Two ways Softside has evolved that we did not expect:
🎵 A genre-agnostic community
--> We started primarily in the pop/indie space. We have always intended to span across other genres and entertainment verticals, but we weren't sure how this would actually translate across niche fandoms.
Then we announced our partnership with hard metal label Nuclear Blast Records.
Not only has this been so warmly embraced by our users (leading to requests for additional genres, such as k-pop, punk rock, country, and electronic), but the actual *community* we are witnessing is fascinating.
Metal fans are engaging with our pop and hip-hop fan art posts, and vice versa.
We've been happy watching such a supportive ecosystem and fan interest cross-over take shape. Fans supporting fans.
🔎 Music discovery
--> Softside was built to: (1) help artists & other entertainment IP holders collaborate with and monetize the fan merch market instead of ignoring/fighting against it, and (2) create a frictionless solution for visual creatives to break through barriers to collaboration opportunities.
That mission remains, especially as counterfeit merch skyrockets.
However, more fans are specifically asking about emerging musicians, who may not even have a counterfeit merch issue [yet].
They don’t just want to buy merch, they want to *discover* exciting, developing artists and design for them as early "day one" fans. It's a double win for them: discovering music they love and collaborating on visuals to build out their portfolios.
Many users in the past joined because of a specific artist, which puts more burden on the artist to promote.
Now, we're seeing a gradual shift: music fans, graphic designers, and other creatives are organically finding us from word-of-mouth, and they're sticking around. They are establishing their profiles and engaging with us in our DMs often, rather than only joining for a specific artist campaign.
We never set out to be a music discovery platform (?!) but this has been a fun, new insight for us to explore (any mgmt friends reading this working with a developing artist... let's chat. 😇)
⬇️ A few of the messages in our DMs that motivate us!
