The joys of promoting your band on social media to friends

[Cat Burrito]

I'm off to my album launch this afternoon so shared a pic of me outside the pub we're playing - my favourite comment so far "The venue looks very small". 🙈 I'm pretty sure I am not releasing "Dark Side of the Moon"! Over the years I have had some lovely well intentioned fails from friends, including;

 

"I'm surprised you have time for a day job" - yes, thank you, I am friends with two of my bosses!

 

"Dan & I would love to come but Harry is back from Uni" - family first but this also works well as a private message! I'm sure Mick Jagger doesn't get this! 

 

"I played there six months ago" (with accompanying picture of them on stage at the venue) - Great, post it on your page!

 

"I must check out your band sometime" - I've mostly posted the playing videos over the last 15yrs just for myself, I appreciate people lead busy lives but perhaps just once over that decade and a half time frame, you could have clicked on one!

 

"It's a shame you are not playing (inserts name of town) / on a different day" - Again, works great as a PM. The whole band is travelling half way across the UK but you can't travel 20 minutes. 

 

Oh and constantly liking the posts of friend's bands and getting nothing back. 

 

What do you enjoy the least when sharing band stuff on social media? 

[Len_derby]

The ensuing gentle hiss of rolling tumbleweed.  😆
 

 

[Lfalex v1.1]

Since I'm utterly incapable of any act of self- promotion,  it's never a problem I've encountered.

 

I try to delegate such things to other,  more enthusiastic people. 🙃

[Beer of the Bass]

The puzzler for me has been a repeated, disappointed "no dates in X town?", from someone who puts on gigs in said town regularly and has yet to approach us about one.

[Supernaut]

This is called being in an originals band. 😁

[JoeEvans]

I feel a bit bad about the amount of self-promotion my friends and family get exposed to via my social media. I'm forever pushing some project via my own social media accounts in a desperate attempt to fill a venue or whatever, and it must get repetitive.

[Chris2112]

Promoting your own originals band online must be painful. On the flip side, it amuses me that most listeners would rather go and hear some mediocre covers than something original (good, bad or somewhere in between). 

[SumOne]

I've gone right off any serious promotion to friends/family on Facebook.

 

Friends I haven't seen for 10 years and my 80 year old auntie aren't gonna go 100 miles to a pub to watch me play ska covers! I feel that hassling them is just a few steps away from selling tupperware to friends and neighbours. 

 

Still though, I do a bit of 'playing at the Red Lion of Friday, head along if you're out and about'. There is a band Facebook and Instagram page that people can choose to follow (and mute) which does the more pushy advertising. 

[TimR]

If you make all your posts public, every comment and like that your freinds make, gets seen by their friends.

 

So don't knock it, every comment gets more engagement and spreads the word. 

 

Originals bands never get much attention from freinds unless you are creating a buzz and a FOMO. So think how you can get more comments and how you can make the event more about a big social meet up not to be missed than yet another gig by your band where you play the same 10 songs again.

 

Every originals band starts this way, it's very unusual for a band to get people to follow on the strength of their music alone. 

Edited April 14 by TimR

[neepheid]

One thing's for sure, you'll definitely get nowhere fast if you don't do it.  The Inevitable Teaspoons are a great example of this.

 

Who?  The Inevitable what now?  Exactly.

[Wolverinebass]

I made a joke about this a long time ago. Mainly all the people who might say, "I'll come to the next one." 

 

I postulated that if we were playing a gig in their front room, they'd say they had something important to do in the kitchen.

 

That was at a time when I was in bands that played probably more accessible material ironically.

[NancyJohnson]

Truth is, nobody cares, really.  There, I've said it.  Nobody cares.  Your circle of friends don't care and your circle of friend's friends don't care.

 

Hurts to say it.  You might get 5% turn up once out of curiosity, but that'll be it until such a point as you may be playing a big room, then there'll be this expectation of free tickets etc.

[ahpook]

There is the view from the other side....

 

 

 

[NancyJohnson]

2 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

Truth is, nobody cares, really.  Etc

 

After I posted this, I was desperately trying to remember something I'd heard years ago that had made it onto an album that related to this.

 

Quite simply, it was a track called 'Discount List' off the album Feel It by Californian pop/punk band The Penfifteen Club.

 

The track is a 90 second expletive-ridden answering machine recording left by a female fan who had attended a couple of band shows and now pretty much expected discounted or free entry to shows; sadly the track did not get upped to streaming platforms.

 

 

 

 

[BigRedX]

2 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

Truth is, nobody cares, really.  There, I've said it.  Nobody cares.  Your circle of friends don't care and your circle of friend's friends don't care.

 

Hurts to say it.  You might get 5% turn up once out of curiosity, but that'll be it until such a point as you may be playing a big room, then there'll be this expectation of free tickets etc.

 

That's very true. 

 

In the days when I had an office job working alongside other people I finally, after a couple years, managed to persuade some of my colleagues to come and see my current band play. What struck me the following Monday was the number of people telling me that they were surprised at how good the band was - as though they hadn't noticed my drive for perfection with the artwork I produced in my job, and therefore why should the band be any different? Unfortunately, the fact that they enjoyed the gig wasn't enough for them the go and see us play again.

 

On the other hand before that, most of the audience I been playing to was made up of musicians from other local bands, and they tend to be the worst audience ever - either bitching about how crap they think your band, is or seething with jealousy because you're getting more attention then their band is. I had to admit I've been guilty of that in the past.

 

luckily for the last 15 or so years I've played in bands that have been entertaining enough to generate our own decent following without having to rely on friends, acquaintances and work colleagues in order to have a decent sized audience.

[TimR]

The other thing to remember is that when your friends turn up you have to be really appreciative of them being there. Spend time talking to everyone both before and after the show. Make them feel valued. 

 

[Linus27]

4 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

Truth is, nobody cares, really.  There, I've said it.  Nobody cares.  Your circle of friends don't care and your circle of friend's friends don't care.

 

Hurts to say it.  You might get 5% turn up once out of curiosity, but that'll be it until such a point as you may be playing a big room, then there'll be this expectation of free tickets etc.

 

We played a special gig in Camden last year. Very much out of our area and not something we would normally do but our singer worked in London, he booked a back room in a pub, put on a few other acts and made a special night of it as a lot of his work colleagues said they are interested in the band and would love to come and see him play. Guess how many turned up? Just 1.

 

Sadly, as we all get older, people get other commitments like jobs, mortgages, holidays, kids etc. so everyone has less time, money or energy or even interest to leave the house.

[Paul S]

Yes.  I've discovered that when friends ask how the gigging is going, they rarely actually want to know beyond 'all good'.

 

I have a similar situation with my garden.  If a garden can be described as being 'famous' then I guess mine is - it has been featured in newspapers, magazines, books and on the tele as it is rather unusual.  'I must come and see your garden!' people say.  But having laid down that marker, every time I subsequently see/speak to them they try to explain why they haven't.  In truth I don't give a toss whether they visit or not.  If they want to visit, fine.  If they don't want to visit, that's fine.  But please, stop the apologies.  I suppose that might be perceived as being a bit rude  

[neepheid]

We all need reminded sometimes just how insignificant and unimportant we truly are...

[TimR]

I only have one friend who goes out and watches bands. He does this religiously sometimes three times a week. 

 

Everyone else seems more interested in talking about which box-set they're currently watching. This isn't because they're short of a bob or two, it's because live music just isn't on their radar.

 

Lots of them will go to local festivals, and from the looks of their social media, its a massive social event, photos and selfies of each other, no mention or photos of the bands.

 

I've been to see 4 bands in the last 6 weeks. One I paid a lot to see at the Camden Underworld. By the time I'd bought food beforehand and 2 pints inside the venue, including the ticket, but excluding travel, I'd spent £100. 

 

A local band I've seen before, was £9 on the door at a local venue and again £7.40 a pint. So that's close on £50 for me and my son on a week night. 

 

Another local band at a pub, free to get in and £3.20 a pint (I asked if they'd made a mistake?)

 

We have a local gig (covers) in 2 weeks time on a Saturday night. We have a facebook event and I've started inviting people, hopefully I may get 10 people down. Will see. 

 

The originals band I'm in bought 4 people to the first gig. The singers wife, the drumers wife and his parents. None of my friends turned up. When we played the local festival, there were loads of friends, who all thought we were excellent, so maybe they'll turn out to our next gig...

Edited April 15 by TimR

[Paul S]

17 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

 

Sorry, did someone say something?

[Linus27]

30 minutes ago, neepheid said:

We all need reminded sometimes just how insignificant and unimportant we truly are...

 

Something I got send a while back which does have some truth about it.

 

"In 100 years, say 2124, we will all be buried with our relatives and friends. Strangers will live in our homes we fought so hard to build, and they will own everything we have today. All our possessions will be unknown and unborn, including the car we spent a fortune on, and will probably be scrap, or preferably in the hands of an unknown collector. Our descendants will hardly or hardly know who we were, nor will they remember us. How many of us know our grandfather's father? After we die, we will be remembered for a few more years, then we are just a portrait on someone's bookshelf, and a few years later our history, photos and deeds disappear in history's oblivion. We won't even be memories. If we paused one day to analyze these questions, perhaps we would understand how ignorant and weak the dream to achieve it all was. If we could only think about this, surely our approaches, our thoughts would change, we would be different people. Always having more, no time for what's really valuable in this life. I'd change all this to live and enjoy the walks I've never taken, these hugs I didn't give, these kisses for our children and our loved ones, these jokes we didn't have time for. Those would certainly be the most beautiful moments to remember, after all they would fill our lives with joy. And we waste it day after day with greed, greed and intolerance."

[neepheid]

17 minutes ago, Paul S said:

 

Sorry, did someone say something?

 

*sheepishly* no

[SumOne]

Friends/family/colleagues feign interest out of politeness. To pressure them and then get offended that they aren't being more supportive is a bit egotistical. Why should they care? 

 

If I wrote a Gothic Horror novel, I wouldn't expect my cousins/aunties/colleagues/long lost school friends to be the target audience and the ones that should support and be the deciding factor to make or break it. I'd send it to appropriate publishers, if they thought it was good enough to be profitable they'd promote it to the small % of the population that enjoy Gothic horror. I don't really see music as something all that different. I'd promote my Ambient Dub Techno album via appropriate social media pages for fans of that music, record labels, radio shows, DJs, clubs etc. they are the target audience who make or break it, I wouldn't pressure my Auntie Dorris to 'like' and listen and come to gigs. 

Edited April 15 by SumOne

[Silvia Bluejay]

Anyone remember that lockdown meme doing the rounds in 2020? "Stay at home, just like you do when your friends' band is playing your local".

 

Whenever I advertise our bands, I do it through their respective band pages, not via my own personal account, and rely on some of our followers sharing the post to their own friends to make an evening out for themselves.

 

That works fine with the rock 'n' roll band, as jivers like to attend gigs by good, tight bands, especially if the venue has a decent dance floor. We really wouldn't expect our non-jiving friends to attend every single gig, although frontman Damo does have some really good friends who will come to see the band every time we're in their area, to enjoy the music and also to catch up with him. This band is also the only one of ours to play a handful of originals, which are well-received and popular on the dance floor because they are in the same style as the covers in the setlist.

 

Similarly, with the new soul band we'll try and attract fans of the genre rather than family or friends. After all, how many times can even a friend or relative willing to help make the effort to attend a gig with music they're mostly indifferent to, to listen to more or less the same setlist every time?

 

Our long-standing covers band chooses not to rely on friends either. I post our gigs on FB, and hope that our followers, who have known of our existence for 15 years, will attend and spread the word to their own friends if applicable. Sometimes it happens - other times it doesn't.

Edited April 15 by Silvia Bluejay