FaceBook has quickly become the leading social network and one of the best ways to find and interact with friends. For DJs, FaceBook has become much more than a way to catch up with friends from high school. It has become a major marketing vehicle for promoting yourself as an artist as well as your events. In my eyes, FaceBook wins hands down as the best social network site for DJs. But if you really know how to use it, you can also promote your music production, mixes, and even manage your fans. Here is a breakdown of the different types of pages you can have and how to use them:
Profile Page: A FaceBook profile page is your personal page. This is where everyone begins. Fill in all the fields with your information, post pictures and interact with your friends.
Advantages
- The most direct interaction with friends.
- Has an e-mail box
- Has a Chat feature
- Can post directly to friends’ pages
- Can “poke” friends
- Can setup a username i.e. http://facebook.com/davidsabat
Disadvantages:
- Limited to 5,000 friends
- No way to mass e-mail friends
Fan Page: DJs and other public figures can sign up for a fan page.
Advantages
- There is no fan limit
- Can send your updates to your fans
- Can target your updates by city, state, sex and age
- Is indexed by search engines
- Provides some useful statistics
- Pay-per-click campaigns available
- Can setup a username i.e. http://facebook.com/djdavidsabat
Disadvantages:
- Updates go into a fans “update” box, not their inbox
- Less interaction with fans/friends and is not as personal
- No notification when fans post to your wall
Groups: You can create a group and invite people to be members
Advantages
- Mass e-mail directly to your members’ inbox
- Pay-per-click campaigns available
- You can have several groups for different purposes
Disadvantages:
- Limited to 5,000 members
- No notification when members post to your wall
- Not indexed by search engines
- Can not target messages to members
More tips for promoting and managing your page(s)
- Embrace your friends and fans, do not ignore them
- Try to respond to everyone who e-mails you or posts to your wall
- Continue to update your pages by adding content (photos, video, discussion)
- Add links to your page(s) in your e-mail signature and print on business cards
- Create a “username” to shorten links
- Connect your page to other social networking sites that you use like Twitter
- Use other third party sites like SoundCloud to post mixes and track and link to them on FaceBook
- Be sure to “suggest” your group/fan page to your current friends
- Create events from the fan page instead of your personal profile so that you keep them connected to your fan page, target your updates and have a more professional appeal
- Send out promotions using your group so that the event info will show in their “inboxes”
- As you ad friends to your profile page create friend lists and categorize them by city (or whatever works for you) for targeting your interactions and/or promotions and contacts to specific groups of people
- You may want to check your settings to turn off the public friend lists if you don’t want others to see it
- Use the left box that says “write something about yourself” to list your upcoming shows
- In the left “information box” list your other websites
- Create tabs at the top so that people can easily access your photos, video, events, and any other details
- Use professional photos for your default picture, especially on your fan page
- Keep your pages clean of junk/spam others may post to your page
- Your friends/fans love to be tagged by you in your photos and video
- Wish people happy birthday on FaceBook, it’s just a nice thing to do
- Always try to stay positive in your posts and comments
There is no solid answer to the question of which type of page is best. It depends on who you’re trying to reach and for what purpose. The bottom line is that the profile page is best for interacting, the fan page is best for unlimited contacts and targeting updates, and the group is best for getting information to your friends’ inboxes. It would be ideal if FaceBook would open the flood gates to add more friends or allow more interactivity from fan pages. Until then, this is what you have to work with so I use all three. If you have any suggestions for promoting with FaceBook please feel free to share them in the comments.
Some solid ideas yet again, David. Thanks for posting this and your previous blogs – always spot on with advice for independent musicians and DJs out there.
Lee Jarvis.
I just like the name Jarvis 😉
As always another informative update. I know a lot of djs will find this very useful
Thanks again
Thanks guys 🙂
Hey David,
Thanks for the comparison – I’d been looking into this recently myself.
You’d have me convinced to go with Groups, but there was one thing about the Fan pages that attracted me that the Group pages don’t have – the ability to add applications.
With applications you can customise the page to a much bigger extent, including adding your mixes and flyers etc.
Still, it’s a tough choice – it’s nice to be able to send emails to your fans!
I’ve just been experimenting with this for the past week (finally delving into a lot of aspects the world of self-promotion..this blog is awesome btw) and I figured I’d share some things I found.
You mention the Pay-per-click campaigns, which I think are pretty interesting in their own right.. I just released a new demo, which is what I focused on and the average cost for a very targeted click through was ~$0.55, from my estimates about 50% of the people actually listened to the linked soundcloud track pushing the cost per listener closer to $1.10, but with the residual benefit that about 40% of the clicks also resulted in someone becoming a fan (or a liker).. There is also added bonus of the non-click impressions hitting a large number of people which adds to future name recognition. Compared to handing out physical CDs (roughly ~$0.86 per + time) I think it comes pretty close in value, but I have no solid data on how many people listen to the physical ones I hand out. Both would have side benefits.. but it’s interesting.
Also, http://www.rootmusic.com has done a pretty good job at making an app that has the bulk of the benefits that a myspace page would have, with inline soundcloud and artistdata (event info) feeds. The free version is pretty good on its own, the only drawback being facebook sends existing fans to the wall instead of a custom page. Hopefully that’s something that will change eventually.
[…] Promoting via FaceBook: Types of pages and tips for using them April 2010 5 comments 5 […]
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[…] Page shouldn’t be any problem but if you do get caught up, refer back to the video or check out David Sabat’s Guide to Facebook for DJ’s – he takes you through a lot of the pro’s and con’s of the different Facebook features and […]
Hi,
Join All Iηdiaη Ðj’s Clμb..
Post and Promote your Djs..
http://www.facebook.com/groups/aidc.club/
I have a website, http://www.djokaymegamixer.com but I have difficulty posting content from my website to facebook. Anytime I tried this, it was reported that “the link contain spammy or unsafe material”. I have tried everything possible to get rid of this but to no avail.
I am sure this website is not malicious, spammy or unsafe as I have taken critical look at the content and scanned it.
What could be the way out?
Any suggestion towards resolving this problem would be appreciated.
Thank you.