Category: WebsitesCategory: Websites

Every time a band makes a tour announcement, the replies pour in:

What, no Louisville?
Skipping Columbus again?
Come to Brazil!
East coast tour?

But every artist, band, and performer is making a deal; on this night, we’re playing this venue in this city.

Show up or don’t.

I believe the same to be true online.

Build a website and a newsletter. That’s your venue and city.

Then you drive traffic to both with one or two social media “billboards.”

Put on a great show.
Make a great product.
Offer a great deal.
Maintain a great website.

They show up or they don’t.

Someone told me this decades ago, when I was running my first music blog;

“I know I can come back to the site in an hour and something new will be posted.”

The websites we visit most frequently are updated frequently.

When I ran Noisecreep for AOL Music there was a time when we posted 20+ times a day.

That got a lot of people to the site.

Your social media feed is updated basically every second.

We post to social media several times per day, or at least a few times a week.

Meanwhile, our websites collect dust.

Then, when a casual fan finally visits your site, they see old products and out of date photos. Then they bounce.

Why am I harping on websites so much when I mostly talk about email newsletters? Because getting people to your website on a regular basis makes it easier to get people to sign up for your email list.

Instead of freely giving Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk all your “exclusive” content (which they monetize, then turn around and charge you to reach your followers), publish the bulk of your work on your own website.

Don’t ask for an email address on the first date.

Show off your fine qualities on your website. Update it often. Feed it your videos, your quips, your rants from Twitter.

Get someone to visit a few times. Maybe they buy something and opt-in to your email list.

Then you can reach that fan without worrying about social media algorithms.

Our home base is a “link in bio” list of sites of other places where we rent space on DSPs, YouTube, and various social media platforms.

We’re just a bunch of kiosks at the mall, our vibes / vision / brand are stuffed inside a pre-built container hoping to get the attention of anyone walking by.

Yes, the kiosk is cheap and easy, and there’s the allure of all that foot traffic.

But a storefront / website gives you more creative space, more credibility, more flexibility and control.

Forget the “nobody even goes to websites anymore” garbage.

Imagine a big media outlet with a website wanted to cover your next video shoot.

They’d have a photographer on site, and a writer. Big web feature. Behind the scenes photos. Talk of the new album.

They put all those photos and text on their website.

They’ll post about your story on social media so everyone comes to their website.

Now you, the label, the publicist, and all the other sites link to their website, to find out about this new video and talk of your new album.

Yeah, or you can just do that yourself.

It might not be as pretty, or as grand, but what are you gonna do?

Wait around for a big outlet to cover you?

Spend hours posting every day on social media platforms that only let you reach 5% of your fans?

You’re already posting a dozen photos on Instagram from the video shoot, with 200 word captions.

PUT IT ON YOUR WEBSITE.

When people visit your website they can learn more about you:

• They can fall madly in love with you and your vision!
• They can watch your videos without seeing SUGGESTED VIDEOS from bands with much higher creative budgets than you!
• They can BUY YOUR MERCH, AND PRE-ORDER YOUR RECORDS.

Give your fans a reason to visit your website, because these social media platforms won’t be around forever.

In 2006 MySpace was the biggest music site in U.S.
In 2008 it was AOL Music (I know because I worked there, and we got foam “WE’RE #1” hands).

Neither are a blip on the radar today.

Own your space: set up a website today and control your brand.
Own your face: set up an email list today so you can speak directly to your fans.

See, people still visit websites.

Maybe not your website, but that’s because your website hasn’t been updated in four months and probably loads sideways on mobile.

But hey – websites are cheaper and easier to make than ever, and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to band websites.

Seth, how does this relate to email lists?

Just like you don’t propose on a first date, you don’t usually get someone’s email address on the first visit either.

Especially if your website is boring.

Put some interesting stuff on your website, then eventually (hopefully) someone gives you their email address.

Load your site with exciting content like behind the scenes photos, stories from the road, a glimpse into the song-writing process.

You do know you’re already doing this right?

Those are all the things you share on social media every day that probably 90%+ of your followers never see (like how 94% of Fear Factory’s audience didn’t see their recent social media posts about an album anniversary).

Tease stuff on social media.
Put more of the exciting stuff on your website.
The stuff that fans won’t want to miss.
Let people sign up to get notified when you post new stuff.

As time rolls on, it will get harder to connect with your fans through social media.

Set up an email list. Repurpose your social media content. Send emails that people want to read. Send updates to your fans who are probably missing most everything you post on social media anyways.

Figure out your Social Media Escape Plan today, because these platforms can disappear tomorrow.

Search for a band on Google in 2023 and you’ll probably get these results:

Wikipedia.
Twitter.
Spotify.
Lyrics site.
Rate Your Music.
Bandcamp.
Bandsintown.
Metal Archives.
Another lyric site.

Without a website, you’re letting your fans wander the internet wasteland in search of your magic spells.

Below are the last 30 days of Wikipedia page views of a semi-active band with no website (I’m not saying who):

That’s 3,022 page views that you could’ve been on a band’s website, where fans could have:

• Bought an album or shirt
• Signed up for your email list
• Bought a ticket to an upcoming show

Having a website means controlling your story with a bio, linking to official merch (or selling it directly to your fans), and collecting email addresses to build a relationship over the next few years.

Sure, maybe that 3,022 isn’t 100% accurate, but even if it’s just 1,000 page views, I’d sure as heck take it.

And if you don’t take it, the shitty lyrics site will.

WEEKEND TASKS

Here’s four things you can do before Monday that might help.

1. Do a Google search for your brand / band / service and see what comes up. If you’re not at the top, get to work!
2. Don’t have a website? Get one. Take a few hours and set up a Square Space site with your logo, photos, and links. It ain’t much, but it’s a start, and you could have it done by Monday.
3. Oh, you don’t have a domain name? Head to Hover and buy one today (that’s a referral link).
4. Read my interview with Matt DeBenedictis, the Manager of Compliance from Mailchimp, and learn how to make sure your email marketing campaigns don’t end up in the Promotions tab (or worse).