Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, LastFM, buzznet, Bebo, Xanga, Hi5, Youtube, Reverbnation, iLike, imeem, orkut, and the list goes on… there is seemingly a TON of different social networks that a band could potentially have a presence on.  The problem is, each one then requires updating and managing… which can become very time consuming.  The other problem is that these social networks seem to pop up all the time, there’s always new ones around the bend, and we’re now starting to see public perception shift away from some towards others.  So we have to start preparing for the fact that ones we’ve already been using might start to wane in popularity, being replaced by newer, better options.  It’s inconceivable to think they’ll be around forever.

So what do you do?  Spend all your time creating profiles on all these different sites, adding friends, interacting, posting the same update twenty times across all your platforms, and build up your networks only to have people lose interest in that site?  It can seem overwhelming.  How do you make all this work for you, without spending every waking minute of your days working on all this?

One way to make it manageable is to prioritize them.  There should be one main place on the internet that fans should become conditioned to understand is your “home” online.  This should be the place that all the other places online drive back to.  It should be the place that news gets posted first, new music is posted, videos premiered, tour dates get announced, everything.  Ideally, it should include a way for people to purchase products from you as well.  This should be your website, hosted at your own domain, that way you have control over it.  You also get access to all the metrics, traffic, geo-tracking, etc. so you can monitor your growth.  You should also be trying to build your own email contact list via the site, because email is still the main way of communicating between people online, and if the list is yours, you can control the communication.

Now, sure, it sounds like all the above things (news, music, video, tourdates, fan-messaging, etc.) can all take place via Myspace, or Facebook.  That is true.  They can.  But the difference is you don’t own Facebook, or Myspace.  All the user-data belongs to them, and for the most part you can’t get access to it, and therefore cannot learn from it.  You don’t have control over who’s a member and who isn’t, and you don’t have control over what rules they impose, or even when or if they shut the site down!  Imagine having build up your Myspace for years to the point where there were thousands and thousands of people there who actively wanted to connect with you, and then Myspace goes out of business.  What do you do now???  You suddenly would have no way of getting in touch with any of those people.  So be sure to be building your site and your email lists up first and foremost.

For your overall communication strategy, look at it like this… your website is there for the people who want to engage with your music, above anything else.  The time they spend on your website is all about you.  If they’re on your site, they’re actively paying attention to you, and you can speak to them that way.  All the other profile pages that you create on outside sites are there to speak to the people who are already using those sites, interacting with eachother.  Those people are on those sites interacting whether you are there or not.  You need to be on these sites so those people can find you and connect with you in the way they have already chosen.  You should not be spending your time trying to drive people to connect with you on any of those sites, instead you should be on these sites so that the people who already use that site can connect with you, and get information on you.  Keep a few of these sites updated regularly (I suggest Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter), but most importantly use these sites as ways to let people know that there are new things posted up on your website.  So a news item gets posted up on your site, then you post a facebook message, myspace post, and twitter a summary of that news item and give people a link to your website if they want to read more.

All the other social networks can also be similarly viewed (as ways for people who already use those sites to connect with you) but you don’t need to keep them completely updated all the time.  It’s okay to have fairly static pages on these sites, as long as they’re still complete.  They don’t need to have news, and tourdates, or other ever-changing info, but they should have bio, photos, music, and links to your other sites.  Create profile pages on these networks and set them up in such a way so that people who visit your page there will know where they should click through to, in order to find out where you really are engaging with fans online.  This can also be made even easier by services like Ping.fm that will actually update several social-networks at once… this is a perfect thing to use for these sites.  Drive these folk back to your Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter, and then ultimately back to your website.

If you imagine an upside-down triangle, split horizontally into three regions… the top level (the widest part of the triangle) is all your tertiary social network sites – all those drive down toward the next level, which represents your active social networks, like Myspace, Facebook and Twitter.  Then, in the end those continue to drive down to the bottom of the triangle, or the ultimate destination… your website, where exists your ultimate online home.  The real place in which you should want your fans to congregate and interact with you.