Beyond SNS Metrics: Building Fan Communities That Matter

Last Updated on 2025-08-30 by a-indie

【Key Points】What This Article Covers

“I wonder how many people saw this post.” “How many reservations came in for today’s live show?”

Days filled with emotional ups and downs over the numbers displayed on smartphone screens. The carefully crafted songs and heartfelt messages you create get swept away by the whims of algorithms, failing to reach your fans.

You’re not alone in feeling this frustration.

To be honest, I myself am constantly experiencing emotional ups and downs over how much my own media posts from BELONG/A-indie are being shared.

X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram are certainly effective tools for broadly spreading information about your band.

However, with just fragmentary posts flowing through timelines, it’s difficult to fully convey your band’s “human touch,” the individual charm of each member, and the deep stories embedded in your music.

Are fans really just faceless “audience members” behind numbers like “follower count” and “play count”?

If you’re feeling limited in your current activities and sensing an invisible wall between you and your fans, there’s just one thing you should incorporate into your future activities.

That is having a “co-creative community” where you create your band’s story together with your fans.

In building that community, Discord is the most powerful tool.

I, who actually created a Discord community for a music media, will share this with you over three installments, including examples of failures.

This first installment is free. The 2nd and 3rd installments will be partially paid content, so I hope you’ll read to the end.

Discord is a “Secret Base” Where Bands and Fans Connect

Recently, have you been able to design “shared experiences” with fans outside of live performances?

Not just post-show greetings or brief interactions on social media, but a place where you can connect with fans more deeply and continuously. That’s Discord, the communication tool we’re proposing today.

“Discord? Isn’t that what gamers use?” you might think. That perception is half right and half wrong.

Simply put, Discord is like “an invitation-only online members’ lounge where people with specific themes or purposes gather.”

Like LINE group chats, you can talk casually, but with extremely high flexibility – you can separate “rooms (channels)” by topic and interact in real-time through voice or video.

If X and Instagram are “flow-type” tools where information constantly streams away, Discord is a “stock-type secret base” where conversations and memories between bands and fans are recorded and accumulated.

It’s not just a place where fans receive information. It’s a special space where fans can “participate” in the band’s activities and feel a sense of “belonging” as part of the team.

It’s Already Common Practice in the Global Indie Scene

This “secret base” building is already becoming standard in the global indie scene.

For example, Pool Kids, an indie band based in Florida. When they released their new album ‘Easier Said Than Done’ in August 2025, they actively encouraged participation in their Discord server through their official social media.

They position their server as “a special place to get important news first” and have built a foundation for direct interaction with fans.

Artists like Disclosure and Fred Again.. have also formed passionate fan communities on Discord, making it a place to share release information and tour announcements earlier than anywhere else.

This isn’t just information transmission. It’s a strategy to send the message “you are a ‘special’ existence” to the most passionate fans and build stronger trust relationships.

In this way, overseas artists use Discord to form strong bonds resembling “complicit relationships” with fans, scaling their activities using community enthusiasm as their driving force.

A New Wave Beginning in Japan Too

This movement isn’t limited to overseas.

To be honest, we at BELONG Media are also among those betting on the potential of this “secret base” called Discord.

I’ll confess honestly – our server wasn’t functioning at all before.

We created it, but there were hardly any comments or reactions, with all members in a wait-and-see state. I myself fell into a “feeling like talking to myself in an empty room” mood, facing the overwhelming difficulty of growing a community from zero.

Previously, we planned a Fuji Rock live stream within the server, but due to the community’s immaturity, we experienced early setbacks due to operational difficulties – a bitter experience.

The biggest cause was an unconsciously created “wall.”

However, it was a conversation with a user named Furidashi Taro, whom I met on this Discord server, that made me realize the existence of that “wall.”

In reality, on Discord we were able to meet users we couldn’t encounter or deeply interact with on SNS.

The real highlight was users from Argentina and the Netherlands who joined BELONG’s server… but that’s a story for another time.

Getting back to the story, our self-introduction channel at the time had an atmosphere that sought indie-centered music content, creating an atmosphere that was difficult for people without a certain level of musical knowledge to participate in.

So we fundamentally reconsidered our server and changed the concept to “Your ‘favorites’ become someone’s ‘gateway.'” Instead of staff-led initiatives, we switched to “community participants become the protagonists, and we support them” system.

For example, “Furidashi Quest,” a radio show-style project. This involves a “hero” with zero musical knowledge exploring the “labyrinth” of BELONG Media’s vast archive of past articles.

This is an attempt to close psychological distance by showing the management side’s “imperfection” as a weakness and standing at the same eye level as participants.

In this way, by designing “shared experiences” on Discord, you can cultivate a warm community that goes beyond mere information exchange.

For reference, I’ll include how to join our Discord server, so I think actually participating would be the fastest way to understand, so please join us on this opportunity.

How to Join

If you don’t have a Discord account, please refer to GIGAZINE’s account creation guide to create an account.

You can join through the following link

🔗BELONG / A-indie Official Discord Server Invitation Link🔗
Join Discord

Get Your “Engine”

If your band truly wishes to climb the scene on its own feet without depending on labels or live houses, this “co-creative community” becomes the ultimate weapon.

Discord isn’t just a tool for fan service. It’s an “engine” that transforms fans from “audience” to “strongest team members” and accelerates your band’s activities toward the future.

“But how exactly do we get started?”

I can hear that voice coming through. Don’t worry.

Preview: Just creating a “box” is meaningless. Next time, we’ll fully reveal the specific ‘blueprint’ for creating your band’s unique “secret base,” with the first half free and the second half paid content. Your band’s story begins here.

Look forward to next time!

BELONG Media/A-indie Editor-in-Chief
Tomohiro Yabe

Writer: Tomohiro Yabe(yabori)

Editor-in-Chief of BELONG Media/A-indie. Has been writing the music blog “Timeless Masterpieces,” which became the predecessor to BELONG, since 2010. After writing for “only in dreams” hosted by ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION vocalist Masafumi Goto, specialized in music business at a music vocational school. Has been writing articles about Japanese and international music for over 10 years. Previously worked at a music CD rental shop with over 100,000 album titles, handling garage rock, psychedelic rock, and Japanese indie rock. Utilizing those experiences, published 26 issues of the music magazine “BELONG Magazine” with “roots rock” as its theme. Currently writes articles based on SEO strategies learned at a web production company. Hobby is watching “Kaiun! Nandemo Kantei-dan” (a Japanese TV appraisal show). Articles written so far can be found here Twitter: @boriboriyabori