Thread

These days, in addition to an official website, most businesses should probably have a home on the various social networks (MySpace, Facebook, LinedIn, etc.) and often some kind of presence on sites like YouTube. 

Many of my clients are musicians, and in addition to the sites I’ve made for them, they also have MySpace and Facebook pages.  The promotion of the ‘official’ website can get difficult when competing against the communities offered by those other social nets, not to mention their ease-of-use for non-technical administrators.

How do you compel visitors - and clients - to value the ‘official’ sites that you develop, and not rely on the MySpace or Facebook versions as the source of information for that business?

Great question ZB, I’ve been wondering just what makes many people especially in music fields think mySpace is the place to be. Many of these folks don’t have, and don’t think they need a url domain.
I think the ideal thing to do is analyze just what a certain musician is doing on mySpace, and how to enhance those features using a real domain, with genuine hosting and another publishing platform. Myspace is ok for streaming ones music and using their bandwidth. I haven’t made much of a study of myspace are all account types free then, I really don’t know?

Don’t try and compete against them - use them as doorways to the official site - that way you get to keep the integrity of the official site but utilise the social sites networking and brand to pull in the audience.

Don’t try and compete against them - use them as doorways to the official site - that way you get to keep the integrity of the official site but utilise the social sites networking and brand to pull in the audience.

The problem is getting them to leave Facebook at all, if I have a presence there too.

My question is - why should they leave Facebook or Myspace if it serves their needs?

I was thinking the same thing about Churches after seeing the people in my own church all start connecting up via Facebook.  Maybe churches - especially those with limited budgets - don’t need anything more than a Facebook page/group.

Or maybe all some of these entities will need is a domain which just links off to their spots on Facebook or YouTube or FlickR.

If you can’t make a compelling reason to move them, then maybe it’s time to let them be and find a different target market for your services.

I think there’s still plenty of work out there in custom websites.  I can’t think of many of my clients that would be well-served with a Facebook page.

I agree that there’s plenty of work in custom sites (...there’d better be!).

How about a band though?  MySpace, and now Facebook, have really be zeroing in on that market, providing photo galleries, blogs, and gig promotion complete with RSVP functionality.  I’m trying to think of a musician website that offers anything that MySpace doesn’t, other than the obvious features:  Originality and quality design.  I don’t know of any.  ...Anyone??

And it’s not easy to convince the layperson to appreciate good design. 

Furthermore, social networks offer features that a custom site never can, like seamless integration with the rest of users’ lives.  I realize that they could subscribe to an RSS feed to get updates about live shows and so forth, but in my experience, most people still don’t know what an RSS feed is or how to use one, although they do know how to check their Facebook page for status updates.  For many people I know, Facebook is the only tool they use to organize their social lives, so if a Web service doesn’t work with it, they don’t bother with it.

I often have trouble - even with my own band - convincing musicians that they should be pushing fans to the ‘official’ site rather than its social network counterpart.  Even if I replicate every functionality that Facebook or MySpace offers, at the end of the day, that site is not part of those networks, which is itself a disadvantage.

Not to sound like a negative Nancy, but a band is only going to be as successful as its marketing.

A ‘serious’ band will have pages on MySpace, Facebook, and many of the other social networking sites on the web.  They will use photobucket, flickr, many of the MP3 hosts to stream their music to all the social websites they can.  They will also have places online in which to buy clothing and (autographed) CDs.  These websites shouldn’t be viewed as competition for custom websites, but tools to promote the custom website.  Imagin if all the users of MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, etc… had the band’s website link infront of them with each and every bulletin posted, wall message, and every other way the SN site allow users to mass communicate with others.

A band website helps to brand the band and its style.  MySpace and others allow custom HTML in their pages, but it’s very limited. A website also allows for bands to post their history, a bio about each member, and other things which promotes a ‘personal’ connection between the user and the band.  Maybe a section for their favorite cities or bars they like to play.  A section for their fans to post pictures.  A section where users can download and vote on new, original, music.  A section for pricing, booking, and contact information.  A section for their favorite gear, sponsors, influences, etc…  Plus there could be a section for links to other local artists in which links are shared.

You could also collect information such as email addresses, names, birthdays, and a slew of other info that you could use for marketing purposes.  Plus, if something happens and MySpace/Facebook/etc..  deletes the band’s account, there goes their online ‘following.’

Plus, let’s ask the usual question: Does their competition have a website?

Especially with bands: most band sites simply suck, pardon my french. Check this article on the sites of Billboard’s current Top 40 artists and weep.
I really don’t consider Facebook or MySpace competition for a professionally made site, but for a lot of people it’s a cheap alternative to one. There’s room for all of us, I guess.

thanks for that link e-man, I skimmed those earlier.
Hootie & the Blowfish’s Darius Rucker has an asp.net site, somebody should turn him on to an ExpressionEngine site, so it could be “hoot-ee”, sorry I had too 😊

thanks for that link e-man, I skimmed those earlier.
Hootie & the Blowfish’s Darius Rucker has an asp.net site, somebody should turn him on to an ExpressionEngine site, so it could be “hoot-ee”, sorry I had too 😊

Don’t forget Kat-ee Perr-ee, Beyonc-ee and AC-ee/DC-ee 😊

group-ee?

Interesting, I play bass guitar in a band called Manda Ver and in spring I will redesign the website, very likely convert to Manda V-ee-r. In this case it is the other way around. The band members have been focusing on our website, while I am trying to push them to Youtube, Myspace and (Dutch facebook) Hyves. So the aim should be to make a better video and better demo’s first, before putting effort in an interactive website.

I am convinced these social networks are much better for pushing the band then a regular website and indeed the website serves mainly as an identity platform.

Check this article on the sites of Billboard’s current Top 40 artists and weep.

Very interesting article. Most band sites are built by the record labels with little input from the artists themselves - hence you will get a barrel full of eye candy flash. The sites that really do work well are the ones where the artist puts effort into the site in writing articles, posting either in Forums or as blog posts.
If the artist has more than a passing interest you might even get them running thier own site as a good friend of mine from the Dead Milkmen does. (Check the Now we are 20 page - you will see me in the credits for the Album ). The DM’s site is run on Wordpress but they do have Myspace and Facebook pages.

What I think is the best way to approach this is an integrated one utilising all three sites, Band website, my space and Face book. Make it as simple as possible for the band to update their own content - get them involved - and EE is perfect for that.

What I think is the best way to approach this is an integrated one utilising all three sites, Band website, my space and Face book. Make it as simple as possible for the band to update their own content - get them involved - and EE is perfect for that.

Exactly.  Use the strengths from all these sites to market the band while using a custom website as a hub for all.

Mike Boyink,

I spent a lot of time analyzing Facebook for my own parish.  You are right about there being an overlap in terms of functions that a church needs to have.  But we would quickly have outgrown the capabilities that the social networking systems provide.  The ideal combination for a church, I think, is what we have put (are putting) together through your outstanding tutorial on how to build a church web site, which we are integrating with a first rate church management system.  Facebook is attractive if viewed from the perspective of an individual layperson, and it is attractive in terms of my own relating to parishioners who enjoy Facebook.  (For that matter, Twitter is an outstanding way for me to stay immersed in the lives of my parishioners with a high technological affinity.)  But I need much more control over what is pushed to the parish and elsewhere and need much greater capabilities in terms of “brand” management.  There lots of issues of confidentiality and backoffice systems integration that are out of the league of Facebook.

A better approach, I think, is to ask how to build a first rate church system with EE and to equip it with a means to push out to tools like Facebook and Twitter automatically, seeing them as new distribution channels of information.