, but having enough fans to fill a venue/get signed to that label/get picked up by that agent, etc.
If you’re ever going to get there, you need a container to put them in. Use Facebook fanpages to collect ‘likes,’ twitter to collect follows, a good mailing list client to collect and use email addresses, or whatever else works for you. But remember, you MUST have a container, and you must have it FIRST.
Otherwise, you’ll find yourself without enough apples, even though you SWORE you picked up enough.
only best friend