Social networking is perhaps one of the most important promotional tools used by indie musicians today. With the popularity of sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Fuzz, Reverb Nation and others, musicians are now able to reach a greater and more diverse audience of possible fans and individuals of like interest. Such social sites have given many fans and artist the appearance of a more personal experience. Many artists/bands use these great tools to promote themselves with the idea that “everyone will love me” and that if they don’t like what they see they can just leave the site.
The goal when promoting your band site is to get people there, get them coming back and convert them into fans or anti-fans. While we are all looking for the positive review and the “oh you’re so great” comments we must also create an environment where the “you guys suck” and “F*&^ you guys, I hope you die!” comments are encouraged. You may be thinking right now, “This guy’s nuts…one negative comment will outweigh twenty good ones…” Blah, blah blah…If you as an artist are still convinced that everyone will like your music, then I am afraid you will be in for a very harsh awakening when the reality of our industry falls on you.
The entire purpose of your social networking is to connect with potential fans and to keep current fans interested. Now to complete your networking experience you must do something to attract and keep your anti-fans visiting your site. Let me give you a personal experience about my current networking program. Most people know me as a metal artist, always have been and always will be. To test the concept of the anti-fan, I decided to start a new MySpace page (www.myspace.com/kentgreyofmorta). On this particular page I added a non-metal, very non-metal, instrumental called Lonely Life. I was getting personal emails and messages from friends, fans and other individuals who were all asking “what the hell is that?!” My concept worked. I simply responded that my new music was coming soon. As a result everyone, including the anti-fan keeps coming back. This same little test increased the company’s web traffic from about 25,000 hits a month to more than 40,000 (the day I opened the page we saw a surge up to more than double our normal daily hits that day alone).
So basically what am I trying to say here? First and foremost cater to your loyal fans and potential fans, but don’t be afraid to do something to ‘shock’ a visitor into returning to your site. Still not clear about the importance of the ‘anti fan’? Check out this article “The Anti-Fan” for a more in-depth discussion of these oh-so-important individuals.
Remember: encourage visitors and comments – entertain and make your visitors happy – and then, be ready to shock them into action.
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