

Why Musicians are leaving Facebook - jrgentle
https://www.blog.gigdog.fm/dear-facebook-please-stop-killing-music/

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jrgentle
Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately what you expect is not the reality. With
Facebook's current algorithm ,to reach the amount of people (who have already
Liked your page) in the hopes that they see your post and convert is far more
than a couple of bucks. At the moment, Facebook is showing an average of 2-4%
of the people who have liked your page without a boost. A $5 boost will jump
that up to around 400-500 people. That is per day! When you are getting maybe
$100 bucks a gig, and if you are lucky you don't have to split that too many
ways, it adds up fairly quickly. YOU may not want to see every post from that
band, but if that band wants to grow and get their music heard they need to
expand to people who haven't Liked their page yet. The numbers don't make
sense for artists starting out and trying to grow a fan base.

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corobo
Are you targeting your adverts? $5 (~£3) would get me a few thousand views
rather than <500.

Everyone arguing against boosting seems to say "They liked our page, they want
to see our content!" Nope. I liked a band. I don't care what drivel they're
posting every 10 minutes in a hopes of it going viral for publicity.

Facebook would be unusable if it didn't pick and mix what it shows on my feed

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masonlee
"Then you suddenly changed the way Posts are seen by people who have already
followed a musician’s page to the net effect that an average post is seen by a
tiny fraction of the people who have liked the musician."

As Facebook user and band-liker, I don't want to see every post from a band--
just the posts that are relevant to me.

I'd expect that Facebook's current post "boosting" mechanism should work
excellently for self-managed, touring musicians: Make a post about a local
show, then pay just a couple dollars to "boost" that post specifically to
users who like your page and live in the area of the show. The UI for boosting
and targeting posts is super easy already, and we should expect it will just
keep getting better.

Is the author asking for automation of the posting/boosting for multiple tour
dates?

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gopher2
"As Facebook user and band-liker, I don't want to see every post from a band--
just the posts that are relevant to me."

I think the frustration with music lovers is that relevance isn't really
determined by ad spend or what's promoted (I already determined a band was
relevant to me by liking them) and it shouldn't be difficult or require extra
"boosting" for bands to just have a follower receive each update they have.

I have a friend who is very into music and uses facebook because artists and
their fans haven't agreed on some other music centered social app (yet).

He wants the exact opposite of what you described i.e. see ALL updates from
all bands I follow in a feed.

His feeling is "Facebook sucks for music because I don't even see the posts
from the artists that I follow". I tend to agree. If you are following some
niche group or organization and you want to be certain that you receive
updates... well facebook isn't good for that anymore. Who knows what you have
been algorithmically disqualified from viewing?

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masonlee
Yeah, getting the main feed right is a general issue for Facebook.

If someone really wants to know about a few bands in particular, liking some
of their posts will cause more of their stuff to percolate up into the main
feed. But they have to keep liking.

To see all posts from bands one can make an "Interest List" containing the
bands. Posts from members of that list will show chronologically. But I don't
think showing all posts is the solution to getting users the info they want.

What happens if a band page creates a Facebook event? Does the event get
recommended to likers nearby the event? That could be an approach.

Author is probably correct in that Facebook needs clear guidance here.

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jrgentle
What I am asking for is a different pricing mechanism for bands and artist.
This is not an unreasonable ask considering that Music on Facebook is one of
their biggest draws and they happily use that fact to sell advertising. They
can give a break to the people providing valuable content.

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Dublum
FYI, to reply directly to a comment, hit the "reply" link right below it,
rather than typing into the "add comment" box at the top. It makes the thread
more readable that way

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corobo
Why readers are leaving this blog post

It's light text on light background, also if you click (Chrome) it puts some
overlay of some sort over the page and stops it from scrolling

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Vendan
Dear long web post, light grey on white hurts my eyes, thanks...

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jrgentle
Noted

