social media tips for bands

01Jun09

They are just so many music social networks and place where fans gather that it seems that a lot of bands are king of getting lost in this social era. So here are my advices.

1. Should you get a myspace bands profile page: YES you must. Event if myspace is losing some strength. It is still the number one social networks when it come to the music business & entertainment

2. Should you get a twitter account: YES and share it between your band members. Also make sure to link it to your myspace account.  (FYI total minutes spent on twitter is up 3712% from a year ago)

3. Now the big question. Should you get your own website? Well it depends. Once upon a time it was mandatory, now it would be according to your budget. But in this social media era you can definitely survive without one

4. And what about facebook: As it is the biggest social network as of today, creating an account is also mandatory but be aware that facebook is not that friendly for bands and music in general but is pretty cool for your communication.

5. Then you could go on forever and create profiles on more that 50 other music social networks but at the end get nothing. My advice is to find a couple of website where you have a higher percentage to find your actual or future fans. For example, when it comes to rock we work a lot with purevolume.com because the target & audience of this website is the rock, indie and hardcore community.

In summary find a smaller community which has a great content quality.

6. Pick 2 other websites: probably an “online radio” like last.fm and another more dedicated to taste sharing & music discovery like imeem.com and work on them (another advantage: last.fm and imeem have iPhone apps) 

7. Develop your communication on a couple of music blogs in order to get exposure. How? give them exclusive content, news.. work on something creative

All in all you’ll end up with already 10 different accounts and it will take you guys  a lot of time to be active, create your community, share interesting content with your fans.. what will happen if you try to manage to many accounts? Your work will be diluted, quality will be lost and you’ll become boring for your audience.

Try to find the social networks which fit your needs, work on them, your fans base will then do the rest by spreading your contents on other social networks. Stay also updated about what is going on in the social media world by following a couple of great music technology blogs so you’re always ahead of the new trends.

And if this is still too much for you,  contact a social media management company like lost penguin media which will prepare a tailored fit marketing plan.

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Tags: bands, community, facebook, imeem, last.fm, music, music technology, myspace, new media, purevolume, social media, social networking, twitter