In the past few years, Facebook has grown to become a giant in the social media platforms. It boasts 350 million active users; the average user spending 55 minutes logged in every day. It has far more users than Myspace has, and it offers incredible tools for musicians and bands to continue to grow a fan presence.
There are 2 types of pages musicians can create and utilize on Facebook. The most limited type of page is a group page. The group page is clean and simple. You can post an identifying group photo and a brief description of the group. Most of the activity on the page takes place on the comment wall. That’s pretty much it. However, the group page has a big advantage over other types of pages because of its “bulk invite” feature. When a band has a gig, it can send out invites to all its group members in one shot. The group members who receive the invitation can also use the bulk invite feature to invite all of their friends to the event as well. It’s a great tool used to tell fans about shows, album releases, or anything else.
The second type of page is a Fan Page. They allow the users to post rich media like videos, photos, and mp3’s. Perhaps the most important feature is the option to add Apps. Facebook apps allow you to sync outside promotional tools like twitter, iLike, and Reverb Nation with your Facebook fan page. Using Apps, bands can do everything from selling tickets, updating “tweets”, and creating mailing lists to viewing marketing and statistics information on who is listening, buying, and sharing their music. Without Apps, fan pages would also be limiting. Bands don’t have a bulk invite option for fan pages, so sending updates about new tracks or videos is almost impossible. Messages are sent out to members but it’s only on their news feed, and odds are it will get buried before the user ever reads it. The only other advantage Fan Pages have over Group Pages is the ability for unregistered members to view Fan Pages.
The best bet for a musician or bands is to create both a Fan page, and a Group page. The Fan Page can have all of the extras that a Group page lacks, and the Group pages can be used to send out bulk event invitations and messages to users. Update the pages often, but try to use your messages and invites sparingly so that members are more likely to open invitations and respond.
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