Reverbnation + Myspace = Good News, (kind of)

Remember Myspace? Remember all those years and all that time you put into getting all those friends/fans? Some of us just spent hours a day spamming members messages asking them to check our music. Some paid other people to spam members messages asking them to check their music. Some mass friend requested strangers hoping they’d be curious enough about who requested them to check their page and hear their music; they’d set their player to auto play so just the visit would count to their overall plays. Others bought mass Myspace messaging and friend requesting software like Badder Adder. A few artist saw their number of friends climb up to the ten-thousands. But like all good things, sadly it had to come to an end.

How many comments did you get saying “All girls are lying when they say size doesn’t matter”? How many messages did you get saying “check out my music” from other artists, so many that being an artist you blocked bands from sending you messages. How many Macy’s gift certificates did you receive? Yes, we all witnessed how Myspace transformed into Spamspace. With the rise of Facebook began the mass exodus. Then Twitter came along and put the final nail in the coffin. It was almost like somebody had ran into a Welfare office and shouted money was falling from the sky.

We decided to rock with the trend, just go where the people went and bring our friends along with us. Then we realized one of the biggest flaws of Myspace for artists, no mass fan updating system. That’s right, with all the updates Myspace implemented to try to stop the bleeding, never once did they think of creating a way for artist to message their entire friends list in one swoop. Maybe by the time they got the idea to they voted against knowing people would just use it to mass message their friends and say “Join me on Facebook”. What we were left to do was attempt the daunting task of individually messaging what in some cases would be 10,000 friends, sending bulletin board posts every hour hoping for them to be seen – which was the most ineffective way to get messages across on Myspace because nobody really was paying attention to bulletins at that point- if they ever did, or just say F it and start over.

No, this article isn’t about Myspace nostalgia or bashing the once great entity. Amidst all the negativity, I come baring good news, sort of. There’s hope! The good people at Reverbnation have made it possible for artists to reach out to those once thought to be forever lost fans. Using their FanReach program artist can not only message their email list but can also blast messages to their friends on Myspace. When you click to create an email and it takes you to the next page, all you have to do is choose the template that says “Fan Recruiter” and you can figure it out from there. That’s great news for all those that would get teary eyed just thinking about all those lost fans. I just hope there’s somebody home to check the mail.

I’ve sent out a blast to my Myspace friends with link to join my mailing list. So far, for the most part, all I’ve received is messages from other artist with links for me to join their mailing list. I loved to hear the results from anybody else that uses the service. Hit up the comments with your experience, I’m out. Boom!

Tags: contact myspace friends, how to send email blast to myspace friends, Myspace, myspace news, reverbnation fan recuiter, reverbnation fanreach

About the Author

IAMTHEGIF Let's see, I'm a Libra, I like long walks on the beach - just kidding y'all. I'm a hip hop performance artist and rapper that spends most of his free time researching marketing and promoting music online. I love finding new services and sites that help fans discover new music like Turntablefm and Lastfm. Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions about the stuff I post to this site @iamthegif

http://twitter.com/Conscious Konnichiwa (K)ninja

Contemplating writing a piece about Reverbnation and the general mass spamming that’s going on with there not only being so many ‘artists’ but so many that have not a clue how to approach new fans. Unfortunately many ‘artists’ are playing a numbers game just like corporations do. Independent artists don’t have the luxury of treating potential fans like numbers.

I announced to my mailing list recently from Reverbnation’s FanReach service that I’d likely stop using their service because of the ridiculous amount of artists signing up as fans only to beg me to listen to their music. On Twitter @Reverbnation responded, “@conscious Sorry to hear that!”. My response, “@ReverbNation You speak!” then they say, “@conscious That we do.” Funnyunny considering that was probably only the second time they’ve actually responded on the timeline to anything I’ve said to them and this was a response to my tweet made indirectly mind you.

Anyway there’s a lot more to discuss. Just don’t have the time at the moment. One thing is clear, regardless of what you’re using the most important thing is to somehow gauge the effectiveness of the tool you’re using. Sending out to a list is great, but is there real communication happening between you and your fans?

What does your time + effort equate to?

MIKE BORGIA

No matter what service you use I think Reverbnation fanreach is one of the best. You can’t really play a numbers game being independent as stated in this post. It’s one ear at a time in many cases and picking your true fans wisely. You can’t force feed people your music. What the listener likes is subjective. Other artists will try naive methods of trying to join another artists mailing list to get you to return the favor, but that only works if both artists like what each other are doing and one or the other is truly just a fan of your music.
Myspace did very little good for the music buying public as stated in this article and I truly don’t miss it. What you have as leverage, is what you can do with your talent and how you socialize and communicate with fans.