A few years ago, back when bit.ly was free and you could see anyone’s click-through stats just by sticking a + on the end of the link, we ran a small experiment. One of us spent a summer looking at hundreds of bit.ly links posted by artists promoting their own ticket sales. Because we also had access to the ticket sales data in real time, we could match the clicks to actual purchases. Not just engagement — money in the door.
What we found was uncomfortable, in a useful way.
When artists posted moody, stylistic photos of themselves — the carefully-lit black-and-white portrait, the dramatic backstage shot, the artful hand-on-microphone close-up — they got a lot of likes. People love that stuff. The like-to-impression ratio was great. The follower count went up. And the click-through rate on the ticket link was poor, and the sales were poor.
When artists turned the camera around and posted what the room actually looked like — the crowd, the lights, the energy, the people having a night out — they got fewer likes. The post looked less polished. The follower count moved less. And the click-throughs were dramatically higher, and the ticket sales followed.
The pattern was consistent enough that we stopped treating it as an interesting observation and started treating it as a rule.
The thing you’re selling isn’t you
This is the punchline, and it’s worth sitting with for a moment because most artists actively resist it: the product is not you. The product is being in the audience.
When someone is deciding whether to buy a ticket, they’re not deciding whether they like your face or your hair or your aesthetic. They’re deciding whether they want to be there. They’re projecting themselves into the room. The question they’re asking, consciously or not, is “would I have a good time?”
A polished portrait answers a different question. It answers “is this artist cool?” — and a yes to that question is a like, not a ticket purchase. Liking your photo costs nothing. Showing up costs €25 and a Tuesday evening.
The crowd shot, the room shot, the audience-from-the-stage shot — those answer the question the buyer is actually asking. They show what the experience looks like. They give the viewer somewhere to mentally place themselves.
Why this is hard
Posting the artful self-portrait is much more comfortable than posting a video of the back of three hundred heads. The portrait is about you, controlled by you, lit the way you like. The crowd shot is messy, off-balance, full of strangers, and feels like it’s not really “your” content. It’s the venue’s content. It’s the audience’s content. It’s everyone’s content.
That discomfort is the whole point. If you wouldn’t post it because it doesn’t feel like yours, that’s exactly why a stranger watching it can mentally walk into it. There’s room for them in it. The portrait has no room — it’s full of you.
What to actually do
You don’t have to stop posting portraits. But if you’re trying to sell tickets — meaning, if there’s a bit.ly or a tickets.com or a venue link in the post — pair the link with content that shows the experience, not the artist.
Some practical things that work:
- Crowd shots from the stage during the actual show, posted same-day. Even a phone clip of the front row singing along is gold.
- B-roll from soundcheck that shows the venue filling up, the lights coming on, the bar in the background.
- Short clips of the audience reacting — laughing, dancing, hands in the air. Sound off, captions on, three to ten seconds.
- The walk to the venue. People in line. The marquee. The neon sign over the door. The whole pre-show ritual of showing up.
- A photo from the perspective of a punter, not the artist. Eye level, in the crowd, looking at the stage.
The portrait can stay on the grid. Just don’t expect it to do work it’s not built for.
The wider point
Likes are a measure of how good a post is at being a post. They are not a measure of how good a post is at selling a ticket. These are very different jobs, and it’s possible — common, actually — to be excellent at one and bad at the other.
If your goal is reach, post what gets liked. If your goal is sales, post what makes a stranger imagine themselves in the room. They’re rarely the same image.