We All Need Friends
From artistshousemusic.org
MySpace is designed as a networking site, and because of this, many resources exist on the site that allow you to search for people all over the world. When you first create your MySpace account, you should start by adding your friends - people that you know are already on MySpace. These people will tell their friends about your MySpace page and they will tell their friends, and so on. When you decide to start exposing your music to a larger online audience, you can approach this task using numerous techniques.
The Browse and Search features found on the MySpace menu bar are ideal places for finding fans to befriend and expose to your music. For those unaware, gaining friends on MySpace is achieved by sending a person a "Friend Request" message. This message comes up on the user's admin page and displays your picture and the option to accept or deny your request. The person you are befriending has the ability to click on your picture, view your profile, and decide whether they want to be your friend. Many people consider the number of friends a band has on MySpace to be directly related to their level of popularity and success.
Because of this relationship, many bands put a lot of effort into adding friends to boost their friend count. In order to ensure that people you are befriending will actually enjoy your music, it's best to target suitable audiences. MySpace's "Browse" feature, also found on the menu bar, allows you to do an extremely detailed search for MySpace users based on information such as gender, age, relationship status, location, ethnicity, background, lifestyle, etc. As you can imagine, searching within these specific details can be very beneficial in reaching your target audience.
MySpace's "Search" feature, found right next to Browse on the menu bar, is a bit more limited in its search options but can still yield excellent results. The Search page allows you to find one specific person by searching for their name, display, or email address. This page also has a Classmate Finder, which allows you to search by people at a certain school and a Networking search, which allows you to search by people's general interests. If you are looking to add friends from certain age groups, locations, interests, etc., these tools can be extremely helpful.
Finding Your Niche and Keeping It
When doing anything on MySpace, especially something like adding friends, always be professional and polite. There is no difference in the way you choose to communicate with a fan, band, or club owner in person compared to communicating over MySpace. Be thankful to the people who support your music, no matter who they are. If a person or friend requests you, don't just accept the request, take that extra step and send them a comment or message saying thank you. I often try to take a look at the person's profile and then leave a comment about their interests, in hopes of establishing a relationship with them and ensuring their support.
When you are adding many friends at a time, consider sending each individual a message saying you hope they like your music and you'd be grateful if they took a few seconds to check it out.
A lot of companies advertise on MySpace and send out billions of friend requests; sending a message along with your friend request can help avoid losing a potential fan that may ignore your request just like a friend request from a company looking for advertising. The main idea in adding friends is to be considerate and professional and always encourage communication. Establishing relationships with your fans can only help your career and get more and more people talking about you.
You're Nothing Without Your Fans
MySpace, I Love You
Gaining and communicating with fans is a crucial part of the MySpace networking experience and there are certainly right and wrong ways to go about approaching new fans and friends. Always be sure to be professional and thoughtful in your efforts. One last important point is to make sure you have a quality "product" before you expose it to thousands of people on MySpace. Wait until you're getting a good response from fans on a local level, then take your marketing campaign into cyberspace.
Informing Your Fans About Your Upcoming Shows
In addition, if you make a show flyer your default profile picture - that flyer will show up everywhere your name is posted. For example, everywhere you've left a comment, all of the Top Friends lists in which your band appears, all of the inbox's you've left messages, and so on. This results in your flyer showing up in a lot of places making all of your friends as well as people who've never heard of you, aware of your upcoming show. This also serves as an inspiration to make eye-catching flyers that people will want to check out.
You're Invited!
Tour Promotion Tips
College Shows = $$$
Oh My God! We're Opening Up for Aerosmith!
As you can see, there are many ways to inform the MySpace community about your upcoming shows. One thing to keep in mind is to start sending messages well before the show date. Some people don't check their MySpace accounts every day and people often have plans ahead of time for evening activities. In order to ensure you have a good chance of reaching people before your show date, start promoting your upcoming shows several weeks in advance. This time frame should give people enough time to read your message, check out your songs, and plan to come to your show.
