How many of you struggle to grow your band's facebook/instagram?

You asked this same question a month ago.
The biggest issue you have with your band's facebook/instagram...
Did you not get the answer you were looking for?
I kinda get the feeling you're trying to dance around the TB CUP...

 

Fair enough.
Why?

 

The fact that Facebook sucks terribly. In good conscience I would never ask my friends to log in there.

 

What's a TB Cup?

 

Commercial User Policy (CUP) | TalkBass.com

 

In all likelihood, they're already there...especially now that everyone's at home more often.

I have to keep reminding myself and bandmates just because there are no gigs, we can't let the page get inactive. The drummer(!) posted a video of him playing along to a recording and got several likes, so it's good to know some people are keeping us in mind.

And yes, FB lacks a lot, but it's one marketing tool of many.

 

Not a frustration, but a sense of haunting disillusionment/ realization that FB “likes” don’t mean anything.

There seemed to be a surge of FB activity when the local bars got shut down. A lot of bands promoting live stream events, or other more risky forms of maintaining visibility during the pandemic.

I just got burned-out and exhausted at the prospect of trying to keep people interested in our band page when there’s no “pay-off” of a good show coming. So I “unpublished” it a week ago, and haven’t logged into FB since.

It’s my own experiment to see if the page meant anything to anyone other than being an annoying reminder that we have gigs coming up on the weekend, every weekend. Kinda like that Bed Bath and Beyond coupon that shows up every week for 15%-20% off. I get the coupon every week, so I though it in the trash knowing it will be replaced, and it hasn’t gotten me to visit BBB.

So I’m really curious (hoping?) that folks have better things to think about than our band, and wanting to give them a break from the spam.

So far, no one has reached out to us or given any indication that they’ve noticed the page was unpublished. We can all be reached through other channels, but not a peep from our fans.

I’m not sure if I should feel validated, ashamed, relieved, or sad. Maybe all of the above.

 

The annoying fact that promoters wanna see Facebook likes. But the likes don't translate into butts at shows. But they can't seem to get that.

 

The mysterious fb algorithm is frustrating. I believe, based on my experience with it, that fb purposely pushes down small business/band posts, to force those businesses/bands to purchase paid ads.

Not scientific proof, but if I post a silly cat picture on my personal page, 50 people will like it in a couple of days. If I post the same picture on my fb band page, nobody seems to see it, unless I pay FB to “promote” it. Even with similar #’s of followers on band page vs personal page.

Now I know there is a lot that goes into the algorithm, but it seems very likely that FB does force business pages down the “pay if you want your post seen” path because it makes more money for them. Fair enough, it’s their platform, but at the end of the day it feels scammy and pointless, so I no longer bother.

 

FB & Instagram are other tools to me, they are not the "ultimate". So yes, I'm keeping them alive but I need to do more to keep everything alive. People are so used to social media and the content you put up there only lasts about a minute because users are bombarded with other stuff constantly. Social media to me is just another tool to use. You need to work a lot to keep everything alive. The occasional video clip of your band(s) is good but it will never be enough since the world retains new information for about a minute nowadays.

 

i can't say FB is a net positive for my two bands, but at least 50% of owners/promoters we deal with are tied into it such that they ask about our page and how it's doing (the usual: "how many 'likes' do you have?"). i see it as something we should maintain --- but i don't know how to do better with it or if it's worth putting much more effort into it than we already do. our audience attendance seems to operate more word-of-mouth but they're getting the word from someplace. probably FB!

 

That would have been nice in the OP.

 

Easy: the biggest problem is the FB "boost your post" business model. It's not transparent and "reach up to xxx people" without showing us who those people are is no bueno, IMHO.

And for transparency's sake, how about telling us who you work for in your commercial disclosure, please? It's to your benefit if you want to market yourself here, and it's free.

 

No real frustration with Facebook, I don't think it's evil or whatever. Set up band page, add some good pics - pay someone to take good pics if you need to, a few videos are good too and with everyone carrying around 4K cameras in their pockets there is no real reason to not have a few videos. Reach out to family and friends of the band members, get 300+ likes / followers on your page and you should have enough for basic bar gigs. Build the like and followers over time. Engage with your followers - ask questions, those are more likely to get responses. Run a pick your favorite contest for voting on one of several songs that you'll debut at the next gig - but the secret is that you actually have ll four ready to go, it doesn't matter, get the people involved and voting is a quick and easy way to do that.

 

Agreed, all the way around, and best of luck with keeping things going.

I just started accepting friend requests for the first time on my newer account. My old commercial page had several hundred followers on the strength of 800+ personal friends, and it was the same for my band/musician page before I retired from gigging, and all that went away when I bailed from FB a couple of years ago. When I decided to go back to NAMM this year I felt compelled to put a new page up out of respect to my luthier friend whose booth I was "working" in. But for me it's just fluff; I don't sell any hard goods and none of the handful of people who might use me for design work care a whit about FB. A couple of hours at the show face to face with potential clients did more for me than 3 years of FB presence as a hobbiest commercial entity, FWIW.

 

i hate to be 'that guy', but: i don't know where to find (or how to do) the "voting" thing...or do you accomplish it by number of 'likes'? great idea for engagement!

 

I thought It was Two Bassists- One Cup.




But seriously, Isn't Facebook (aka "NarcissistBook") the place where people's Moms to post pics to try to make other moms jealous?

Here's my kid being better than your kid, here's my new deck and hot tub that's better than yours, here's my dog that's fancier than yours, here's my bikini bod in my swimming pool, Heres my dinner from lastnite....etc.

You get the drift.
Once "adults" (parents and grandparents) started using it, it became uncool, all the cool kids know that.

Now, if you can get your band on tiktok before that's uncool...