I’m sure by now you know how useful having an online presence is. Having a website can mean fans have a place to listen to your music and interact with each other. It’ll also give potential fans to hear what you’ve got to offer and buy your music.
One thing that’s surprised me though, is the amount of musicians that don’t have their own .com website. By a .com website, I mean a website where people will type in www.YourMusicianName.com and come across your page. But why is it important to have your own website? What’s wrong with having a Facebook fan page or a Twitter account?
While nothings wrong with having social networking accounts (They can be very useful at obtaining new fans so are recommend) they shouldn’t be used alone. Instead they should be used as tools to drive back traffic to your main site, your .com website. At the end of the day, these websites are owned by other people. Because of this, they can shut down your account any time they feel you’re in violation of their terms of service, whether or not you are. We’ve all heard stories of people building 1000s of ‘friends’ or followers on Facebook / Twitter / Myspace before their account gets deleted, so relying on other people’s websites isn’t ideal. If you had your own website however, you could use other social sites such as Facebook to drive traffic back to your site and get them on your mailing list. Now what ever page gets deleted your fans still know where you are!
Another problem with relying strictly on social media sites is they come and go. Was you one of the people that used only a MySpace page and no .com website? How effective is MySpace at attracting new fans now? While it may have seemed worthwhile at the time, I bet all those hours of adding friends seems a huge waste now as those ‘friends’ are no where to be seen. While a site may seem like the biggest thing since sliced bread while it’s still around, no sites are guaranteed to last forever. As people’s wants and needs change, so will the websites that come and go. While this can also apply to your own website, at least with your website the people who like your music will keep visiting it. It also identifies your loyal fans, the people that regularly visit your website and interact.
There are many reasons why you should have your own website, but these are two of the main ones. If you want your own website and haven’t already got one, check the following guide on how to build your own website. This makes it quick and easy to build your own professional looking website without spending thousands of pounds on a web designer. To your success!
This is a post written by Shaun at Independent Music Advice