How much social networking is enough?

[Ermz]

Have any of you guys taken a moment to take a step back, look around the net and say 'holy fucking shit'? I can barely keep up any more with how many of these fad network sites are popping up for every purpose and its dog.

Seriously, there has to be a point at which vanity ends and people realize that one, centralized avenue of promotion and networking is better than half a dozen different ones, connected by duct tape and strings.

 

[Brandon E.]

To which are you referring? Over here at least Facebook is pretty much the only one everybody uses, with twitter coming in second (I've never used it so I don't really know how many people are on there), and nothing else that even compares.

P.S. When people use that # twitter lingo bullshit on Facebook it really pisses me off.

 

[crillemannen]

Facebook is enough. I got it just because every one else got it. I guess it is ok, but it is showing some bad habits like myspace did a year or two ago. It always turns bad when they try to "improve" themself, adding a tone of really annoying features that will "revolutionize" the page.. yadaydayda.. I'll give it a year or two until it is gone

 

[Brandon E.]

I really like how Facebook runs things...I remember years back they completely overhauled the UI in one day and everybody flipped out. So they learned their lesson and now they slowly and steadily make improvements. I do think they're improvements also, if you went back years and used Facebook I think you would be like "Man this sucks compared to what it is now." There used to be no chat, spam group invites by the dozen, less privacy settings, no friends circles, etc, etc.

I'd also like to add that I think google+ is a complete failure just due to the sheer amount of spam friend requests. That alone ruined it for me. I still get a couple every day and haven't logged in for weeks.

 

[Sloan]

I like having the option of multiple social networks, it's getting them all working together that is the challenge. Facebook & Twitter are the obvious top ones right now.

Facebook status to Twitter
You can use Twitterfeed to push your facebook updates to twitter. Unfortunately Facebook does not want anyone to use Twitter so they make it difficult to find your RSS feed. Use this plugin to get it, and use the one for your posts only: http://apps.facebook.com/rssexport/?ref=bookmarks&count=0&fb_source=bookmarks_apps&fb_bmpos=2_0

In Twitterfeed, make sure it is set to only display the title, or else it will show the update twice and look nasty.


Onesheet
It's simply a webpage that collects shit from all your social networks together in one place. But personally, I believe your official website should already be doing this. On the other hand, I also believe you should register and setup your stuff at every site available, I don't think it can hurt.

Posterous
Makes it easy to update your blog/website. You can do it via email or text message. Send pictures and stuff too, very useful, I would imagine this would be awesome while on tour to upload hilarious pics at 5am when your bass player shits himself after passing out again.


You have to find something that works FOR YOU. I update Facebook all the time, so my stuff feeds from facebook. If it's easier for you to update via your website, have it feed twitter and facebook and vice versa.


The most frustrating thing about the current state of social networking is that it is a pain in the ass for bands to network. That was what made Myspace so amazing, bands could book shows and talk to each other freely and it really helped things happen. Facebook pages for artists are just shit. I can't message anyone about anything, I can just post shit on my own wall and that's about it. Not effective.

 

[Terminus]

Honestly dont even use FB that much, one thing I do like it for are band updates, sometimes it'll remind me to watch a show like today, ten minutes before it came on lol. But for actual social stuff, not much use for it even though it does help me keep in touch with my Euro-buddies more than anyone locally.

 

[JonWormwood]

I like having the option of multiple social networks, it's getting them all working together that is the challenge. Facebook & Twitter are the obvious top ones right now.

Facebook status to Twitter
You can use Twitterfeed to push your facebook updates to twitter. Unfortunately Facebook does not want anyone to use Twitter so they make it difficult to find your RSS feed. Use this plugin to get it, and use the one for your posts only: http://apps.facebook.com/rssexport/?ref=bookmarks&count=0&fb_source=bookmarks_apps&fb_bmpos=2_0

In Twitterfeed, make sure it is set to only display the title, or else it will show the update twice and look nasty.


Onesheet
It's simply a webpage that collects shit from all your social networks together in one place. But personally, I believe your official website should already be doing this. On the other hand, I also believe you should register and setup your stuff at every site available, I don't think it can hurt.

Posterous
Makes it easy to update your blog/website. You can do it via email or text message. Send pictures and stuff too, very useful, I would imagine this would be awesome while on tour to upload hilarious pics at 5am when your bass player shits himself after passing out again.


You have to find something that works FOR YOU. I update Facebook all the time, so my stuff feeds from facebook. If it's easier for you to update via your website, have it feed twitter and facebook and vice versa.


The most frustrating thing about the current state of social networking is that it is a pain in the ass for bands to network. That was what made Myspace so amazing, bands could book shows and talk to each other freely and it really helped things happen. Facebook pages for artists are just shit. I can't message anyone about anything, I can just post shit on my own wall and that's about it. Not effective.

Signed up for both sites, onesheet looks great. Reverb and other sites that claim to update all the other ones are pretty weak.

It'll be great to update our blog from our phones too. Any more great sites/services aimed for the working band?

And yes, I wish bands wouldn't have ditched Myspace. It was great networking and being able to communicate with them. Facebook is annoying and I always end up leaving shit on their wall, reverbnation, mysapce, stalker email to get ahold of them.

Alot of our friends and fans kept posting about google plus and there was even a huge decline of user activity after fb updated it's GUI a few days ago. So we now have to use google+, and shit, a few people asked for merch thru it so we have no issues with it.

 

[Sloan]

For those that have a band website with a blog type news: Have you tried posting/linking things that are not directly band-related but could be of interest to your followers/fans/readers? I would like to know if it's even worth doing, or what kind of feedback you've gotten from it.

 

[dcb]

For those that have a band website with a blog type news: Have you tried posting/linking things that are not directly band-related but could be of interest to your followers/fans/readers? I would like to know if it's even worth doing, or what kind of feedback you've gotten from it.

honestly people seem to react more to off topic stuff than to band stuff.

might just be us, but, if i post something funny, there is a lot more response than to the general "finished guitars today..."

@ everyone :

quiet funny, although the whole world talks about facebook and twitter,
most people i know only use it very occasionally... id be interested in a poll.

 

[TheDriller]

Pesronally, I use Facebook to keep in touch with maybe 4 people, and Twitter just to follow interesting feeds.
I'd very rarely actually post anything on facebook but the chat system and messaging makes it ideal for maintaining contact.
It's just a lot easier to message someone on facebook rather than convince them to sign into Skype, AIM or whatever, not to mention the cost of international SMS messaging.

As for the case of "Vanity", well, for every vacuous dipshit posting their every move on facebook, there are at least 10 people getting real tangible value from the service.
For example, many of my Parents circle of friends are now slowly getting on Facebook and you can easily tell that it's enriched their lives significantly.
10 years ago, if they wanted to see photos from someones wedding or 50th anniversary they'd have to ask for duplicate prints and wait ages to get them, bit today they can see it all on Facebook. It's quick, easy and does precisely what these people want it to do.

 

[Ola Englund]

Facebook is a great way for people to get a hold of me. Before I got mails on Youtube, my blog, myspace and it was hard keeping track of everything. Now I only answer to the ones I get on Facebook and it's easy to track updates etc. But it has changed from a community I could share private stuff with friends to be a way to market myself and get in contact with other people in the business.
I use Facebook daily now. It consumes a lot of my time but it pays off

 

[Skinny Viking]

I had myspace ..

I have facebook ..

I use nothing else

 

[JeffTD]

P.S. When people use that # twitter lingo bullshit on Facebook it really pisses me off.

@Brandon why you gotta hate? #dafuckouttahere #pantiesinabunch

 

[::XeS::]

You have to wait some days and facebook will kill himself like myspace did.... they wanna introduce this new "Timeline" look that in my opinion will be a complete fail.

 

[TheDriller]

You have to wait some days and facebook will kill himself like myspace did.... they wanna introduce this new "Timeline" look that in my opinion will be a complete fail.

I've had my Timeline thing enabled for a few days now and it's nowehere near as fail-ish as I presumed it would be.

Ultimately it's just a nicer UI on top of the same old data that's always been right there on your Profile page, the only real difference being that the Photos are given a bit more display space.

 

[Steven Otto]

You have to wait some days and facebook will kill himself like myspace did.... they wanna introduce this new "Timeline" look that in my opinion will be a complete fail.

I've had the oppurtunity to try Timeline and it's pretty cool to be honest. Too bad I'm not that active on Facebook, but I like the concept. They should make the feature optional though.

 

[Harry Hughes]

I had myspace ..

I have facebook ..

I use nothing else

This.
I honestly don't really 'get' Tumblr, Twitter and all those other ones at all

 

[::XeS::]

Nice...I'll check it if you say it's good. I've watched the "teaser" and it gave me the impression of a very invasive interface

 

[TheDriller]

Nice...I'll check it if you say it's good. I've watched the "teaser" and it gave me the impression of a very invasive interface

Devils Advocate here, but how could it be invasive? this is all the same data that's always been on your Profile/Wall, just with a different UI.

Now, of course it's right to be wary of any privacy issues from these kinds of changes, but ultimately it can't display any information that you haven't already given.

Some people on the net are acting like Facebook have stolen all their credit card numbers, national insurance numbers, bank pins, birth cert, drivers license and genetic sequence and published them all

 

[StefTD]

I think you will get used fast to the new Facebook features, it's not as bad as all the myspace updates
and I am actually not sure if Facebook will fail as myspace in the near future.
Myspace had around 70 million users at best, Facebook has about 750 million at the moment, that's a whole
new stage, if you add all the bandpages and business pages (they were part of the 70 million myspace users)
you will get even higher numbers, and I am still not sure if I should like this, but it's my job to work "at" FB