Last month I posted a blog post entitled 5 Things Your Band Needs To Stop Doing On Facebook. Since then I've had several readers suggest that I write a followup suggesting things that a band should do instead of what they should not. I wrote something up but I'm not particularly happy with it, mainly because what the hell do I know? I am no expert when it comes to these things, I just know what doesn't resonate well with me.
A few readers mentioned that they disagreed with my claim that asking your followers to "share" their page with their friends was annoying. Since writing that I've read that just asking people to share something makes them something like 3-5 times more likely to actually do so. But that alone doesn't make it right to me. If it is something that you have a financial investment in like an album or a Kickstarter campaign or something like that, then I can see it. But just a page? I don't like it. Of course I also have my head stuck up my ass.
All I know is that if a promotion technique doesn't seem right, I'm not going to do it. Reverbnation sent me some sort of "free promotion" that involves installing their apps all over my page and giving away free downloads in exchange for Facebook "likes." Don't like it, not gonna do it. I've read various music promotion blogs that involve things like paying for Twitter followers or paying for people to run up your hit counts on sites like Youtube. What I wonder is how widespread these tactics actually are.
It's worth noting that I've been reading these music promotion blogs for years and I don't think I've ever once bothered to click to listen to these guys' music. I think that if your blog talks about things like search engine optimization and paying for clicks then your music is probably not very good. I don't know if I'm right about that or not. But I suspect that most of these sites exist to generate ad revenue over anything else.
One thing I've actually had good success doing lately is posting to communities I've already been a part of. Instead of saying "Fans of Bell Biv Devoe, Vanilla Ice, and Janet Jackson should check out my band SHITSTORM, subscribe to my Youtube Twitter Facebook Bandcamp Assrape Myspace Tumblr and check out my newest single HITLERAIDS" just go to the actual communities and do it the natural way. You are a person, not a press release. I'm not impressed by your cut-and-paste abilities. Go out there, be a person, but let people know that you also record music. And then record lots of it.
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