The MySpace Series Part II: Building An Audience Using MySpace
MySpace has it’s critics, but many in the music industry feel it is the best way yet to build a band’s audience. Erin Smith does tour and digital marketing for acts at booking agency Skyline Music (Hypebot’s parent firm) and here is her take on band promotion via MySpace:
"MySpace is one of the most effective tools for bands to use to find their target audience when it comes to not only fans in general, but fans that specifically live in areas that bands will go through on tour. Using MySpace’s search features, bands can locate fans within a specific radius of a certain zip code and fans with a musical interest or influence. So instead of inviting random people to be their friend, bands have the ability to find their true fans."
"By using MySpace’s search options, bands can sift through millions of users and find those that are most likely to not only become their ‘friend’, but those who are also more likely to purchase a CD, download a song, or buy a ticket to their show."
Read The MySpace Series Part I:The Numbers Don’t Lie here.
Tomorrow: How Some Acts Rely Too Much On MySpace
Yah MySpace is a great resource and has some real value to artists in connecting on a one to one level with their fans.
There are also some real issues that also come with MySpace centered marketing.
1) MySpace owns the fan relationship. If you ask MySpace if you can get a database of your fans and friends the answer will be a big NO. Your relationships with your fans can only exist within the MySpace context. The value to MySpace of owning your relationships is in their advertising dollars.
2) MySpace is a microcosm. Darwin said that inside a closed environment survival of the fittest would reign. As the MySpace landscape grows and the visitor “noise” increases and people grow their “friends” into the thousands, it will be increasingly difficult to be “heard” in the communication din.
3) The band as a “brand” never really is developed inside of MySpace. Instead the branding and messaging is diluted as a subset of the MySpace advertising machine.
4) Prediction: MySpace is a fad. It is dangerous to build relationship marketing around a fad. The danger is that as the fad fades so does the relationship rather then building on ever increasing loyalty.
5) MySpace does not substitute for a real online presence. MySpace is only really accessible by other myspace users. Although there are a lot of people on myspace, there are many more that are not. Why would any growing artist want to only be available to a very small population of people willing sign up for a MySpace page?
6) MySpace is low in tangible return on investment. “Time is Money”. People can spend huge amounts of time devoted to MySpace marketing but it almost impossible to see a tangible return in tickets sold or downloads generated for that time. Instead the overwhelming metric seems to be comments and “friends” which is really rather vague.
Smart music marketers know that MySpace can be a great way to find and engage fans. They also know that it is only one slice of a much larger online pie that will ultimately bring long term success.