I saw this photo being shared on Facebook yesterday. Rather than thinking yep that’s right, I thought… this is the exact reason why you need your own website. Facebook can and will do whatever they need to generate revenue, they aren’t providing the website for free to be nice. You get to use the site for free so they can generate revenue around all of our activity and sharing. Don’t put yourself into a position where you are dependent on Facebook.
Build your own website.
1 – You learn 2 – You save 3 – Many many social site links !
1. Tou use services that provide prebuilt websites and templates. Look at Bandzoogle.com.
I know it’s serious , but once you learn you will have a valuable tool to market whatever you want to market , i recommend wordpress.org , it’s hosted and you get good SEO and it’s real easy to use . just if you are interested
2. Well you will need to invest something in your career, even a little bit.
Hi Michael,
I just checked out Bandzoogle as you suggested and I’m impressed! I currently used WordPress.com but have been wanting to make changes for a while.
I notice you use MailChimp for your newsletters, and also noticed Bandzoogle has a built-in e-newsletter feature. Do you have any tips or opinions on the advantages of one over the other?
I have not used the BZ email system, but I am sure it is integrated nicely with all of their features. I use Mailchimp because I am on a WordPress site so I needed my own service. It is reliable, fairly simple to use. But, you should have some basic html skills.
Thanks, Michael. I’m currently on WordPress, too, but I need to decide whether to migrate to WordPress.org and find all the right plugins, or go over to Bandzoogle, which has so much integration already done, though I could see myself outgrowing it down the road.
The only band that I know for sure is on Bandzoogle looks awful (for which I don’t blame Bandzoogle). But I’m also getting lost in the labyrinth of WordPress themes, what looks good and is flexible, and who creates and supports them.
I’m definitely in analysis paralysis… Time to just make a decision and git ‘er done.
My $0.02…
I’ve used both Bandzoogle and wordpress and both have their advantages. Bandzoogle takes the legwork out of building and managing a site and online experience by consolidating all those tools into one (think WP themes, widgets, plug-ins, etc.), however it limits your flexibility to go outside the box without a solid understanding of coding – which if you had/have, WP is clearly the better way to go as it provides more flexibility to get exactly what you want; not what comes out of the box.
I used Bandzoogle for a few years and it works great – in the end I wanted a better style for my site and they just don’t make that easy to do. But they do have killer customer support compare to WP.
Net/Net: If you have an understanding of programming and coding, stick with WP and use something like reverbantion (or the like) to gather email addresses and send messages. If you want it in an all-in-one package, check out bandzoogle, or bandcamp or any of the others.
Great review John, thank you.
Thanks, John! I appreciate you sharing your experience!
We’ve been ratteling on about this for ages Michael, haven’t we? The trouble is, many bands take themselves very seriously artistically, but don’t bother professionally. Owning your own website is a part of that business world 🙂
Thank you Micheal – Ah, the double edged sword of Akismet 🙂
Hopefully to most bands and acts this is a self explanatory thing…If you’re serious, you need to have a website, social media is secondary, but of course, much easier to establish at first thanks to personal social circles.
Always have a professional website and invest in yourselves.
I had the same reaction when I saw this photo post. If you’re going to be taken seriously as a working musician you have to do your homework daily, and that includes keeping your own website current. ~Tom~ http://wagitt.com
Amen!