Promoting yourself on the web

[wulf]

After resisting MySpace for the longest time, because the ugly, convoluted code of the site was an anaethema to my design aesthetics (I'm a webmaster by trade) I finally gave in and supplemented my handcrafted sites with MySpace pages for [url="http://www.myspace.com/basswulf"]myself[/url] and my bands ([url="http://www.myspace.com/elusiveteeth"]The Elusive Teeth[/url] and [url="http://www.myspace.com/theadrianastorquintet"]The Adrian Astor Quintet[/url]).

However, just recently, I've noticed a lot of people I know flocking to Facebook, which seems to have a cleaner design and allow a lot more options of including clever little widgets that integrate with other sites.

For those of you that get involved with promoting your band on the web, what are you doing? Trying to juggle all the options or just sticking with one and seeking to make it excel? What have been the sites you've tried and what have been the pros and cons?

Wulf

[Tee]

Isn't Facebook more more individuals ie not bands?

My view on MySpace is that's it's run its course for bands. There are so many (quite frankly, rubbish) bands on there now, that it's just completely saturated. Every other post is someone spamming somebody else's page ads/flyers. You can see why they included a "do not accept invites from bands/fil-makers/etc."

Edited June 15, 2007 by BlockInlayMan

[The Funk]

I use myspace for my bands and I have a personal page. Same for our guitarist. Our drummer and keyboard player both use their facebook pages for their personal stuff. Our singer doesn't have a myspace or facebook page.

You're not going to get any new fans from myspace. What it is good for is basically acting as a one page press kit. That's handy when it comes to booking gigs and even finding members.

[wulf]

[quote name='The Funk' post='18381' date='Jun 15 2007, 04:25 PM']You're not going to get any new fans from myspace. What it is good for is basically acting as a one page press kit. That's handy when it comes to booking gigs and even finding members.[/quote]
Yes - I think it does work well as advertising. One of my bands recently got a gig because the person organising it asked if we had a MySpace page and the person booking it was able to say yes. She quickly came back with a booking, having looked at the page and heard the tunes. Of course, she could have done that from the website but I guess that MySpace does offer a fairly standardised interface for getting quick access to tunes (assuming a broadband connection and that the site is behaving on that day!).

I was wondering if any bands were starting to use Facebook and plug in components to make it fulfill the same function, and how that was working out.

Wulf

[stingrayfan]

[quote name='The Funk' post='18381' date='Jun 15 2007, 04:25 PM']You're not going to get any new fans from myspace. What it is good for is basically acting as a one page press kit. That's handy when it comes to booking gigs and even finding members.[/quote]

Agree with that. It's a bit crap but does cut down on the number of demo CDs you have to post out to prespective punters. Other thing is that it rates higher in Google than a normal website would.

[Spikyhedgehog]

Myspace coding is just awful, the 'music player' is possibly the worst piece of everything. It's just painful and doesn't work 90% of the time.

[Musky]

There's no real secret to Myspace, Bebo, Faceparty or any networking website - it all boils down to how you market yourselves, exactly the same as your own web site. As has been pointed out, the days when you could set up a myspace page and wait for the page views are long gone.

The simple fact of the matter is that myspace has the highest membership of any social networking site, and the highest public profile. In my mind that makes it the premier site. You want to be putting your energies into the most effective sites, but it does no harm to set up profiles on several and see which ones pick up the most passing trade and sign ups - I usually discount other bands for this - and then go with one or two that get the best results. It's also worth bearing in mind the demographics of these sites - Bebo has a younger audience than Myspace, Faceparty older - so you really need to be targeting your audience.

Last.fm is a good one IMHO - it's used chiefly by music fans looking for other sounds they might like, and vastl under used by bands for promotion.

[Alun]

Personally, I have found new "fans" via Myspace and have had several gigs and recording opportunities as a result. I agree that the player can be temperamental and the layout isn't great but I have found it beneficial. I still have a [i]real[/i] site too with much more info on it but I have found Myspace invaluable.

The way I look it at is as the most diverse free radio station available which allows the opportunity to find bands you'd probably never hear otherwise. Without any "quality control" you do find a lot of less-than-great music (and no doubt I fit into that category to some listeners), but then that's the same for Youtube and the Internet as a whole really.

Haven't tried Facebook yet, but have got an invite sitting in my Inbox, so may try it ( but not sure I have the time to dedicate to running another site as I'm currently responsible for 5 Myspace pages )

Cheers,
Alun

[paul h]

i have my own site...but i use myspace for a handy way to demo some tracks. it saves me from having to put music samples on my site.

also i do get exposure to people that i wouldn't normally.

things were better in the earlier days of myspace though...i got approached by 3 record compaines quite early on (nothing materialised) but it beats the olds days of sending out a load of cassettes! (yes, i'm THAT old!)

the thing is that it's free to use and relatively quick to get up and running, so there is no harm in giving any of these community sites a go.

paul.

[SJA]

this is hilarious-

pay them a few thousand dollars and you'll blag a record deal!

[url="http://mysocialmarketing.com/index.php"]http://mysocialmarketing.com/index.php[/url]

[krazy_olie]

Facebook is much more organized than myspace but music on it is a new thing, it's not designed for promotion really. Facebook is starting to get slightly messy with all the new 3rd party apps, but even with 100s's of add ons it still looks ordered. It's mostly students though, in fact most students are on it, most of them are addicted.

[Cantdosleepy]

I love myspace.

I hear about a new band, I can usually find their myspace site.

Then I get to listen to 3 or 4 of their songs - enough to know if they're my sort of thing or not.

Ugly - yes. Badly coded - yes. Excellent for hearing new bands - yes.

[Russ]

A lot of bands are going over to Myspace's two new competitors - Trig.com and Virb.com, mostly because they're not nearly as overpopulated as Myspace, and the sites themselves are a lot easier to use. The problem is, the audience is still over on Myspace... it'll take some really big names moving over to the competitors' sites to make the lay users change.