MySpace and Content Creation
For about 7 years right after highschool I was in an indie rock band. We took it as seriously as 18 year olds could, and that included lots and lots of content creation.
In 2006, content creation for bands focused on one platform: MySpace. Bands were taking off there, all the fans were there, and your band literally could get booked based on the number of people that were friends with you (sound familiar?)
So my brother (who was the lead singer) and I would spend 1-3 hours a day working the platform. We made videos, posted content, spent hours interacting with fans, and more.
Our fanbase grew, but we could never get things to tip. More importantly, we couldn’t get attendance for shows outside a narrow region. Eventually we ended up calling it quits.
Looking back I realize we made a huge mistake.
We spent a ton of time driving people to check out our music, and very little time making sure that music was incredible.
I’m not saying we didn’t work at the music side of things. We’d have 2-3 hour band practices every week, I’d practice every day, I’d try to write a couple times a week, etc.
But if you look at the time I spent marketing and creating content versus the time spent making our music amazing, it’s nowhere close.
So when potential fans, that we spent hours a day courting, would check out our music, many just weren’t that into it.
Which meant we had to work even harder to get more attention from new potential fans, and down the nasty spiraling cycle we went.
We spent so much time on social media interaction because:
It felt like tangible progress. Writing a great song or producing it out well is a bit subjective, but a follower count is concrete.
It was outward focused. Our MySpace profile felt like something everyone could see as a sign of success.
It gave us a dopamine rush. We had a couple things we posted get lots of views, and that would stimulate our dopamine levels and keep us posting more.
There’s never been a time more than now that demands you constantly post and share. It’s a trap.
I’m not saying to never post. What I’m saying is, spend way, way, WAY more time on your product. If your product isn’t the absolute best thing you can offer to the market, posting every day on social media is only going to get you tepid results.
And the plus side? When you’re ready to move on to the next thing, you’ll have a skill set translates and is valuable. And you’ll have built something you’re proud of.
. . .
A few weeks ago I tried to sign into that band’s MySpace page, thinking I’d pull some of the stuff off the page as a keepsake. The band’s page had been deleted because of inactivity. 7 years and thousands of hours of grinding, and not a trace of it left online.
Still sitting on the corner desk of my studio? A CD in a glossy film cover of the band’s first EP. I popped it in, and despite the crappy production by yours truly, I’m still proud of what we made.