You have "friends", according to myspace. But how do you turn them in to actual friends?

Last week I talked about how to find your potential fans. Let's say you've managed to find them in this last week, how do you get them on the bus? Unfortunately, these days, it takes a grand gesture or something incredibly interesting to get their attention. What type of grand gestures? Bands often bombard fans with videos, photos, texts, contests... anything that will grab attention. However, it's all been done and most fans are over it. Bands can do only so much face to face time with fans and are left to attempt a friendship through online social networking... it's so much easier just talking to people.

Sometimes I have the choice to either call a client or shoot them an e-mail. As easy as an e-mail sounds because it's a little less involved and doesn't require too much commitment, it slows down the communication process. When calling someone, I've got to be on my game because I don't get the chance to mull over what I'm going to say and take the time to cleverly put it all down into a safe, not too involved e-mail. Make the phone call. Often times, which I'm sure most of you are aware of, tone gets lost in e-mails and texts. I'm a relatively sarcastic person, so I often write in my texts to (read this like it's dripping with sarcasm). I've learned that words are easily lost in translation and that I must be very clear and politically correct when texting with people who don't know my sense of humor very well. Is this a bad thing? No. I should probably learn to reign myself in a lot of the time, but The Jen Creed usually shines through somehow.

Social online networks now make it so that bands can show off their number of friends on myspace. Believe me, those "friends" could usually care less about your career or voting for your band to open for John Mayer. Most of them won't take the time to sign up on a new website just to support you. I've got so many other sites to sign onto to get my necessary networking done daily that I don't want to sign up for anything else or remember another password just to support a band that asked me to add them as a "friend".

So how do you get these "friends" to actually become fans and supporters of your music? Playing shows and getting out there to personally interact with people will help turn them from myspace "friends" into real life friends, who are more willing to come out to your show and pay the cover price. Unfortunately, we don't always have the opportunity to formally meet a lot of our fans, so we have to utilize the internet. On the plus side, it allows us to not only interact more often with fans in the tri-state area, but with fans throughout the world.

So get out and play! Talk with your fans! Don't have a rock star attitude regardless of where you are in your career. Nothing bothers me more than a band who won't return phone calls or e-mails because they think they're too good for it. Their heads are bigger than they should be and that doesn't make me want to pursue them. I've got other bands to speak with who actually want to know more about what I do as well as who I am as a person. I'd rather talk to bands whose music may not be my favorite style, but they are genuine people who want to connect with their fans and have a conversation with us.

So if you meet me at a show, let's talk like people. Not as a band and a girl who works with a record company. I may not be a huge fan of your music, but we aren't defined by what we do, so I may end up being a huge fan of you.

I hope you can end up saying the same about me.

Cheers!
Creed