In June 2008 facebook pulled in 123.9 million unique visitors to move past MySpace as the dominant social network.
Despite facebook’s superior traffic, MySpace is the dominant music platform. A typical Google search for an artist will display the band’s website, MySpace profile and Wikipedia entry and for most artists these are the most commonly visited web properties.
facebook doesn’t even get a look in.
Despite this, it has been widely reported that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is considering turning facebook into an iTunes and MySpace competitor.
Here are five things that need fixing for facebook to become a serious musical player.
Slasherberg.
Findability
Band facebook pages don’t come up in Google’s search results. Given that search dominates web navigation, if people can’t find a page easily through search they simply won’t visit. facebook’s first challenge is to become a destination for people looking for bands, rather than just giving band’s incidental exposure.
MySpace rulz muzik 4eva.
Simpler URLs
Finding a band on Myspace is simple. Google will take you straight there. Chances are though, that you don’t need Google. Just try typing www.myspace.com/bandname.
facebook URLS are more convoluted and less intuitive. facebook URL’s can’t be committed to memory and aren’t simple enough to be guessed.
Compare:
Which are you more likely to type in when looking for information about Coldplay?
MySpace’s VP of Usability also designs elevator buttons.
A more fluid layout
Myspace pages, ugly as they may be, have consistency. There’s the music player, the photos, the basic info on the left and the blog/bio/tour dates on the right.
For those doing quick research, MySpace is an efficient way of getting what you need.
facebook organises all of that same information into straight vertical columns and the most crucial element – the music player - is halfway down the page. facebook has more frames than MySpace, which leads to clutter and forces key information below the scroll. It’s a layout that keeps with the facebook aesthetic but kills usability.
That’s the best you got Marky Z?
More relevant updates/feeds
Anyone who is a facebook ‘fan’ of a band will know that being a ‘fan’ isn’t enough to get band updates. While this certainly reduces information overload, it puts the onus on the user to actively seek out band news. If someone is willing to sign up as a ‘fan’ then that surely qualifies them to receive band updates in their news feed.
Surely I qualify for updates?
Customisation
While bands often treat MySpace like their official website and customise it as such, facebook band sites are always the same. Customisation would give bands an incentive to use their facebook more, which would give facebook music greater credibility and pull in more music ‘fans’.
Simple really.
Conclusion
People predominantly use facebook for social networking and MySpace for music, at least that’s the perception. facebook isn’t a consideration for music fans and this is at least in part to familiarity.
facebook’s audience gives it a major opportunity but it needs to start making changes soon. Online familiarity breeds reliability, not contempt.
Matt originally wrote this article for the The Music Network.
Nick’s Note: As plainly as it can be put, facebook sucks for music. I’m even going so far as recommending against it for some bands. MySpace, despite the clutter, is still the superior property for artists.
That’s not to say facebook can’t succeed in the music space, but Zuckerberg and Co. need some serious help to get there.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Andrew McMillen 03.01.09 at 6:31 pm
Curious as to why Facebook isn’t a proper noun throughout this article. Okay, it’s all lowercase in the logo, but so’s MySpace..
Excellent article, Matt. You raise some strong points that’d vastly improve the band/fan experience on Facebook. Agree with Nick - it sucks, and I don’t view Facebook as a music destination at all.
matthew 03.02.09 at 8:42 am
You didn’t mention the worst problem of all: Facebook requires a scan of your driver’s license in order to post tunes on your page. Asinine in the extreme, and the prime reason why I have no tunes on my Facebook page.
Tom Davenport 03.02.09 at 8:59 am
Good article, and I see that this is hypothetically speaking for Facebook, but in reality, who cares for Facebook to be better as a music platform?
I think we’re coming into a new dawn for bands online. Myspace is aged, and didn’t tie itself into being a music store. Facebook missed it’s chance. Last.fm is excellent but is somehow missing the mainstream mark, and many sites tried the sell-your-own-music but didn’t have the money for good marketing or design to become a hit.
But around the corner, there’s interesting systems coming out. http://gogoyoko.com has caught my eye - simple set up, comprehensive system, and attractive. Soundcloud has proved to have in my opinion the best music hosting and embed-able player for promotion, and god knows how many developers are taking what’s best in this (post?) web2.0 world.
In summary, he best is yet to come. Screw Facebook.
DIYMusicians.com 03.02.09 at 10:57 am
If it’s about getting music heard and building a fan base, organised acts are already using both networks (… along with Twitter)
They are also aware that…
MySpace, like HMV, is a music specialist - as such, it’s a credible yet niche global market and…
Facebook has the potential to be like Walmart or TESCO, which is where the mainstream/wider audience could be found - yes, it’s much less credible but it’s where the financial rewards would be greater… if that’s what floats your boat, of course!
If/when Facebook eventually get round to implementing Matt’s suggestions, it’ll be of much more use to musicians… and we like the sound of that.
Lee Jarvis 03.03.09 at 4:48 am
A great article, you raise some good points here! I see Facebook as only part of a musician’s online toolbox and promotional push, but I agree that if they could address some of the issues here then they may find new musician pages and higher traffic on existing pages. Interesting stuff - I’ll definitely visit your blog again
Lee.
Nick 03.03.09 at 9:14 pm
@Andrew - I thought it was just facebook, but yeah, MySpace isn’t consistent with the logo so just for you we will use Facebook from now on.
@matthew - Wow. That really sucks! Thanks for that addition, woulda been top of the list for me had I known.
@TomDavenport - “who cares for Facebook to be better as a music platform? ” I agree with you totally. But the traffic is there and if it activates in a music direction then the influence could be enormous. I LOVE SoundCloud too.
@DIYMusicians - If only they’d call us eh?
@Lee - Thanks for the kind words.
Shrek 03.04.09 at 1:03 pm
I am sure you are all over this Nick & Matt but id be interested on your thoughts re: http://www.becausegroup.com/
Matt H 03.05.09 at 12:38 pm
Hey Shrek, I’ll definitely check this out. and get back to you.
Also, thanks to matthew for his point that you need to scan your driver’s license to upload songs - I had no idea since I’ve never tried! (and I’m in a band so that’s a fairly poor indictment on how much value I place on Facebook for music). But that is definitely a massive massive problem - digital is meant to make stuff easier, not go out of its way to inconvenience people so blatantly and unnecessarily!
alan jones 03.06.09 at 3:20 pm
In defence of Facebook, while it’s true that fans of an artist won’t automagically get updated on everything the artist does, it’s not hard for whoever’s managing the artist’s fan page to send out updates to fans and importantly, to select which fans to send an update to. Reducing the risk of being branded a spammer is a good thing, and being able to target messages increases the chances that fans will open, read and *act* on the artist’s message. Until you generate a fan action, it’s either actual spam or potential spam.
Your analysis focuses on finding artists you already know about and broadening that relationship. That’s important, but only part of the equation: helping music consumers discover a new artist probably matters more to artists not with a major.
Problem is, every unsigned artist in the world figured out that the most direct way to use MySpace to find new listeners is to get yourself added as a friend of a better-known artist on MySpace. The result is 80% of a major artist’s MySpace friends aren’t fans, they’re unsigned artists trying to catch a break. Most of the updates MySpace sends on behalf of my artists are delivered to unsigned artists, not actual or potential customers of mine.
Facebook offers me a self-serve ad platform with demog targeting and social actions integrated so that one new fan of my artist on Facebook helps me reach 5-10 potential new purchasers. MySpace doesn’t.
Finally, on which URL structure is more findable, you know what works even better than http://www.myspace.com/coldplay?
http://www.coldplay.com.
It’s getting easier and cheaper every year to setup a domain and a simple holding page, even if it’s just redirecting the URL to a MySpace or Facebook page.
I’d describe MySpace as a great place for a new artist setup an online home if they don’t have one and can’t afford to get a friend to do it for them. It’s also an important place to broaden the relationship with existing fans, but for that, you need existing fans.
I’d describe Facebook as less passionate and more restrictive but also less chaotic and a better marketing platform for finding new listeners. Facebook is a great playpen to teach yourself some online marketing skills before venturing into the complexity of AdWords and Y!SM. Facebook reaches a bigger chunk of mainstream and mature consumers if you’re a mainstream act, and I think Facebook is better at helping you target your messaging.