MySpace
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
by Mark Carras
Events On Social Networks Are Useless
Facebook Events
Are You Training People To Reject Your Invite?
I follow a ton of people from all over the world on most social networks. So I get invites to things all over the world. The problem is that I loose money on my music industry related activities already. So there is no way I am taking a private jet to your local club show. I know, what’s the harm when all I have to do is take a few seconds to click ignore on the event that was mass blasted to everyone on that persons list? Well, it’s kind of like when the “Are you sure you want to delete that” pop ups that our computers give us before hitting delete. Does anyone even pay any attention to them at all? I am so used to hitting that ok button that even if a part of my brain is questioning the deletion, my hand has already deleted the item before I can even save it. The same thing happens with your events. When I see that question of “Will you attend this event”, I hit no before I even stop to check the location. I click that no button before I even look to see what that event is.
Why Did You Promote The Event On Facebook?
Because everyone just blasts everything to everyone, everyone is jaded to the event invites. So no one really pays any attention to them at all. Sure your best friend will click yes. Your girlfriend will click yes. Your bandmates will mostly click yes (sorry but your drummer is dumber than a rock and doesn’t get it), but will this improve attendance? Not one bit. You will be lucky to get one person to attend that would not have attended otherwise. Wasn’t that the point? To get more people to show up than who would have otherwise? Then stop blasting it to everyone because you are training people to reject your events without even thinking about it. It is a knee jerk reaction because of the constant blasts we all get from every band from all over the world.
Have You Ever Even Mentioned The State Or City?
Most band’s don’t even mention the state or city. So I have rejected events and found out later it was a local show at a club I had never heard of before. At least list the state and city or your event post failed right out of the gate.
It’s Not All Bad News
So is this nothing but bad news? No. You can stop it. We all need to do our part to stop people from blasting everyone for an event that only 10% of their followers are even capable of attending. Most of the social networks have a way of selecting only the people from your area. Can we start a campaign to not just click no, but to say why in the comments. When an online friend invites you to an event in another state or country, link to this article. Or you can just type “Stop inviting people from out of state, it hurts us non-spamming bands jerkface!” Ok, make up your own line if you want. I just think it would be funny if EVERYONE started using that one. If they don’t list the city and state post that you have no idea what part of the world the event is at and that is why you will not attend. It will take more of an effort than most will be able to muster, but if enough of us do this we can change the pattern and maybe a few habits. Or maybe this is just a way for your band to rise above the rest?
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
by Mark Carras
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.
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
by Mark Carras
Why Ping.fm can be the most powerful tool a band has
Ok, this is where things get very powerful. Imagine you are busy as hell, but have time to send a quick text message while in the bathroom. With this one text message you update your band’s profile pages at 32 of the hottest social networking sites. No joke! With this service you can update Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Plurk, LinkedIn, Tumblr, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Blogger, Identi.ca, Friendster, Delicious, BrightKite, Yahoo 360, Plaxo Pulse, Koornk, Live Journal, Diigo, Bebo, YouAre, Hi5, Multiply, Mashable, Yammer, Kwippy, Flickr, Xanga, Utterli, WordPress.com, Imeem, Rejaw, & Seesmic with nothing but a simple text message. Now it may be a pain to get it all set up, but after you do that you don’t even have to log in. Do I have your interest?
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.