As social-media platforms continue to change, Athens-area bands are using these new online tools to promote their products.
“Facebook, as much as I hate to say it, is like a godsend as far as communication goes,” said Talor Smith, cellist for local band The Ridges. “That’s the primary way that we communicate with each other because everyone’s on Facebook.”
A 2011 Nielson Wire study showed that the average U.S. Internet user spends almost eight hours per month on Facebook, more than any other website.
While bands such as The Ridges are taking advantage of those 15.5 minutes per day, others such as The Paul Elisha Band are wary of using Facebook as the only way to spread their message.
“I’ve stopped using Facebook as much and am trying to go by word-of-mouth,” said Paul Elisha. “I get on Facebook and on a daily basis, I have 15 invites to random things and it got to the point where I stopped looking at the invites and ignored them.”
Although The Paul Elisha Band does not utilize Twitter, other local bands are doing so.
The Ridges uses Twitter as a way to reach out to fans rather than to promote their music, Smith said, adding that Facebook is more useful when promoting local shows using the event pages.
But many local bands agree that Facebook and Twitter are ill-equipped to share their music. That is when they turn to Spotify.
Spotify, a music-sharing site, allows users to search for free music and share it on Facebook, the site’s partner.
“Everyone is listening to music on Spotify right now,” said Dean Tartaglia, lead singer for the Athens-based band Mind Fish. “There are local bands I listen to here on Spotify … I could just meet the guy in person and get the CD, but we live in a computer age so that’s how we do it.”
Local bands can upload their music to distribution sites — such as Spotify, iTunes, Google Music, Amazon MP3, Myspace and Last.fm — for an annual fee starting at $35 using ReverbNation.
Though ReverbNation allows anyone to upload music, other sites such as Daytrotter are only available to select bands that are able to garner a larger audience.
“I think that we managed to get a lot of attention from Daytrotter,” Smith said. “I think that people take Daytrotter sessions as legitimizing a band in some sense.”
wh092010@ohiou.edu
