How to sell your music, films and crafts on MySpace

I wrote this after endless days of visiting MySpace pages of exceptional talent but with pages that made me rush to the X button to close them as fast as I could.  Allow me to explain, as you may be surprised at what turns me off MySpace pages. 

For social exchange I prefer Facebook to MySpace any time, but I see these two different worlds. Maybe its because I was in music, theatre and film making before the internet was open to the public but I do feel it is important to use internet services as tools to enhance real world physical activity and not become a world unto itself.

From this vision I see and use MySpace as an extension of showcasing work like we do at exhibitions or side stands at conferences and festivals while Facebook is an expression of the bar or the cafe across the road from the showcase.

To what level should we showcase on MySpace?

Now I am not attempting to write this blog as a marketing “guru” but in response to my frustration in visiting pages of many people on MySpace. Most MySpace pages just do not seem to be maximising the potential of MySpace, even and often especially those showing 1000s of “friends”.

What many are doing with their MySpace pages is instead of maximising their potential for attracting clients, fans, customers and contacts they are maximising how many utilities they can use on their MySpace Page. These utilities can cause 1000s of friends to become listed, but are these truly friends, fans or even contacts who actually know who you are?

I do not spend much time on MySpace myself, just a quick visit most days and out. I think that’s really enough for anyone who is truly working their music, theatre, filming and craft well. 

Every time I open my MySpace administration page there’s a long list of many “friends” requests but I do not automatically “approve” them but visit their MySpace pages first. This is what I find frustrating. The people are not frustrating but their MySpace pages are. I once thought this was because I was on slow dial up connection but now I have fast broadband I find nothing is really different.

Today, for example, I had a friend invite from a yoga teacher, who seemed like a nice person, probably is, so before clicking “approve” I clicked MySpace page. There i was blasted with a loud embedded YouTube video clip, a scrolling background animation, and text in a zillion different formats …. so I rushed my mouse to the X to close the page. Phew! some yoga teacher!

This is not a finger pointed at yoga and self improvement people or to musicians, film makers and everyone else on MySpace but a question on why do people create MySpace pages like this?

Lately spammers have found their way through my scrambled web site forms with ridiculous “hey, you can’t keep me out, and by the way do you want some viagra” type of crap. Being blasted by video, audio, flashing text, animations etc. before I can even read the title of a MySpace page has the same effect on me as those spammers doing a “pie in the face” through my web site forms.

Before MySpace there were Dynamic Web Sites

Web Designers and Web Marketers are definitely two different people with two different intents. The web designer’s job is an art, a goal to make the most original, most dramatic, most beautiful awesome web sites. The web marketer does not care what the web site looks like as long as it sells services and products. In short, beautiful web sites do not sell the most products, but it does need a “good” web site to sell products and services. “In your face promotions” no longer work.

Marketing is now like training a horse. You cannot often go up and pet a horse and demand acceptance or you might get a bite or kick, but if you go in the same field as the horse and just site down the horse is likely to approach you and be very gentle and friendly with you. This has to be the horse’s idea  ……. but if you are holding horse nuts in your palm it goes a long way to encourage that idea.

Designers used to try and turn web sites into TV channels and now this trend seems to be passed onto MySpace. You switch on a TV and it immediately blasts out visual and audio. We expect that because we do not turn on the TV anymore to find something out. We switch on TV as we have decided its time for some entertainment. Nowadays we have already been sold the entertainment through our subscription to dish or cable services.

We have not sold anyone anything to look at our web site or MySpace page so why waste time making it like a TV channel?

Maybe I’m not mainstream with this, but see what you think …

My work, as you may know, is providing entertainment and learning streams for exploring ancient Celtic traditions and celebrations through visiting ancient sacred sites and sharing music, folk drama, poetry, storytelling and ancient crafts. I also encourage and provide services for people to journal these things through writing, photography and video to let these ancient traditions inspire their own creative arts and crafts.

To do this I have set up a set of online tools to accompany my offline activities and clearly define what each of my online tools should do. This is done in the spirit of realizing that a hammer is not much good for sawing wood. DIY people might mumble “idiot” to that idea but its just the same as trying use a web site or home page as a TV channel or even a MySpace page as a web site home page.

I am very happy with my online response as its much easier and much cheaper than what I used to have to do before the internet was made public in the late 1980s and did not really have good tools until 1995.

The link to all that I do offline is my web site, not MySpace

I still believe there’s still nothing out there to replace having your own independent web site hosted by a company that is in the business of hosting web sites and your own personal and individual domain name. Mine is CelticWays.com as you may know.

I like to keep my web site coded simple so search engine spiders can access and understand it easily and folks looking for info can decide in seconds if they have come to the the right place for what they want at that moment.

If folks decide I have info and services they could use then I provide links to in-depth articles, photo galleries, maybe some audio and some video clips. Visitors can then decide what to look at and how long to stay. At each depth there is a call to action, a question to make a decision and a utility to make a further inquiry or place an order.

Fortunately, there are now some nice, often free, services out there we can embed into our web sites to replace and better serve us than previous paid hosting services of similar services

For articles, its worth using a blogging service like Blogger

For photos we can now link and embed Flickr or Picasa

For audio I recently discovered and like Liberated Syndication

For Video clips there’s YouTube, that I still like better than the MySpace video service

Not only are Blogger, Flickr, Picaso, YouTube etc. free and inexpensive but they also help with search engine ranking and positioning. More important, they also act as additional funnels to attract more people to your web site through their own search and friend subscription facilities.

In short, I use my web site as an essential hub to to several services like MySpace, YouTube etc that serve as lead attraction funnels, yet these same services now also act a deeper information providers for the people who come to my web site.

The important thing is that my personal web site is central to all online activity, but my web site is not my business 

From my web site people eventually come and see us in Ireland, share what we do, buy some services, buy some products, and everyone had added something to their lives. This is all enjoyed offline, but it took an online journey for them to find, discover and book to join in what we offer offline.

Is your MySpace Page  “MeTV” or a genuine personal invitation?

My suggested message here is that I feel it must be very hard to sell your music, films and crafts on MySpace if you try to make it your web site, or even worse, your main media station and player.

I visit and treat MySpace like I treat Exhibitions and side stalls at Conferences and Festivals. I want to see things that I can see and understand in seconds and then take away business cards and literature, and maybe ask one or two questions while I am there. I rarely buy anything at these places. I’m in and I am out.  I bet most visitors to MySpace, even if they have pages there, are like this. If a MySpace page is complicated, I’m out of there before reading anything. 

I leave messages around MySpace like “this is interesting please email me” or “please visit my web site where I have a contact form”. I only do this when MySpace pages have clear indication of how to get to personal web sites. I click these web page links for a quick visit and leave my contact details on their web site subscription boxes. I might save the web site link in MyFavourites, but that is not so good for the web master.

Your email address gathering box, usually for a newsletter, is still the most valuable thing online you could ever have!

Likewise when I arrive home from exhibitions etc. I start visiting the stand holders web sites, write emails and then might order one or two things based on the quick contact I made at the exhibition.

I cannot seriously consider MySpace as a social site any more.

Facebook is much better for that, and I rarely do real business from Facebook. I use Facebook for fun, mainly with family, established friends and established clients and people I network with. It a great place to share jokes, talk family, share good experiences and even a shoulder to share some challenges, just like a pub or cafe. Yahoo 360 including Yahoo Groups is good for that too, I find.

Meanwhile on MySpace I can say, this is who I am, where I live, what I do, list keywords to attract people that I think may be interested in what I do, and attract people I can help too.

Don’t forget the attitude of “help” as MySpace is a great place to network two ways. We are all both sellers and buyers, not just living to collect money from sales. For money to work it always has to be buying. Even if we stash money in a savings account your bank immediately uses your money to buy and sell things while you are not using it.

However, I do not think MySpace serves us best as a place to do business.

I do find MySpace is much more profitable as a tool to funnel people to our personal web sites, to attract people to our web sites, where business can then take place.  If find it is through my web site I feel I am well positioned to build a true network of friends, clients, customers and contacts in a very solid, ethical, personal and even environmental way. This is what has happened for us. We are delighted.

So I invite you to look at your MySpace page again and consider if it is a “MeTV” kind of place or whether it is a “glad you popped by, would you like to look closer at what I do” kind of place that guides people to your web site and invites people into your creative “home”.

On the other foot, if you have a web site but do not have a MySpace page yet, then you are missing out on attracting a chunk of wonderful people to your web site, which I now believe is far more powerful for attracting people than through Google. Note how Google is slowly changing from being a keyword linking and listing site into a video introduction and linking site.

Careful with that intro video, though, if you go that way. It should still not be “MeTV” but some brief simple opening invitation.

When was the last time you opened a TV guide and watched the whole movie before turning on your TV?

I suggest treating your MySpace page as an entry page, like an entry in a TV guide. MySpace is great for showing us what’s out there but do leave the pleasures of your “MeTV” productions to the unique experience of your web site. Even there, also ensure that your web site is also a gateway to your performance and products as your web site can never and should never have the power to replace who you are and what you do either. 

Yes, some web sites are now successful broadcasting channels with heavily subscribed audio and video broadcasts but these are an end product.

You’ll sell a lot of music, films and crafts, whatever you do, if your MySpace is simple and funnels people to your web site that has levels starting from simple to more depth. Even all of your web site should serve as a gateway for people to eventually experience you and your products in a way no online service can do. 

That’s how you will make real friends, real fans through MySpace. 

I feel I have lost a lot of potential good friends on MySpace because they attempt to undress themselves before I can even read their MySpace title. The barrage of audio and visuals make me run for the X button.

Do more of you feel the same as this?