Musicians and bands need the best tools to promote their music business which includes Facebook, Twitter, Reverbnation and your own website. MySpace announced this week they are laying off 47% of their staff. EOL MySpace

Illustration SF Weekly

Musicians and bands need the best tools to promote their music business which includes Facebook, Twitter, Reverbnation and your own website.

MySpace announced this week they are laying off 47% of their staff.

The death of MySpace can’t be long off. What will that mean to musicians on MySpace for fan reach?

That is one more indicator that musicians who want to control their business success have to maintain their own websites from which they can interact with fans, sell music and swag and create a unique place to belong.

Musicians have already migrated to Facebook and 1 million of them to Reverbnation. 

MySpace

The site has been losing ground to Facebook since 2006 when MySpace was the top social media site. Facebook passed MySpace in popularity in 2008.

MySpace claims 2.7 million users at this minute. Facebook has 600 million and climbing.

The MySpace experience is not a good one. Yes there are lots of musicians but you can’t get anywhere in a hurry. The pages are too customized, most of them garishly, and the site is slow.

Who wants to wait ten seconds for a computer screen to change?

Reverbnation

Reverbnation with 1 million musicians is an important place for musicians to list their music and interact with fans.

Reverbnation they have a richer offering including gig listings, gig opportunities, fan reach, links to all the important social media and the ability to setup a store for sales.

Reverbnation was the original Facebook app for musicians under the Band Profile tab. Reverbnation may lose ground to newcomer Root Music.

Reverbnation’s problems are dependence on Flash technology which makes the pages slow to load and their music player is incompatible with iPhone, iTouch and iPad.

There are more than 50 million iPhones and 25 million iPads in the hands of consumers. Musicians can’t afford to not be there.

Getting fans moving over to iTunes does one thing for musicians – it sells their music more effectively than any other site.

Facebook

Slowcoaster's Facebook band page - feature rich but no place to buy the music or swag (click for larger image)

The 800-lb gorilla of social media sites is Facebook with its 60o million users. No other site offers musicians easier access to current and potential fans.

The best thing about Facebook is that musicians can interact – as in talk – to their fans.

Talking to fans is not what Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney want to do; however, it is one of the ways Phish have built a devoted fan base.

So if you’re already famous, you can ignore Facebook or have a publicist push material on your page.

For the rest of us, Facebook is a great way to engage fans one on one, in groups because that’s how Facebook works.

Using either Reverbnation or Root Music on a band or musician page, fans can hear your music. You can link to videos on YouTube and other video sites.

You can’t sell downloads, CDs, tickets or swag from Facebook which is why every musician needs their own website.

Facebook does have a new feature that benefits musicians – custom band pages. With some modest programming, your Facebook page can be customized to direct fans to your website.

Only when fans can easily land on your home page, check out your stuff and leave their imprint will musicians get control of their business model and destiny.

Leaving it up to anyone, including Facebook, means you are not serious about music as a business.