Creating a Band - Part V, the Fan Base

The Internet arguably ranks higher than the television, the radio, and the printing press as the most powerful information-spreading invention of all time. So why not use some of that brilliance for the betterment of your band? In this entry into the "Creating a Band" series, we're going to discuss how your group can do just that, and why it's important to build an online presence early on in the band's life.

A surprisingly large number of unsigned acts develop only small online presences, and most of those groups only do so after they've already gone out and done several shows. They tend to under-credit the importance of the Internet's affects on the band's local and regional popularity, and more often than not, groups will set up their small Internet hovel only to ignore its upkeep over time. But as history has shown us in nearly every industry, the Internet is one of the greatest marketing tools ever made, and your band would be wise to develop an online presence as early as possible, well before you perform your first gig.

First, let's list off the best avenues of marketing your band online. You'll want to set up your band with accounts/ pages on what I call "The Big Three" social networking sites: Facebook, Myspace, and Youtube. Why all three? That's pretty simple, really: because they're necessary! Facebook is widely used by regular people, so you're more likely to build up a fan following there. Myspace is music-oriented, and is still a place where audiophiles go to find unsigned and indie acts, so it's a great place to market your group and post samples of your work. Last but not least, Youtube, a video website, is the ideal site for uploading videos from live shows, which gives your fans more places to see your band perform. Making the accounts will be the easy part... decorating your pages and filling them with content will be an entirely different matter! But use the Internet to your advantage and learn as much as you can about building valuable pages on these various sites.

Now we come to the hard part: building a website for the band. Most bands skip this step, without realizing that having an actual, proper website for the group has the capacity to draw in more people than Facebook, Myspace, and Youtube combined... and better still, it allows you to link all of those social networking pages in one location. The band, pooling its financial resources, should be able to pay for web-hosting pretty easily. You'll probably pay around $10 per year for the domain (the dot-com name, or URL), and hosting the website itself can be done for as little as $10 to $20 per month. But if none of your band-mates are skilled in website design, and if you can't find a talented friend whose willing to do it for free, you may need to pony up a few hundred dollars to hire a professional web designer. The other option, of course, is to make the website yourself, using a free website development tool like Nvu, which works sort of like an advanced word processor. But if you can afford it, or if you know someone with the required talent, having a professional make the site will be vastly better and less time-consuming for you and your fellow band members.

There are a few features your band's website will definitely want to have. People visiting your site are going to expect the layout to be clean, understandable, and simple to navigate. They'll expect the site's content to be worthwhile as well: news about the group, performance/ tour dates, media (pictures, audio, and video), and all of this should be presented with the band's personality in mind. You'll want the website to avoid posing too many messages not directly related to the band. You might be fervent political activists, or environmentalists, or poets, but keep those views separate from the site, at least until you've built up a following. Another key feature your site will need is a sense of community. Adding forums (check out Simple Machines Forums, they're free and easy to use) is a tremendous step in the right direction, because an online forum community will allow your fans to connect with one-another and share their mutual respect for your band, which means they'll continue to return to the site repeatedly, keeping them updated on everything that's happening with the group. Also, you might want to consider creating a blog for your band to share. Some fans will feel as though they're closer to the group if they can read about what you're thinking, and this also grants the members of your band a good avenue for talking about their various non-musical passions. Treating fans like a family as opposed to hamsters waiting for food pellets is always a good thing!

Also, always be on the look out for emerging technology trends. New social networking sites, "must-have" website features, media experience technologies (like Youtube), etc. can all help spread the band's popularity down the road. Another helpful hint here: don't pay for stronger search engine results unless your band's name is getting buried several pages down. Keep in mind that the more people you have visiting your website and social networking pages, the further up the search engine ladder you'll climb.

It takes a tremendous amount of work to establish an online presence for a band, but if you truly apply yourself to making it happen, the payoff can be stellar in the end. Just remember that having a killer online presence can't change the quality of the music, nor can it really improve the public's perception of the music. The quality of your songs will speak for themselves, but if the band is marketed properly from the word "go," you'll improve the likeliness that other people will speak for the quality of those songs as well!