What websites should I be on? (part 3)

Jun 26, 2008

What websites should I be on? (part 3)

Two days ago, this would have been way down on my list, but while it’s fresh on my mind I thought I’d mention it: you should be on Facebook.

The good news is that you’re probably already on Facebook. Statistically speaking, you’re likely to have been bombarded with invitations from friends and, about a year ago, signed up. Since then, you’ll have been bitten by werewolves, compared, sold, invited and friended so often that you’ve either succumbed to it entirely and it wastes almost as many hours of your life as television used to when you were at high school - or, like me, you’re kind of over it and only go there reluctantly from time to time.

But Facebook is a little different for you now. You’re someone who has fans and customers, so you need something more than just a profile. You’re someone who could make use of Facebook Pages.

I could be (and probably am) way late off the blocks on this one. I have no idea how long these have been around. I feel like I’ve been vaguely aware of them for a time - but I only really explored them yesterday when I set up my own Facebook Page as an experiment to see if I could see any use in them for you.

And I can.

Of course, this is by no means a way to get you off the hook as far as your own website is concerned, but it is a way to connect with fans somewhere they already like to hang out. Facebook, like jungle, is massive.

Best thing is that the Facebook page only need take you 10 minutes to set up. Go to the Create a Page page, and fill in the details. I was even able to shoot and upload a test introductory video while waiting to board my flight to Belfast and the whole thing, from signup to its current state, took about 15 minutes.

Of course, the next thing is to tell people it’s there (”Hey everyone, I have a Facebook Page now!” etc.) and start to engage with social networking in a way that would make Chris Brogan proud.

But remember - this is part of a portfolio for your music, your band or your music business. It’s different to MySpace, Bebo, or any of the other social media platforms you’ll find yourself on. But you’ll need to spend a little time engaging once you’ve built. It’s not ‘instead of’ anything - unless it turns out that the thing you want it to be instead of has genuinely outlived its usefulness.

And we’ll be talking about reducing the number of these sites you have to deal with in due course. But for the moment - I’d be keen to hear what you think of the Facebook Page thing.

Table of contents for Questions

Previous Next

If you found this post interesting or helpful, you may wish to subscribe to
New Music Strategies in your feed reader. Click the orange button.

14 Comments, Comment or Ping

Steve Lawson

Hi Andrew,

good post - I like simplicity of Facebook pages as well. Easy to set up, no real need to try and overly-customise them.

I wrote two pieces contrasting the potential audiences and usage of Myspace and Facebook pages a while back - I think they sit well with what you’ve written here -

http://www.stevelawson.net/wordpress/2008/03/the_ecosystem_i/ relates to how Myspace and Facebook function as ecosystems of relationships, and

http://www.stevelawson.net/wordpress/2008/03/perception_trum/ is some thoughts on how the design works for web-phobes.

cheers,

Steve

Jun 26th, 2008
Chris Brogan...

Given all you have to share with the world, I’m really glad you’re helping people find you with all these outpost technologies. Great stuff, Andrew, and I wish you the very best of luck with it all.

Jun 26th, 2008
fakedjs

I signed up for Facebook when I was in college and now I rarely use it. What’s Mark going to do to bring me back?

Jun 26th, 2008
Mark

Yay for facebook pages! Mine is at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Enright-House/8909868366 (come on, you know you wanna!).

Qua musician, however, I have to give even bigger props to event pages. I love those things. Great way to display all the relevant information about an upcoming gig, or album release, etc.

-Mark (www.theenrighthouse.com)

Jun 26th, 2008
Doc Jazz

Hi Andrew,

first of all thanks for your excellent articles, I read them regularly and they contain loads of very useful observations; more often than not I try following up on your advice, since it makes sense.

As for Facebook, what you wrote is very recognizable. I have also made the step that you made (making a Facebook page) only a few weeks ago, and I think the possibilities it offers are pretty useful.

Nevertheless, here is one remark I would like to make.

I think it’s not primarily crucial which social network you are on, but it’s more how much energy you put into it, and where your main fanbase is situated. If, for instance, your socializing takes place mainly on Myspace, adding a Facebook page may not yield as much results in terms of CD sales or music downloads as you might be hoping for.

Since it seems too much to ask to be popular on each of those networks, where your number of friends/fans tells your unprejudiced new visitors how ‘big’ or ‘popular’ you are, it may actually work ‘against’ you to have a network page with a low friends count that creates the impression of you being insignificant or unknown. This may be the case especially if that page ranks high in search engines when you type in your artist name.

Jun 26th, 2008
Atul Rana

Actually I started using Facebook pretty much from it’s outset when it was made global in 2006 to promote my band. The first thing I set up was a Fanclub which grew quite fast to start off with. After that I used the Fanclub to set up events and discussions etc.,

But the now new Facebook page is a lot more powerful and business like to use if needed.

To be honest I think their iLike application is the best for all this and a more powerful viral tool. Facebook is about relationships with people…and in my case this mean that my band’s music appears on my profile. Because of this I can start dedicating songs to others and slowly a viral effect can start of this. A combination of all three of these on Facebook has worked for me best.

Atul from DonkeyBox
http://www.donkeybox.co.uk

Jun 26th, 2008
Carol

Is it preferable to be on one social networking site over another? Will just having and remaining actively involved with one suffice? If used to their potential, I can see adding more social sites as quite time-consuming.

Jun 28th, 2008
Clint

I was all about this whole Facebook Pages thing.. until I went to use their music player.

I have to “verify my account” by uploading a photo of my drivers license or passport to post a song?…..

Um. giving my passport to facebook….. um… NO!

Jun 28th, 2008
Matt @ Kurb

I dunno, all I’m saying is Facebook didn’t make no Tila Tequilas or no Jeffrey Starrs. I don’t see Facebook as a site for music and musicians “instead of” a Myspace.

The nuances of the platform just don’t favour artist promotion as myspace did - just doesn’t frame the fan interactions in the same way, and forget the serps (search engine results). I do find promotion there a little bit like work, except obviously you can set up a lot of auto updates from your blog and such so it doesn’t need much maintenance.

Otherwise the groups section i find is a good place to start laying bait.

For networking I’m sure it’s great but you don’t break a new band networking on facebook. If you’re more focused on a short term goal such as getting more people to your next gig, I’ve seen the most effective stuff done on Facebook around events.

From what I understand the advertising platform is not that saturated so a campaign on Facebook could be worth a look if you can make a budget.

Jun 30th, 2008
Nancy Baym

Though I agree it’s good to have one, I remain unconvinced that FB pages are really all that useful for band promotion — though I agree with the poster above that the events pages have great potential. I am just not sure that explicit promotion fits as well within the practices of FB users who are mostly there to hang out with their peers rather than seeking out music. My take is that it’s probably a better investment to put your energy into something that can be posted on multiple sites — by fans as well as bands — like Last.fm playlists, YouTube video playlists, Reverbnation widgets, etc rather than trying to recreate a strong presence in every site.

That said, I would love to hear stories of bands who have been able to use FB pages effectively.

Jul 2nd, 2008
Fmt

I’ve just started dealing with Facebook and there’s a big red flag here - What is the deal with them requiring a passport or driver’s license to upload music to my musicians page? Is this new? Has anyone even done this? Do people just open a personal page and use it as their biz site? Faxing them a copy of my ID is just not something I’m willing to do and I believe they are stepping over the line in requiring this.

Jul 2nd, 2008
Steve Lawson

I’ve got a facebook music page, but didn’t send them my details - I just used the Reverb Nation widgets to add music to my page, and youtube for video… easy enough to do -

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Steve-Lawson/13831895413 - that’s my page

Jul 2nd, 2008
Jamie

A way round the passport issue is to sync up your ilike.com profile to your facebook page, you can load tracks up to your ilike profile without so much as a bus pass and get them to appear on your Facebook page.
If you don’t have a profile on Ilike, chances are you actually do but didn’t even know! You can claim your profile as your own at any time.

Facebook’s music pages seem a little ‘cold’ and don’t seem to gander as much traffic as ‘groups’ in many cases.

Aug 20th, 2008