Social Website Burnout

[Numina]

I have to say that personally I think a FaceBook band page will provide you with more exposure than any other site - at least that's been my experience. Frankly, I was reluctant to create a personal FB page, but my wife forced me... after creating my Numina band page I have noticed more traffic and activity from that than anywhere else - although admittedly I don't participate in many of the online sites. I think the reason for this is the average person is more on FB than they are actively searching specifically for ambient music and when people start to thumb through other people's music likes thenthey come across your page... it's effectieness is similar to how MySpace was - I don't even bother with MySpace anymore, its interface is absolutely awful - so is FaceBook's but not nearly as bad.

Anywho, I'm just wanting to suggest my opinion that FaceBook is a promo tool not to be overlooked.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Anywho, I'm just wanting to suggest my opinion that FaceBook is a promo tool not to be overlooked.

I think this may be true in your case Jesse and Saul.....2 very talented musicians with a catalogue of excellent music, respect from the em community and fans excited about new releases and other sonic adventures.  Without this Im not so sure. My experience has been other wise , but then I am not in the same position as you or Saul so that may have a lot to do with it.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

I would also like to point out the very successful El Hadra Ornaments Bundle forum release which has sold out, and Im happy to say Im one of the hundred.  This was brilliantly done.  Great artists, wonderful music.  Imho this illustrates the promotional reach forums like Hypnos & Relaxed Machinery have.

[petekelly]

Yeah, I've come to the conclusion that social networking is over-rated for an artist - well for an ambient artist anyway. Particularly considering the time needed to maintain and update multiple profiles. I agree with Saul having your own site as a 'node' behind all these profiles is a good idea. I think the days of having (say) My space as a sole artist page without some kind of artist website may be coming to an end. Even with Soundcloud (which looks cool), I'm not convinced about the value of doing all the 'networking' that is needed to get things going.

Regarding exposure, I think airplay is more significant. Somafm, Stillstream and others all 'broadcasting' 24/7 every day certainly gets the music out there.

I also look at Lastfm too to see what is being listened to. I also created lots of videos for YouTube
as that seems to be where a lot of people are these days. Apart from updating the LuminaSounds site, I don't spend much time on the social networking sites for exposure these days.

[jkn]

I would also like to point out the very successful El Hadra Ornaments Bundle forum release which has sold out, and Im happy to say Im one of the hundred.  This was brilliantly done.  Great artists, wonderful music.  Imho this illustrates the promotional reach forums like Hypnos & Relaxed Machinery have.

Awesome - as that bundle from Tomas Weiss / el culto was exclusive to his (and Mathias') long time fans - and to here at Hypnos and the rM community.   He approached me about doing it special - and I suggested it also be here at Hypnos as well.   It sold out fairly quickly - I don't think it took a full month to sell out the 100 copies.  One of the two discs was totally exclusive to the bundle - the other is currently available.

My copy I think went in the mail yesterday along with one of Tomas' other albums... :-)

Back to the topic - I'll say it again - I'm not the greatest person to answer this question because I find a lot of entertainment in communicating with people through various networks, forums, and sites.   I'm just weird that way.   Yes I have gotten burnt out before and I took a break - but in general - I'm up for chatting about music or related topics (or unrelated... ha) - pretty much anytime.

John

[zzzone.net]

As a very atypical consumer, I have a few habits to expose:

1.  I use discogs.com to link from CDs or music that I like to the musician and from there to the musician's website and/or record label and/or to other parties who have the particular musician's music for sale

2.  I don't use FB at all for music-related stuff as I find it too cluttered with comments and other crap I'm not interested in.

3. ...and a good Google search is sometimes very productive for finding out lots of bits of info from various sources as well as finding sources for acquiring the music legally.

4.  Hypnos.com is my fave ambient site for discovering new and interesting ambient music, via the forum and the store.

That's my "system".

[saulstokes]

Great comments everyone.  In response to the physical CDs.

Has any one else here tried to get on Pandora?  here's the process:

first, you need a upc symbol and a physical CD on Amazon. To do that, you either need an Amazon Advantage account or go through CD Baby both of which cost you money and which will result in very few cd sales. Once your cd is on sale on Amazon you submit 2 songs to Pandora and then wait.....wait.... wait.... wait..

I find it incredibly interesting that the lead "virtual" radio station requires a physical CD to be even considered. I guess this is there way to weed out a million mp3s being sent to them daily.

I appreciate all the responses here. It's very interesting to learn how people search out music.
s

[mgriffin]

I can add your new CD to Amazon. Hypnos has a Marketplace Pro account so we can create new item listings.

I can't help you with the rest of it... ;)

[zzzone.net]

I forgot to add that I do use last.fm a fair amount as far as seeking info on musicians and links to their own sites.

Additionally last.fm features links to the various places where you can get music.