There has been a startling trend amongst young artists and bands over the last decade that finds otherwise intelligent and creative individuals deciding to rely solely on social media profiles to promote their work. Most don’t even have a single domain in their name, or if they do it’s connected to a service like Tumblr, which is only a slight improvement over having nothing at all. I know this may not seem like a big deal right now, but it is, and as time goes on there will be an incredible amount of talent that goes unnoticed simply because people forgot to make a place solely for themselves and the people who follow them online.
So, what is so bad about social media?
Nothing! The age of social media has provided a kind of immediate connection between artists and their fans that did not exist as recently as fifteen years ago. Regardless of who you are, where you are, or what you do for a living, as long as you have connection to the internet you can interact with anyone you choose and they can (choose to) interact with you. That is an incredible technological advance. There is no denying that fact, nor any room for argument, but any successful entrepreneur will tell you that there is a lot more involved in building a brand than simply interacting with consumers.
What do you mean?
When people discover your music, or when they want to help others discover your work, they should have a place online to go where you and your work is the only thing vying for their attention. You should have a hub for everything related to your work, including tour dates, music streams, videos, blogs, contact information, and any other details or insight you can offer into your current activity.
Can’t I show that stuff on sites like Facebook or Tumblr? They have tools to help with those things.
While it is true that Facebook and Tumblr allow for a lot of customization, anyone using those platforms are actually far more limited in their ability to truly express themselves than most might think. No matter how you change your Facebook Page, the basic design will always remain the same. People will need to click on multiple tabs to learn about who you are, what you sound like, and where you will be next. Also, while they’re clicking between those pages they will also be shown numerous ads related to products and artists who are not you that the platform’s algorithm believes the person visiting your page might like. Who knows? Maybe they like the add more than whatever they see on the your FB page.
Tumblr offers even more customization as far as page design is concerned. That is nice, but as most people using the platform view new posts from their dashboard, which is one page that looks exactly the same for every single user, it is very easy for big or otherwise important updates to come and go without raising as much as an eyebrow from your followers.
So if I can place all this information on a social network, why is it so important that my music have a site all its own?
In order for any artist, band, company, brand, or business to succeed they need to have a digital home where all the latest news and information can be shared. It’s true that social networks allow for you to instantaneously connect with your followers, but as the reach for each tweet and Facebook post continues to drop there are less and less fans receiving your updates. With a stand alone site you can update your news, tour dates, and other media whenever you want. You don’t have to worry about your latest headlines going unnoticed because every time you direct people to your content it will be on a site that you control. Not Mark Zuckerberg, not the team behind Tumblr, but you. Owning your music is something every artists knows to be important, but controlling how people receive your news and updates is also incredibly important. You don’t have to abandon social media altogether, just turn your focus from growing the number of followers and/or likes you have to creating genuinely engaging content your fans will want to share.
What about my Facebook and Tumblr? We’ve already spent a lot of time (and possibly money) developing our audience on that platform.
There is no reason you have to stop using any social network. In fact, I think doing so would be a terrible decision (unless you have five or more networks currently in use. That is too many. Calm down.) All I am suggesting is that you stop leveraging your reach on those networks to direct people to other networks/sites and instead send everyone to a URL you control. Make sure the only messaging they see when viewing tour dates, watching videos, or streaming songs is messaging you crafted to further promote your brand/work. When you send people to YouTube, or even music blogs, they are seeing a lot more than just the content you want them to see. A site of your own can stop that.
So you’re saying I don’t control my messaging right now?
You do, but only to an extent. Whenever you link to a website or blog you do not personally control you are inviting whatever advertisers and competing artists who may also be found at that URL to compete for the attention of your followers. A site of your own is just that – your own site. You control how it looks, what it says, what people do when on it. You can’t do that with Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, or anything other site. Those outlets exist to create profit, and in order to do that they need to fill pages with advertisements. Your site doesn’t have to have any advertising other than your own.
Won’t create a site cost a ton of money and require a lot of design skills?
I really hope you didn’t ask that last question because you sincerely don’t know anything about how the internet works. It’s 2015, after all, and essentially everything done to cater to the youth of this planet has some kind of online component. It is no longer okay to simply not understand how the internet works. Google gives you access to literally everything mankind has been able to figure out during our thousands of years on this planet. If you don’t make use of that, you’re a fool.
All that said, the answers to those two last questions are no and definitely no. Thanks to awesome startups like Squarespace, anyone can purchase a domain and design a killer website in only a matter of minutes. Refining the site’s look and getting everything exactly the way you want will likely take a lot longer, but you can get a solid start by using one of the many site building aides currently available online. Look around for the platform that best suits your needs as an artist and dedicate yourself to crafting the perfect online hub for you and your followers.
