Myspace is dead, long live ????

[guitarboi89]

As you may have of noticed myspace is dying (mainly because it only just being updated with other social networking websites ideas).
This leaves a problem, you want to post music, tell people you have gigs but no-one checks their myspace anymore..
Heres my ideas:

• Get a Website - A .com generally shows you have a bit more drive than other bands, but this relys of people checking out the websites, newsletter things are annoying.
• Create a Facebook Group - Easy way to get initial looks but the amount of people who will check the group is very minimal
• Go oldskool and make up loads of flyers - Im thinking people on campus (im at uni) would appreciate getting someone bothering to introduce their band and have made a respectable flyer for their gig

Ideas?

[TerraMortim]

You should do anything any everything, to be honest. Flyers, site, myspace, any place that you're at can only help you get more exposure, so be everywhere you can.

[NL5]

Originally Posted by TerraMortim

You should do anything any everything, to be honest. Flyers, site, myspace, any place that you're at can only help you get more exposure, so be everywhere you can.

Yeah! What he said.

If your music is good, it's just a matter of getting enough exposure to get the snowball rolling.......

[SonicAlbert]

You know what's deader? Facebook.

Man I hate Facebook.

MySpace is still a lot more happening in my opinion.

[legionserial]

MySpace, Facebook, Bebo...They'd all be great tools for self-promotion if it wasn't for the fact that all the networks are so diluted with scenesters, emos, attentions seekers, friend whores, self absorbed little tarts, people with nothing to promote who think we give a shit about their insignificant little lives, ugly layouts, and general gayness. Personally I prefer soundclick.

[Yonce N Mild]

Originally Posted by legionserial

MySpace, Facebook, Bebo...They'd all be great tools for self-promotion if it wasn't for the fact that all the networks are so diluted with scenesters, emos, attentions seekers, friend whores, self absorbed little tarts, people with nothing to promote who think we give a shit about their insignificant little lives, ugly layouts, and general gayness. Personally I prefer soundclick.

But dude! Every time I sign on to myspace someone else has a
"crush" on me and totally hot chicks want me to check out their NAKED pictures. What more could a guy ask for?!?!?!?







I can't believe I just used the word crush is a sentence like that. Really the only time a grown man should use the word crush is to describe what he is going to do/has done to someone/something. Example: "I will crush your face with my bare hands!"


I feel so ashamed.

[TerraMortim]

change your settings to require a captcha for requesting you, and you'll notice that all the dumb ass spam profiles stop coming in.

I've heard a great many musicians saying how much they hate myspace, but I have the same answer for them, it's yet another great tool to get you out there. How can it be bad to have more and more people hear your music each day? As long as you make music that people like, there's nothing wrong with heavy myspace promo, and that can be pretty successful quite frankly. I've secured some decent world wide radio play on commercial and college stations as well as net radio, made contacts with other great bands, etc..all with heavy myspace promotion.. sure we do the traditional promo on a local level, but myspace is great for keeping in contact with people, getting to know your fan base, getting your music out to LOTS of people, etc...

Just with any tool, it's just how you use it.

[TerraMortim]

Originally Posted by legionserial

MySpace, Facebook, Bebo...They'd all be great tools for self-promotion if it wasn't for the fact that all the networks are so diluted with scenesters, emos, attentions seekers, friend whores, self absorbed little tarts, people with nothing to promote who think we give a shit about their insignificant little lives, ugly layouts, and general gayness. Personally I prefer soundclick.

ah bebo..there's a new one for me.. time to sign up.

[Creep]

Originally Posted by TerraMortim

You should do anything any everything, to be honest. Flyers, site, myspace, any place that you're at can only help you get more exposure, so be everywhere you can.

Yeah, agreed. However I reckon FaceBook is total trash.

[MadAudio]

Originally Posted by SonicAlbert

You know what's deader? Facebook.

Man I hate Facebook.

MySpace is still a lot more happening in my opinion.

I concur. And Facebook just seems kinda creepy to me. I left that place after just a couple of months.

[mwthompson]

All these sites suck, but exposure is exposure!

Register your own domain, have someone make you a kick ass site to host on it, and use all the other skanky services as portals to link to your own site.

[TerraMortim]

Originally Posted by Creep

Yeah, agreed. However I reckon FaceBook is total trash.

yeah, not really anything for music that I've seen. I still find myspace gets the most exposure, to be honest... I'm signed up to a ton of other ones, and I get some interest, which makes it worthwhile, but 95% of all my interest, contacts, fans (even local ones) etc...still come from myspace (even more than traditional local promo)

Just use everything..as that's everyone's best bet...

I hear people A LOT saying that all of the online social network marketing doesn't work. I don't know what they're doing, because it's been good to me, when compared to what it was like trying to market a project I was doing years ago, even better than when mp3.com was around. Anything you use can be a tool, even things like bad press... you just have to analyze each medium and try to figure out how to exploit it to your benefit... Where there's a lot of people, there is a lot of people who might like your music. If you're music is good then that's really all you have to do. Of course, though, you have to be smart about it. If you're a really dark or heavy band, don't try to market to all the 12 year old pop star/porn star wannabes. And don't just treat everyone who requests you, or you request with indifference. I ALWAYS leave personal comments/messages on people who request my band, and it often leads to a lot of things. Some bands just accept them all, and don't bother starting conversations with people. I actually thank my stars that we have a tool like that in which is makes it so easy to get out there, keep in contact with fans, AND even do market research. I can see where my music is getting a lot of interest and by who, and what they're interests are, what bands they like, and in turn, can use that information to more effectively get my music out to the kind of people who are showing the most interest, which just makes it all that much more successful.

But really, if you're music doesn't mean something to a group of people, or people in general, no marketing tool on the planet will work. If people like your music, then just get it out there and you'll be very happy.

[Jamie Carr]

I think a big part of MY problem is that I suck,..and everybody hates my music,............just sayin

[jjones1700]

I've found most of the music I play during my podcast through Myspace. It's easy. I just peruse through the "rock" genre and see what's out there. It makes it easy for a band to keep their fans up to date as well. I'm no musician, and I can't say what facebook or bebo are like. I think if myspace were tweaked just a tad, it could serve the artists better. Just my .02

[wreckd504]

Orginally posted by Jamie Carr

I think a big part of MY problem is that I suck,..and everybody hates my music,............just sayin

i thought i was the only one!

[antispatula]

myspace has indeed slown down a very considerable ammount. Facebook has taken over......which is too bad because facebook is relatively useless for a musician/band. There's no real way to "work" facebook like there is myspace.

about a year ago I was getting around 60-100 plays a day. Now I get 0-10! I would say lots of that has to do with not sending out as many bulletins, not having an album comming out in the near future, not promoting myself locally, etc etc. I would say that would play the largest part for sure. But still, going from 80ish plays a day to sometimes having 0? People are abandoning myspace for the "better-in-pretty-much-every-way" facebook. Doesn't bother me that much, but I'm sure it's rough on lots of bands that are really attatched to their myspace account and what it did for their promotion capabilities.

Getting on iTunes is a really great tool too. I've never really promoted it that much, and have gotten about 60 song downloads. Websites are usefull in the sense that it makes you look pro and "in the scene" but people don't seem to like going to websites like they used to. My website has been visited about 1,000 times, my myspace account has been visited about 26,000 times.

flyering shows is usefull. In all honestly I really don't think it really makes show attendence increase much, it simply gets your name out there. Everytime someone sees a flyer, your name is engrained in their mind. Last year when I was still in highschool I passed out about 200 flyers for a show, and I don't think any of those people that weren't already going to go went. But after that they knew who I was. Because a combination of word of mouth and flyers, the majority of people that went to my school knew who I was and that I was a musician. I think multiple instances of exposure is the key (them seeing your myspace, then website, then flyer, then something in the local newspaper, etc etc) to good promotion, and flyers is a great tool for that purpose.

[IainDearg]

There's a mulitude of ways to (self-) promote and if you don't have a day job, or any life of any other kind, you should certainly exploit them all.

But if you do have another life, then you should decide where to deploy your resources, time, energy and money. Your own website is essential IMHO. Pick'n mix from the rest; fliers, classifieds, social networking sites, OMDs (Soundclick, et al), radio promo, mailshots, emailshots, viral marketing, busking, SEO, Black Hat, door-to-door, billboards, running naked down the street with a banner tied to your...

Whatever you do, the trick is to keep on keeping on.

Dave
Original Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitar Songs
"Interim Reports" at CDBaby!

[zazz]

early days for all these myspace type websites .....hopefully it will all settle down to just one site ...and thats the game ...who is gonna be the one when the music stops and get the big cash cow.

...because once the novelty wears off nobody is gonna realy care as long as we are all in the same place.

pobably microsoft...they did it with the os......they will probably do it again by playing the long game with pockets deeper than you can imagine.

[notredamer0789]

I can agree with ALL of this completely. It really sucks for a band (when I was in one) b/c we would get GREAT plays... and then over time we started getting LESS AND LESS... and Facebook is no place for a band. I really wish they would come up with a band feature... well a BETTER feature for Facebook. You think that they would considering you get a request for a new application EVERY TWO SECONDS!!!

[tribalpython]

i gotta agree. there for awhile...myspace was really jumping. now it does seem to have slowed down quite a bit.
being a one-man-band, it is very hard to promote what you do period (mainly due to the lack of live support). i still keep the myspace going... posting recording updates and whatnot.

but yeah, facebook is crap (at least to me... just my opinion).

oh well... life goes on.

[TerraMortim]

Originally Posted by zazz

early days for all these myspace type websites .....hopefully it will all settle down to just one site ...and thats the game ...who is gonna be the one when the music stops and get the big cash cow.

...because once the novelty wears off nobody is gonna realy care as long as we are all in the same place.

pobably microsoft...they did it with the os......they will probably do it again by playing the long game with pockets deeper than you can imagine.

if it were to be one of that type of company I'd say definitely google over microsoft..

[TerraMortim]

I haven't seen a slowdown in myspace at all. If anything, it's been picking up more and more and more every day for me. It depends on which project though, as I have some on there that don't get so much attention, but my primary one gets more than ever.