i feel these artists are definitely on the right track, a personal social connection is probably more valuable in the short to medium term but artists must keep in mind, that unlike your own pages mailing list; you can easily lose all your Facebook likes or Twitter Followers in a matter of minutes, just through a cancelled profile/hacked profile & even through leaving your profile logged in on a public computer accidently... Just something to keep in mind...

Find a way to store the names of people who have "Liked" you on FB or "Followed" you on Twitter...

I agree!

Yeah i also agree with the post that the Facebook likes more valuable than the Email signup but there is some issue. Please tell me more about this blog.

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Kind of interesting, but it all depends on exactly what makes artists believe their beliefs?

Does it relate to sales, people turning up at gigs, the warm glow of conversations, the warm glow of getting automatic feedback (eg facebook likes), visible sharing etc.

Suprised email comes so low and that MySpace comes so high.

Yes, what does value mean? Sales, traffic, awareness, and/or engagement?

As someone that deals with millions of data points around this specific thing for artists I would place the value on awareness but it would be a very noncommittal awareness. People may comment but so much of the conversation has nothing to do with the original post by the artist (I love you artist XYZ!)

One thing that I don't believe is even mentioned here are artist official web sites.

Email signups crush social media in terms of sales. The conversions are many times greater.

Organic traffic to artist web sites crush social media in terms of sales and engagement.

If you have a lot of social media connections your message may be seen and shared by many but from my experience you have to generate far more traffic through them to generate anything close to the sales you would get via email. 

Social Media is great for awareness but make sure you got your SEO ready to go and you funnel people to sign up for other conversions.

Where do you get your data from that shows that email signups crush social media in album sales?

Very good question, is is also inmy mind but you asking first well i also want to know about it.

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This headline has about as much truth in it as "Cheney Links Saddam to 9/11."

Just 'cause they say it doesn't make it true.

As a meme it could cause a lot of damage.

In the past, "artists" have also said:

"I don't need a website, I have Myspace."

"I don't want to be on (Facebook, Myspace, Itunes, Youtube)"

This is  why most artists need professional marketing support. This ratio is pretty much inverse.

Which is not to say that FB is not essential. But if you are not getting at least 3X (or more like 10X) Facebook's return rate on your email list, you either A) are not using your list correctly or B) do not have a large enough Facebook friendbase.

Also, they rank G+ below Myspace. While it may not be delivering at the moment, G+ tools at least have potential. Myspace, barring a successful reinvention, is pretty much useless.

What do you mean this article has no truth?  Are you saying they didn't actually survey the artists, or that the artists were lying about what they thought was more valuable?

Not lying.  Why would they lie?

Just not accurate. I'm sure they believe what they are saying.

And for DMN it makes a good headline.

This is a great discussion, and an important one, imo.

Just so there is no confusion, we deliberately DIDN'T tell the artists how to think about 'value'.  We wanted to leave that open to interpretation and see how they responded without guidance.

Jed Carlson

ReverbNation

I remember the "truism" that email addresses were the most valuable of all?  

For example Topspin has always been mentioning this?  Still the opinion of marketers?

Erroneus! It takes approximately ZERO effort to "Like" a page. Newsletter subscribers are fans who have gone out of their way to ensure they are getting the most authentic and relevant information ahead of the masses on Facebook.

One post is seen by approximately 1%-3% of your total fan base (with 90% seeing the post within the first hour). Whereas a newsletter is guaranteed to be delivered to the inbox. 

Simply looking at conversions, sales and click throughs coming from newsletters are much higher than those on Facebook as well.

I'd take a database of 30K subscribers over a Facebook page of 300K ANY day.

That's not true.  It takes 0 effort to sign up on an email list, too. 

David Goldman

A misguided belief.

 Yanni Peary

Any aspiring artist out there - Facebook "Likes" are NOT worth more than your newsletter subscribers.

Totally agree! If these artists were asked 5 years ago if Myspace friends were more important than email they'd say yes. With respect most of them have zero marketing suss. By using services like Mailchimp they can really pin point exactly who is a real fan.

 BG Pollock

Really?

Say WHAT?

ReverbNation + DMN please do a study on what these formats are actually worth to dispel this myth!

Great suggestion.  But along what metric would you suggest we measure it?  This is where it gets tricky.  Artists' objectives can vary greatly, and may not always be strictly financial.

Never such nonsense have I ever heard. The problem is that musicians for the most part have zero business sense. They don't study metrics and generally don't set up their mailing lists correctly, so how on earth do they know about conversions??

There is no question that facebook likes are completely passive, whilst it takes commitment to sign up on a mailing list.

Artists are the last person I would ask in a survey such as this. Bless them.

In all fairness, this was a survey on how artists view the value - many of them do not take into consideration the return. I do definitely agree that an email signup is way more effective and valuable than a Facebook "like". While it's easy to use FB to direct people to your music and every day dealings, I do think an email list shows a higher dedication and conversion rate. And with Google+, many people have not yet converted...but that will be a powerful medium for artists to spread the word. I can't wait to use the hangouts!

What are some free or cheap email blast services like MailChimp that you all would recommend?

Kat Bohn - fretless bass, Indefinite Dyad

www.facebook.com/indefinitedyad

 Jaclyn Ranere

I'd rather see this with actual data behind it.

I don't agree, though.

I have to disagree.

Agreed.

Just remember, musicians: if you ever want to leave FB (or Myspace or G+) you can't take those "likes" with you... 

Misguided.  It's only because the #s are visible.  Perhaps there's value in being percieved as popular, but e-mail & mobile are still the most effective means of direct marketing to fans in my experience.

completely agreed. 

There's a good chance the last person who "Liked" you band also liked Boo the Worlds Cutest Dog and Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits. 

There's not much to Liking something, however to the artist it's a metric, albeit a fairly vague one without context or backend demographic data.  

The average user also probably thinks that "fans" or "likes" also equates to acutal sales, or potential merit. In my opinion it's more useful when employed with next big sound or something like that to track marketing, PR, or other media trending. 

there is almost -0- commitment to "like" an artist. I say thats bunko and represents how short sighted an artist is. Artists are so numbers driven its rediculous.

 James Aviaz

File under 'my tiny mind is blown'.

I'm sure the survey is correct: Many artists' probably DO value FB likes 3x more than email sign-ups, as do brand marketers that maniacally pursue FB likes over anything else, as a benchmark against their competitors (and competitors' marketing executives). But the data is crystal clear: If you equate "value" to how much fans actually spend on music, tickets, merch, etc., email is signficantly more valuable--there is no question about it. Facebook is really important--of course. But owning a database of fans who want to receive an email about the artist they love is a much bigger fan than someone who clicks a FB Like button.

Valuable as in "cash" or valuable as in "likes make me feel special"?

 Supernova.com

This is why we integrate Facebook!

It is an incredible value! Apparently MySpace was really back on music stuff, sad, but the world must go on! Look my new site, how to made a Fazer Facebook account :)

Maybe you should poll the managers.

 mifblip

The power of Facebook...

 Always Sunday

Musicians are a little confused. Do yourself a favor and build a Youtube page and mailing list.

I value my listeners very much, so I don't have a Facebook page or even a personal Facebook account. They happily subscibe to the newsletter (xx,xxx subscribers - December 2011) and they also happily communicate with me via e-mail, in a very personal and direct way. My tech team makes sure all that data is safe and stored according to what the law says and not what some Wall Street mafia person wants.

Who uses ReverbNation?!

Hosting costs less than a cheap pizza a month.

I don't understand.

10,000 Facebook Likes cost ~$40, depending on how good your SEO tech is.

While that might be possible, you should always question the quality of those likes. There is a huge difference between a targeted Facebook like-generation campaign and one where you get a few thousand fans off of Fiverr.com.

When you have someone's email, you have them for life (assuming they don't change their email addresses frequently or you manage to get unsubscribed/lumped into junk mail). With Facebook, if someone stops engaging with your page for a little, you'll quickly be replaced in the algorithm that determines someone's news feed. There are many liked pages that I never even see anymore in my feed. For email newsletters, I might ignore for a while, but you might get me back a little later when I have more patience or interest.

That just tells you how different perception is from reality. In all of our studies email signups are far more valuable than any other fan engagement. This is probably evidence that despite its age, email is still the primary touch point and primary communication point online.

One thing i didn't mention earlier and is maybe a little left field, and I'm sure I'm going to piss some people off saying this. I've been a musician in many different project at many different levels over the past 12-15 years and I've discovered one thing above anything else, and that is "Most Musicians Are God Damn Lazy"!!!

So ofcourse they "like" Facebook the most... It takes the least amount of "content creation" of any of the serveyed pages! Facebook "likes" or "Fans" are easy to accumulate without any real effort (beyond time) and you dont have to produce any real content of value first and or follow up that content all that often. You also dont ever have to leave the house or have shows happening to get "Likes" or "Fans"...

You Tube = Make video content first and watch your stats

Myspace = Make music, album art & take photos first (and its not a growth site these days anyway)

Mailing list = Get paid web hosting & get actual sign ups at shows and online

Twitter = Creating Mini-blogging content & following back

FACEBOOK is so easy and you dont actually have to record/play live or make any real effort to achieve "LIKES" & "Fans"...

Very true! If you pissed someone off, then they are either ignorant or in the Facebook field of spammers, aka "Social Media Gurus"...

Hmmm...

Curious if artists without major label backing were surveyed.

The answer is yes, a very high percentage of the artists surveyed do not have major label deals.

I love your site.

Email is so easy. Who wants to use all these passwords to talk to friends. Learn to create your own graphics and attach them to your email as a PDF so anyone can read it, send an audio file and a photo. Email is such a powerful press kit, instant one sheet in their face. Fans like nice photos via email. Email rocks!

Facebook is the network that came to dominate. My site Criar Facebook speaks exclusively about him ...