Insight Community

As we’re always discussing on Techdirt, artists are constantly finding all sorts of innovative ways to connect with their fans and give them reasons to buy. We’ve heard over and over again from other artists how much they’re inspired by hearing the details of various success stories, and realizing that the picture isn’t bleak at all, but that there are tremendous opportunities to succeed these days.

Our recent launch of the Step2 community platform gives us an opportunity to find out about and share more case studies and lessons learned. To kick this off, we’re offering cash for the best case studies.

We’re looking for many more success stories to highlight just how well artists can do by embracing new and different business models as well as new and unique ways of connecting with fans. If you’re a creator of music, videos, books or video games, we want to see your case studies of experiments you’ve done. We want to know what worked and what didn’t. The more detail and data you can provide, the better and more useful it will be. If you’re a fan, we’d love to see similar case studies, but from your perspective. Submit your case studies of unique and creative ways that artists have connected with you or gave you an extra reason to buy. Once again, the more details you can provide, the better and more useful it will be.

Be they big, medium or small, we want to hear all about them. Winning submissions in each category will provide details on lessons learned along the way, forms of success, and some numbers to back up it all up, if possible.

Head on over to Step2. Post your case studies by clicking "Start a Discussion" and, while you’re there, comment and vote on others’ case studies, help fellow community members figure out ways to find success and join the ongoing discussions. It's not just about the "business" model, but the overall "success" model.

$1,000 will be awarded to the top two vote getters in each of the following categories of case study: music, video, books, video games and fan.