I'm getting irritated with the watering down of the word "spam" to mean, essentially, "any communication I am not or do not believe I would be thrilled to get".
Spam is permissionless mass mailing. If someone has Liked a friend's band on Facebook, they've given permission for contact. If you're just not a fan of self-promotion, fine, say that, but don't claim that something's spam when it is nothing of the kind.
That's a pretty strong term, especially on HN. I don't know tomasien personally, but I find no reason to jump to your conclusion based on his comment--I, for one, would be happy to see a promoted post from a band/cause I like/care about, and that sort of content doesn't usually last long enough to be noticed on a feed dominated by daily/hourly/faster social interactions.
For email the definition is nice and easy - unsolicited bulk email is spam.
But there are different expectations for social media, where you expect a bunch of fluff. The whole point is that you've signed up for unsolicited bulk nonsense. I'm not sure what the difference is between someone who just posts a bunch of "come see my band" posts, and someone who pays to promote a bunch of "come see my band" posts.
I appreciate the support guys, but this is just trolling. Whether this poster was serious or not, he didn't have enough information to make this judgement and he did, emphatically. Classic trolling.
So for promoting bands on social media, what I would is provide interesting content to the broader audience, like if we made a cool youtube video, and then be sure people knew where to find information about shows, I.E. the event pages for those shows.
However, I did creep into the world of spam from time to time: I would post unsolicited posts on my friends walls about really important shows. However, I did this very carefully, posting it only on my friends walls who I KNEW were strong supporters and wouldn't mind. This increased visibility without annoying anyone too much.
But it was kind of spammy and I'm not here to defend myself on how I promoted local art and made a living. I think spam comes down to intentions and being open to feedback: if you don't want to see my messages anymore, I would stop sending them to you IMMEDIATELY, including sending you event invites , and excluding individuals from those used to be really hard.
Typical binary response. If you are a fan of Lady Gaga, getting notices from her is not spam. Granted, most people won't be fans of or want to hear from, say, Brillo Pads Inc., but the commenter pointed out his next use is for a band. I personally like hearing what musicians I follow are up to. More broadly, I think we are in a golden age for music, and social networks and crowdfunding platforms are making it possible.
