Facebook Band Pages: The Good, The Bad, The Annoying and The Non-Existent
 |
| This isn't your uncle's MySpace... |
MySpace is slowly becoming the abandoned amusement park of the internet.
What does that mean? Well, for one thing, it means Facebook is primed to become the best way for fans to get information on their favorite bands, thus totally pwning us, social media-wise.
Though it was slow to the game, the brass at Facebook have opened the network to include pages for bands. Yet it's up to bands to tweak, customize and buff out their pages, thus, making their pages appealing. Some bands enjoying doing this -- other simply don't take the time to bother.
Let's consider some emerging trends.
Even if a band doesn't have a Facebook page, there will still be a page dedicated to the band for the fans.
This page will use a Wikipedia entry as its backbone, so you know it's dedicated to bringing fans all the up-to-date, important news.
Actually, eh, not so much. Want to be a part of one of these offshoot pages? Simply update your status to include @thebandname and you're all set. Let's take a look at The Roots. The band just released an album two weeks ago. While they don't quite have a Facebook page, they do have a pretty tricked out MySpace page. So Facebook isn't for every band, but for a certain genre of music, they're all the rage...
Speaking of "certain genres." Search for Phish, Slightly Stoopid, G. Love and Special Sauce and even Dave Matthews Band on the fbook. All of these wonderful bands have Facebook pages, as if they realize their fanbase loves to sit at home and dick around on Facebook all day -- that is, if the tightrope in the quad isn't up and running yet.
Having a Facebook page for your band is a great way to get in touch with your fans and keep them updated of any new gigs or releases. The personal touch afforded with running a Facebook band page is nice every once in a while -- responding to someone's post on your page and so forth -- but when you tend to do this pretty much all the time, it seems a bit invasive and rather needy.
Case in point: Kinch. The beloved Phoenix band has a lovely little page, until you notice that someone from the band has commented on pretty much every wall post. Leave something to the imagination, fellas.
That is, dedicating status updates to upcoming gigs, new releases and links to videos and so forth. Facebook does support a MySpace mimicking "BandPage" feature which, while a great way to let your fans listen to your music, is too similar to the antiquated MySpace. Facebook is a different beast than MySpace, and that is thanks in large part to status updates.
Please, Facebook Bosses, don't take the fun out of it by letting bands throw up some custom background along with some MySpace-knockoff media player. Next thing you know, a band's page is going to be cluttered with wall posts from this young woman.
The fine people at Tech Crunch assembled a step-by-step guide for helping a band truly maximize all Facebook has to offer for a band's page. When I saw they suggested by registering a SoundCloud account, I understood that they knew what the hell they were talking about.
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
