Music in the Space

Is MySpace still as effective and as essential for musicians as it
was a few years back?

Or, has it passed its peak?

My honest answer is 'yes'. It's not the most important web presence
that you and your act should have these days.

That role goes to your own website - you need read a series of articles on how exactly you should set up your
artist site at the moment!

Your artist web presence now needs to be led by your own website,
backed up by a presence on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace.

That's if you want to try and use ALL the effective tools at your
disposal. It's true, there are a few artists who don't use all
five of those channels (some just relying on one) but that's a
risky choice and you'd better be able to let your music do all the
talking!

However, although MySpace has passed its most dominant moment, I
actually do think it's still important in the part that it plays in
your career and promotion of that career. How can that be if its
moment has passed?

Well, that's because MySpace is no longer the hot new thing but has
become the establishment. Odd because it has happened so fast.

But now, although some artists won't bother, if you don't have a
MySpace page you are preventing some of your potential fans from
discovering you.

MySpace is still the first place that many every day folks and the
music industry guys go to to find out about a new band. A band's
MySpace site still comes up very high in Google searches as well.

So, in truth, I think that having a MySpace page is now an option
rather than a necessity but you'll still benefit a great deal from
finding new fans and making connections with other bands by putting
in some effort to maintain a presence there.

As we move forward it's clear that you'll need to control a
presence on many sites (Twitter and Facebook in particular) and on
your own site, and your MySpace page will be just one place that
fans can connect with you. However, for now your profile on this
music-focused social networking site
is still worth your time and effort.

I wouldn't listen to anyone who says it's over. The latest figures
for 2010-2011 show a large drop in visitors to MySpace, but it is still
the 50th most visited site in the world.

The latest design changes have made it a bit less user friendly but
they have also said that they are now primarily a place for people
to discover music and films - so I'd keep a presence for now.

Make it an up to date showcase for your band - almost like and
electronic press kit - and it will continue to pay dividends.


So check out what's left of it and tell me what you think.

This article is posted courtesy of Chris Rockette (Make it in Music)