Lisa wrote:
This is a great site for information but there are not a lot of fans here. Promoting here is limited to mainly other band members.
I don't know what the fan-to-musician ratio is here, but there are quite a bit of lurkers who visit. I think Ron said that something like 1 out of every 3 visitors actually posts. But yeah, if a band throws up a thread in the Shows forum and thinks that its promotion duties are done, the band members are going to be sadly disappointed.
In my experience, a promotion technique, at least from the band's promotion angle, that does NOT work is street teams. I don't know if it's that street teams themself are kind of worthless per se, or if bands just don't put in the effort to grow and motivate street teams. Maybe they're more effective in the DIY scene, but in my experience, people on street teams start off really motivated but then they often just fizzle out. Perhaps it is because they don't have enough intrinsic motivation to promote a local band for a long time; so maybe bands aren't taking the needed leadership steps to motivate the street teams. Also, a lot of street teams seem to just send MySpace and Facebook emails promoting shows, which the band can already do itself. I always found it annoying to get an email or event invitation from a band only to get an email or event invitation from someone on the street team. A street team should be tapping marketing sectors and demographics that the band doesn't normally have access to or doesn't have the time and resources itself to tap into; if the band's sending MySpace bulletins and emails, obviously they have that part of marketing under control.
I don't know; what's everyone else's opinion on street teams?
"He's the electric horseman, you better back off!" - old sKool making a reference to the culturally relevant 1979 film.
It would make for an interesting study, though.
--->JMS
