Many already know my problems with all apps and games on Facebook. I not only STRONGLY discouraged them, but have pretty much kept a zero tolerance to them for my own account. Although I have not kept a zero tolerance to fan pages and groups, I am still pretty strict. Some may wonder why I wouldn’t join a group of fan a page of something that I totally agree with. Well, the reason is simple. My time is short and I find that the best causes have the most pathetic fan pages.
People see a group that stands for something they believe in and they just click a button and join right up. It is so easy that they put almost no thought into it. Why is that a bad thing? Well, they put so little thought into joining that joining is all they ever do. There are fan pages with thousands of members and a dead wall! I joined Facebook to network and communicate. There won’t be much communication on a fan page with a dead wall. It does better for the cause for me to just post an update stating my belief. Why is it better to NOT join the group or fan page? Well, think about that dead wall. If a cause has a dead wall it makes the cause look weak. It shows that the people that believe in that cause are lazy and will not do much more than click a link to join a Facebook group. It let’s the enemy know that the group in no threat. Where as if you just post an update stating your thoughts on the case, it just opens up communication. No dead wall to let the enemy know it is a dead cause to be dismissed.
So just because I don’t join your fan page for “Pull up your pants you look like a douche”, doesn’t mean I’m going to start walking around with my pants below my waist looking like a homeless bum. It just means I would rather not remind the enemy that people against the homeless bum look are apathetic. So no matter how serious or comical your group or fan page is, do not bother to send me an invite. I believe enough in the cause to NOT join!
You ever get so tired that you loose any shred of common sense? Well, if I had any common sense I would head for bed right now. Instead I need to get a rant out of my head. Facebook has two “features” that their users seem to confuse. One of them is the great “like” button. This is for when someone you follow says, posts, or submits something you like. You have nothing intelligent to say about it, but you agree, enjoy, or somehow are reacting in a positive manner to said item. It keeps people from the ultra-retarded comments like “good post” or “cool”. Nothing intelligent to say? Just click the like button and shut the hell up. Good stuff.
Another feature is the ability to create a fan page for anything. On the surface this seems like a good idea. I can create a fan page for the Teamsters Union and find other Teamsters brothers and sisters from around the country (yes, I am a proud card carrying member). I can maybe create a fan page for the cartoon The Tick and find other fans of this cult comic. When used like this it is a great thing. Maybe if they limited people to only being able to create one or two fan pages this thing would not have gotten so out of control. Now we have fan pages that would have been better submitted as simple comments. There are fan pages of “George Bush is a Douche”. Now of course I agree that George Bush is a douche. If I see someone say that I will click the like button in a second. I will not however clutter my Facebook profile with ten million fan page memberships of everything I dislike. Do we really need a fan page for farting? Do I need to connect with other people who like to fart? What good does it do for me to connect with others who would join a fan page for “Sex”? I am married and my wife is the only one who needs to know what a fan I am of sex. I don’t see the benefit of networking with other people who join a fan page of “Hating Will Ferrel”. Now you all know that I have a passionate hatred for Will Ferrel that would give any psychologist a lifetime of research, but I would not get anything out of connecting with others who see him as the talentless hack he is.
Maybe I don’t get it. I use Facebook to network, communicate, and maybe find old friends I have lost contact with. I don’t need busy work. I want to share cool articles I find, educate myself a little, find good music , and plan a meet up or two. I don’t have time to kill. I don’t need clutter, noise, or shiny things to distract me. This misuse of the fan page has made me loose interest in joining any fan page on Facebook at all. It has ruined it for me! I’m afraid that if I join one that does have a purpose it will open a Pandora’s Box I could never close. If I accept a fan page that I think might have something to offer me, I am afraid I will be turned into a zombie that joins every fan page that I think is “cute” or “witty”.
The thing I really wonder is, doesn’t it destroy all impact if you just go click happy and join and “like” everything. Are we really communicating or have we turned into placating robots that are not really even paying attention to each other. If that is the case then the social networking experiment has already failed.
This is another post that although written with bands in mind, it will help many non-musicians as well I think. Facebook is a very busy site. It is full of what many call ‘noise’ and if you are a busy person it can be very annoying. However, there is a way for the busy person to survive the noise of Facebook. If you go to my profile on Facebook I have a notice right at the top that says I reject all the garbage. The problem with Facebook is that it is made for people that need “busy work”. They need brainless time killers to pass the time. If you are one of the people that spend tons of time with all this busy work, you are not a busy person. Seriously, if you need tons of time killers…you have time to kill. I however do not have time to kill, so do everything I can to reject every single time killer. I don’t have time to kill.
It is very tempting to get caught up in the brainlessness that is Facebook though. It ends up being a game in and of it’s self to kill all the time killers. One thing you must understand though is that Facebook is designed to play on your guilt. When a friend sends you an invite you end up feeling like a total jerk for not accepting the invite. Don’t! The truth is that your friend probably doesn’t know they sent you the invite, didn’t intend to send you the invite, and has no way to track who reject the invite. When they go to set up the app for themselves, it sends an invite to all their contacts by default. Most people feel bad about it after it is sent anyways. No friend wants to fill your Facebook inbox with unwanted messages. We all hate spam, but Facebook by default love what sending that spam does for their network. So don’t feed the spam monster and just reject everything.
A few of you by now might be wondering why I am on Facebook if I don’t want to take a quiz to find out which member of the Back Street Boys I am, how big of an American Idol fan I am, or which wanna be vampire from Twilight I most want to see ‘glow’ in the sunlight? I ask those people what is so wrong with just plain old conversation? Share a photo, share a news article, or just ask a question. Do we need an app to tell a joke? Do we need an app to post a poll question? Facebook can be a great networking tool, but it can also be the most evil time killer around. So please take a stand with me for true interaction, conversation, and networking. Reject every single poll, quiz, survey, app, game, and invitation. We no longer have time to kill!
So now that you have created tons of social networking accounts to promote your band, how do you use them? As with anything there are unspoken rules. Imagine all the horrid stuff noobs do when they come to see your band for the first time. There are so many noob mistakes you can do at a metal show, there are just as many in social networking. Mostly you have to keep in mind that it is about being social. Don’t just post stuff about your band. Reply to others about the things that are important to them as well.
Talk to people about stuff other than your band
DO NOT TYPE IN ALL CAPS EVER!
Don’t post a flood of stuff in a small amount of time.
Post at least a few times a day whenever possible
Keep it “work safe” because most are surfing from their job
Make sure you get as many fans & friends to join you on these social networks
Run tons of giveaways through just those social networks
Friend people back or you look like a snob.
Don’t use trickery to get attention. Always be honest!
Keep your followers & followed ratio close
These are pretty general things. This stuff works on Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, MySpace bulletins, or any others. I hope they help.
Now there is tons more we could get into but I like to keep these updates nice and simple. This kind of thing can be a lot to swallow at times. Some people will come at you with tons of unwanted advice and will make you feel like a 13 year old kid being taught guitar by Yngwie Malmsteen. Yngwie only knows how to go full speed, so his lessons are pretty useless. So I hope I don’t go Yngwie on you people. If I do let me know.
Now I was going to blog about HeavyAsHell for today’s update, but I think it would be more important to make that post on Monday. So you will all just have to wait. Instead I am going to blog about the site LinkedIn. Now many of you may not know about LinkedIn because it’s not one of the hot and trendy social websites. This is not the new cool place for kids to hang out. This is the business social network. Now for the longest time I didn’t really care about this site. Then I discovered they had forums they called “Groups”. I started looking around and found several music industry “groups”. I joined the two that I thought fit me the best. Now I am networking with all levels of music industry types.
With all the other social networks I have talked about in the past two weeks it was about finding more fans. This one is about finding contacts. You might want to give this job to the member of the band that is always way too serious and really has a business mentality (probably the one reading this article). You might as well just accept everyone that wants to be on your contact list for this site. One person may know another person, that may know the guy that gets you on a really amazing tour. So this site is all about that other type of networking bands need to do.
Don’t just beg for help “getting a record deal” though. There are tons of people doing that and they almost never get anyone of value. That is not the way to do it. Posting new topics should be about ten percent of what you do on this site. It should mostly be about replies. Be very picky about when you plug your stuff. Otherwise you will be dismissed as a spammer. Instead ask questions, give your viewpoint on a debate, offer info someone else needs. Then when you do plug your stuff in that ten percent of activity people will pay more attention.
It may not be as fun as playing with the millions of time waster type apps on Facebook, but this will do your band 100 times more good. Why waste time anyways. Screw Facebook I say!
Now Ping does have a nice mobile version you can use, a simple full scale online version, and I think some freaky email version. I have never tried the email version though. Why bother when I can do it with a text message? Of course most will not want to sign up to all those networks, but if you are a band that wants to network with as many fans worldwide as possible I would. Imagine if each one of these sites got you a few sales of your cd a day? Not saying that will happen…you might suck. I’m just giving you something to think about.
Although you don’t have to sign in to Ping ever again, I would do that at least once a month just to make sure everything is working the way it should. I would also check a couple of these sites a day to make sure they are getting your updates. You might also want to log in to all these sites just to accept “friend” requests, answer messages, and make sure the account is doing what it should. Check 5 of them a week and you should be fine. I really wouldn’t do more than that. You have music to create after all.
Now I know that most of my articles are longer than this, but why say more? That is the beauty of Ping.fm is that it is simple. If you have any questions please feel free to ask me through Twitter, Plurk, or better yet the comments below.
