I often hear the question “I wonder what will replace Myspace now that it’s dying out?”
Myspace was once a place where everyone hung out – regular people as well as bands and artists. Today, the regular people have left Myspace for Facebook, leaving behind the worlds’ musicians to promote their music to each other. Myspace has gone from being an active social community to simply being a page musicians tell their fans to go to to listen to their music.
With social networking sites coming and going like shoe trends, it’s always hard to predict the next big hype. What could be the right answer today could be a completely different answer in a year. It’s not so much about what site will replace Myspace as it is “On what social network should I as an artist/band focus my marketing efforts?” I can’t tell you what the Myspace of 2012 will be, but it is becoming more and more crucial that musicians stop wasting their marketing efforts on Myspace and instead use them on 2010′s biggest social network – Facebook. For some of you this is old news, but I encourage you to read on anyway!
I’m definitely not saying we artists should terminate our Myspace accounts – I for one will probably keep mine indefinitely and just have it as one of my many online artist profiles. From a SEO perspective it is always good to be visible all over the net, so that when people Google your name, it will be impossible for them not to find you. (As well as push down haters from cluttering your top 10 with negative critique) And with Myspace’s high page rank history, Google will most likely keep your Myspace page in your band-name’s top 10 search results for several years more.
Now back to Facebook. Weather you like Facebook or not, the simple fact that it has the second largest user base in the world (currently over 400 million users worldwide, with many of them logging in daily) should be enough incentive to want to take advantage of this hot marketing opportunity. If you think your fans are gonna take the time to physically go to your Myspace/website to follow your career, I encourage you to think twice! Perhaps your most die-hard groupies will, but they only represent a small percentage of your total fan base, the rest are lazy individuals like me who want all their daily entertainment to come from one single source, such as from the familiar environment of Facebook. Some of your tech-savvy fans might follow your blog (if you have one) via RSS, but that still leaves out a large number of people from your marketing plan. It’s the same reason companies market their products/services through commercials on TV, through posters at bus stops, by calling you on your homephone – they want to be where you already are. To only have a website or a Myspace is like putting up a listening booth with your music on a random island in the Atlantic ocean and spending your days on the nearest shore encouraging people through a megaphone to take a ferry ride over to your island and expect them to be curious enough to do so. They might do it once, maybe even twice if they like your music enough – but they won’t be going on daily ferry rides to follow your every career development. (Hey, I’m a songwriter – I like to be dramatic with my metaphors =) )
“But Facebook Pages suck and they all look the same – I can’t express my image as an artist through a generic colorless profile!” you say.
The solution is to create other external artist profiles, such as on Reverbnation, iLike, or the new and hyped RootMusic, and feed these profiles into your Facebook page using these sites’ Facebook applications. The reason Myspace is dying is because they stubbornly refuse to work together with Facebook, which is a huge mistake. If Myspace wants to have a chance at surviving, they need to suck it up and design an application for Facebook, and I promise their users will stay loyal. Quite frankly I’m surprised they haven’t already done so, considering that they have successfully claimed the title as the #1 site for musicians – even if this isn’t what they originally had intended, they should make the best of the situation and use this title to their advantage instead of continuing to copy Facebook.
“So how do you make sure your Facebook fans see your super cool RootMusic profile?”
Since a user is automatically directed to your page’s wall by default, it would be a smart idea for you to change this setting so that the first thing your fans see is your colorful music page instead. On your Facebook page, just go to Options – Settings (under your status bar) and change the default landing page.
You can also create your own customized welcome tab using Static FBML, where you can basically be as expressive as you want and greet your fans with cool artwork, a shiny flashplayer or perhaps a form where they can fill out their email adresses to get a free mp3. The possibilities are endless!
Since I love Facebook so much (not necessarily..) I will be introducing a new segment to my blog called “Secret Facebook Tips” where I’ll be talking about some of the features, shortcuts and work-arounds you can use on your Facebook page. So stay tuned!
My buddy and I were just discussing this specific subject, she’s always attempting to prove me wrong! I am going to show her this particular write-up and additionally rub it in a little!
Fantastic! thanks a lot