Though MySpace is clearly seeing hard times compared to earlier years and merely invoking the name seems to inspire apoplectic fits in the hipoisie, there are still good reasons to make use of the service if you are trying to build your presence on the web.
For many, drops in traffic like MySpace has experienced equals death and transforms even tens of millions of users into the equivalent of soulless zombies. In music marketing, there's an even tougher bar than constantly rising traffic, let's call it the "Cool Bar."
Since Pitchfork, for better or for worse, is one of those current signifiers of cool or hip or whatever term works for you (until they're not which maybe has already happened), I decided to use their "best new tracks" list which I took from their Best New Albums page on August 7th to identify acts for my analysis. Given the death of MySpace, I was astonished to discover that even the hippest of the hip have MySpace pages!
Google Searches for Überhip Acts by Name:
Keep in mind that not everybody gets the same search results on Google. Also, Real Estate is going to have a hard time ranking due to that industry's intense SEO practices so I actually searched for "real estate music."
4 out of 10 searches have MySpace pages as the first result and all acts have a MySpace page in the first 10 results, most in the top 5.
Given the above information in aggregate, along with a quick peak at the actual pages, we can assume the following:
- Hip bands are still on MySpace (as are most Hypebot comment critics of MySpace) so there's no need to be ashamed of being on there!
- Music fans are still on MySpace and, though some may be soulless, they aren't all zombies.
- Having a MySpace page increases your chances of being found via Google by people who actually want to find you (no, Google is not dead yet).
This is bad news for music marketers who maintain that one must always maximize every social media presence one maintains because that's a lot of work! But not all of the above sites are that active. YouTube can be treated as a music Yellow Pages and still be of benefit. A lot of people could update their sites once a week and do just fine.
If you have lots of fans on there, it's worth digging in but YouTube can also be part of an extended web presence that connects people to the spots where you are truly interactive. And that's not a bad thing despite what the Kool Aid keeps telling you.
Does this mean you have to be on MySpace? I don't think so. I don't think there is one damn thing you have to do other than make music. But there are lots of things you can do if you want to up your chances of building an audience and eventually making some money.
Sorting all that out can be confusing. Hopefully we'll have a chance to discuss some ways to do that in the near future. No Kool Aid required!
Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. Flux Research is his business writing hub and All World Dance: World Dance News is his primary web project. To suggest websites and related topics for review, please contact:
clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
