Has your MySpace account resulted in more sales or turnout:?

Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:03 am

Just wondering if over the last few years you've noticed an increase of CD sales or turnout at gigs as a direct result of your myspace account. And how do you track that info? It's easier to keep fans informed on MySpace or other social networking sites, but have you been able to maintain or increase interest in your music with MySpace alone?

Groupie Joined: Nov 06, 2007 Posts: 85

Yes.

If you tell fourty five hundred people you have a show, somebody will be there. We do pretty good. We still put up posters also.

Groupie Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 76

I'm of the opinion that the percentage is small, but it's not zero.

I must disclaim that I have some pretty different priorities with what I'm trying to get done with my music than many other musicians. I have all but abandon trying to sell recorded music in these times, and I have no desire to "be discovered" and make it big. I have put emphasis on where the fun and attainable money is, for me: Getting live gigs and having attendance be decent for these gigs I do get. MySpace helps me with both these latter goals.

It requires nurturing, and a bit of wise use and "netiquette"... It requires making people feel special, and not feeling as though they are on the excrement end of a mass spam machine... I'm pretty selective with who I consider to befriend; I have only about 100 now, but I'd say that I personally know and have really met about 90 of them. I'm also not "whorey" about friend acceptances. (Do you really feel that special being asked to be an MS-friend of someone who already has a five-digit number of such friends?... If they aren't at least in my local area or they have 10,000 other friends, they get the "Deny" button from me...) I delete friends sometimes; "Spammy" ones especially, since it simplifies my life... I try not to spam for every little thing (and NEVER out of boredom), myself, but do call attention to events that are bigger deals. I want a reputation of speaking seldomly, and when I do speak, it's substantive, personal and entertaining. I don't clutter my friend list with major names in the biz; This "namedropping" junk fools no one, I think... All these little MySpace decisions you make come down to style and personal pref, I suppose, but I have to believe that they impact how effective a promo device it is for you.

I have learned through the school of hardknocks that gig-getting is very often most influenced by being "known" (whatever THAT means...), especially in smaller town markets. I can't even count how many times I've checked out acts at places I've wanted to play at, only to find that what I was passed over for was a questionably-ready perfomance hack who just happens to be the brother-in-law of one of the dishwashers... The point being, if gig-getting is more about being known than the quality of your musical product, then MySpace can help with this "being known" business quite a bit, if ya play it right...

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:20 pm

Do you recruit e-mail addresses at gigs? We used to use table cards to collect names and addresses - that was kinda before e-mail was very popular.

I know what you mean about making your crowd feel special, Gene. Back when I was gigging regularly I authored a newsletter for our band and used mail-merge on the computer (a new technology at that time) to personalize each newsletter. I made it a point to merge their name in the body of the news items as well as the intro without making it bold or drawing any particular attention to it. It worked pretty well. People love to see their name in print and they felt personally connected to the band. Now some of the e-mails I see start with "Mitch!" (Nuroksol comes to mind)

Now, maintaining that connection is the real trick, without making people feel like nameless paying customers. What other things are you doing out there to maintain a relationship with your fans.

Groupie Joined: Nov 06, 2007 Posts: 85

All that sounds like a great idea but one of the things I've found is that if you try to convince all of these people that you are their friend they will start wanting something from you besides a great musical product. That can fall under many things. Playing, practicing, promoting and other personal things take up a lot of my time if not all of it. Trying to pretend to fans that I/we are their friend then letting them down by not participating in the "Friendship" seems rather fake. I'd much rather be honest about things. It may be perceived as being cold but I've got to tend to my needs and maintain a balance before anything.

I’ve tossed around the idea of putting together an e-mail list and sending out info about the band that way. The day to days with us are actually quit scary and I’d rather not go into details about what the band is up to. If they like the music, enjoy the performance and if we are playing on a day when they have the ability to escape the clutches of the “Man” the all I think people really need to know is when and where we are playing.

Groupie Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 76

I've collected the majority of my e-mail addresses from Open Mic hostings I've done. My sign-up clipboard has three columns: "Introduce me as:", "Act:" and "Want to be e-mailed about local music events? Include e-mail here:".

Others came just through friendly exchange and business cards and such. The stories vary...

When the group is in the low 100's, I can manage some special attention, but if the group reaches four digits, you just have to treat it like "the masses". I ain't there quite yet!...

I try to make the e-newsletter I send out be about things beyond ME, and more broadly about what I know is going down musicwise in the area. It does have blatent name-dropping in it, and sometimes reads like a local gossip column, I will admit. But, I'm playing this very shrewdly in this way: I know that knowledge is power, and people just LOVE to seem "on the inside" to the rest of their peers as far as knowing what's going on locally. I know this about people, so, I inject a lot of this kind of data for them to use and show off with in my e-newsletters. And, I coattail a lot of what's going on with MYSELF along with all this stuff I'm offering.

Now, coming off like some guy that actually knows lots of stuff has costs. For one, you have to obtain the knowledge! This requires getting out there where music is happening, meeting people personally in real-life and shaking hands, and so on. Pecking on keyboards and clicking on mice is a very small part of it. I don't consider it choresome, though; I authentically enjoy being where local live music is going on, and I've made quite a few good like-minded friends from it all. Oh, and the business benefit that falls out of it, of course...

But what's all this gotta do with the MUSIC? Very little, actually! This is SALES. And, I've discovered that good musical product is often not enough in the landing of gigs. In fact, it's often secondary, or even LOWER, especially in smaller town markets. It's a "being known" thing. Once I discovered that, got all mad about the injustice of this, and accepted it and got over it, once that phase was gone through I started asking myself, "Okay, what do I have to do to get 'known'?". That's why I'm persuing all this!...

This "known" business is really starting to pay off, too. It's completely upside-down from MY standards of what makes a performer worth going to go see. But, I overhear the conversation of "Are you going to go see Band X?", "Nah, I don't KNOW them." a LOT. This "known" thing seems to matter a great deal to the people in my area in whether they come to a show or not. It matters to venue managers hiring performers for their places, too. So, the idea is to get KNOWN, then, isn't it?...

I suppose this is getting pretty far away from the original MySpace question, but it thinly relates... Forgive me...

Groupie Joined: Nov 06, 2007 Posts: 85

That's why on MySpace they call it a friends list.