The Internet has definitely changed everything. The way companies sell their products, the way people communicate, and the way musicians promote music and how they sell music online. Everything is faster and easier with social networks. With a few clicks of a button, you can send a press kit to a booking agent. Tell everyone your status on the new CD you’re working on or upcoming shows. Musicians can promote their music and build fans from all over the world just as easily, if not more efficiently, than going to an open mic, handing out flyers, and trying to get people to attend their concerts or buy their CDs. Yes, it seems that with social networks it is easier to get your name out there.
The explosion of social networks
I agree with the IDEA of social networks. It’s a great way to connect and share news and information. There are so many solutions that answer the question “How to promote my music?” I posted the fact that I have a show in 2 weeks and all my friends can see and share it on their profile. I can tweet about my show. I can record a video and post it on YouTube. I can upload the brochure to Instagram and share it there too. I can use LinkedIn, FourSquare, my blog, my ezine, post photos on my Flickr, upload new songs to SoundCloud, add new photos to my MySpace account (anyone still on MySpace?). The list is endless!
In the beginning, only MySpace was the spark in promoting music online and the main means of promoting music online. The perfect internet medium for getting the word out, but not everyone liked MySpace or got sick of that really annoying profile with all the animation and annoying crap that made it load for 5 fucking minutes. Then Facebook comes along and you join that. But now you have MySpace and Facebook to post. Then Twitter comes along because it’s the “new” thing that everyone is doing. It takes you another month to understand how Twitter works. It took me 3 months to figure out that “RT” stood for Retweet and not Real Talk. LOL. Then Instagram, Google Plus, LinkedIn, YouTube, MetaCafe, Vimeo… OMG!
Don’t forget… It’s about being a great artist
The irony of social media and the internet is that they’re supposed to save you time, but in the end it takes more time than ever to get the word out about what you’re doing. So I have noticed this transformation of the current artist. Some artists are so tech savvy and social media savvy that they forgot to focus on being a real ARTIST! If you are an artist, businessman, musician, etc… take a look at your week. If you’ve spent more time on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc… than on your job, you’re falling into a trap!
Take care of your time because that is one of your most valuable resources. Watch how much time you spend on social media and don’t let it take away from your trade. I have fallen into that trap and am digging my way out. I am consolidating. Do I need to be on 10 different social sites? I don’t have a team to work on these accounts. It’s just me, so I’ll just focus on a few sites that I find really productive.
This concept has totally changed the way I look at band promotion and artist promotion. Last week I focused more time on some songs that I couldn’t finish and also performed those songs in front of real people. I have to say that I prefer the person to person aspect of music better than social media. I won’t stop tweeting or using Facebook because so many people follow my news on those sites, but I won’t be a slave to the social media frenzy. I want to be a great artist and focus on my craft instead of a decent artist who has an amazing online presence.