Followers Are Not The Same As Fans

​A client asked me to look into a musician he came across who has no band affiliation, no albums, no studio credits, etc., but gets huge numbers for their drumming videos on Instagram and YouTube. Most of those drumming videos just show them playing along to well-known songs by others. They have over one million followers on YouTube. They also have a Patreon account. After all, even if all of those one million followers are not fake accounts, you are not going to make enough just from YouTube advertising revenue to live. However, their Patreon account has only about 240 patrons. Maybe a couple of those patrons subscribed at a high dollar level. Those details are hidden. But odds are most (if not all) of the patrons subscribed at the basic $1 a month level. So in this case, one million YouTube followers has a value of about $240 a month. Yet another reminder that followers are not the same as genuine fans.