Using your Facebook feed to drive music sales

By DIY Musician
April 19, 2010{ 22 Comments }

article1 Using your Facebook feed to drive music salesMaking your Facebook band page the snazziest on the block, may not be the most effective way of gaining album sales. Granted, there are some cool tools out there that allow you to brand your Facebook page and make it pretty, but it’s important to pay attention to how people experience a Facebook page before you focus too much on the page itself.

Remember that once someone “Likes” your Facebook page, they will rarely come back to your page to visit. This is because all your status updates will now flow through their news feed. This means that they won’t see your purchase links and promotions unless you post them into your status update. The CD Baby artists we’ve seen having the most success on Facebook use their status updates to drive sales.

Now don’t go spamming your fan base with 20 updates a day. And try to think of something more creative to write then “Buy My Album” every time you post.

When you do post a bit of news or a concert date, just add your CD Baby album page link at the end, and Facebook will automatically pull in your album cover and a description from CD Baby providing a nice link to your purchase page. You’ll be pleased with the results.

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 Using your Facebook feed to drive music sales

About DIY Musician

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  • http://mikeechlin.com Mike Echlin

    This is excellent advice, thanks!

    It’s also important to note that some people log on to FB once a week or so. They might only see the most recent update if you post every day.

  • http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/augie4 augiealexander.com

    Thanks! good suggestion.

  • http://www.evanwesterlund.com Evan Westerlund

    Hey Gang!

    Really impressed with your new newsletter standard. Articles like this are a great motivator to do the little things.

    Regards,
    Evan

  • http://www.voicesofeden.com http://www.voicesofeden.com

    Thanks alot for this article. I will test it out.

  • http://www.voicesofeden.com http://www.voicesofeden.com

    Wondering how folks are using their personal page, group page, fan page, differently? I just set up a fan page today, then I didn’t see the post show up in my personal page. How does that work?

    Also, wondering how the posts show up in the HOME feed? Do all of my friends see what I post in the HOME feed? Do they all see what I post on my feed?

  • http://myspace.com/derekevry Ron Evry

    When Derek Evry issued his digital-only album, “Don’t Think” we issued a press release on Facebook (and elsewhere) telling the story behind the album, and posted it on FB using the “Notes” application. The nice thing about that (if you only do this rarely) is that you can tag people and the note will post on their home page unless they remove it. Derek Sivers left thenote link up and clicked the “Like” button, as did many others. There’s a limit of about 30 tags per note, so you’ll have to repost it a LOT

  • http://www.karltoncoffin.com Karlton

    Your fan page bascially acts like another friend of yours, in regards to the HOME feed. You won’t see the updates on your profile, but anyone who is a fan of your page (including yourself) will see the updates in the HOME feed.

  • http://www.myspace.com/whoisronparks Ron Parks

    When asking for a friend request its a good opportunity to say a few words of greeting and add your cdbaby signature url.The same with accepting a friend request. It is a good time to respond with some kind of greeting with your url added. Nobody minds this kind of advertising and so many people just add or ask friends without any personalized note so this approach does two things. 1 you have distinguished yourself as a person who makes the effort to add a personalized note and 2. It gets your url out there all in a nice friendly way.

  • http://www.tomofujita.com Tomo Fujita

    A lot of efforts to do this. Great advices from CD baby.

    Tomo

  • http://www.jackdaw4.com Guy James

    Great advice – thanks!

    We primarily use facebook book for all our news and even add exclusive free tracks to encourage people to join. Incidentally there some free songs here: http://bit.ly/clO7N1

  • http://www.cdbaby/stanleyealston/ stan alston

    Not sure what to do. But I will start a business page on facebook. Give me a few step, by step measures if you don’t mind. I do have a Janko site and update with fans all the time. Just trying to drive them to purchase sites.

  • http://www.cdbaby.com/Grassheadwww.myspace.com/IntellektRecords Grasshead

    This is a great idea and believe me it definitely works. I’ve had a lot of people hit up my CDBABY page because of facebook updates. Interacting with your fans is the best way to keep them updated on what’s poppin’ with your music – keep this type of advice coming CDBBABY lol – we appreciate it -

    Grasshead of Intellekt Records

    http://www.cdbaby.com/Grasshead

  • http://WeekendOnMars.com Jay Blake

    I would not lose too much time in making your Facebook fan page the snazziest on the block. Even with all the bells and whisles that this great tool is offering you will not manage to develop a vibrant and branded site, as we did at http://WeekendOnMars.com for example. For this you need a reasonably powerful content management system. However, you should absolutely use Facebook as a promotion tool to channel potential customers to your official website. Enjoy!

  • http://www.patronrecords.com Patro’n Records

    I use Links to my news articles and allways insert the cd baby links to drive my fans to the sells. Great job cd Baby ..
    Patro’n Records

  • http://www.facebook.com/pages/White-Grizzly/483909445326 Kris

    The Facebook updates are very helpful when promoting album sales on CDBaby. The update allows for the link, and also allows the picture of the album to become a clickable link. I believe the best way to take advantage of the links is to have both the CDBaby page and Facebook page to each contain a link to one another. My CDBaby page http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/whitegrizzly has a link to White Grizzly on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/White-Grizzly/483909445326 while the Facebook page refers fans to the CDBaby Page. Doing this generates more sales, while also gaining more fans who will get your sale updates when you have discounts on the album.

  • http://www.mctempo.co.uk www.mctempo.co.uk

    Great idea, thanks so much x

  • http://www.jodigriffith.com Jodi

    What do you think of having a personal page as your fan page …without writing too personal info? Do you think writing on the wall will update the fans as well?

  • http://www.brainstrainmusicproductions.com/ Donny

    I am finding the use of Facebook to be a very reliable, and extremely widespread way to make you heard everywhere…and I mean everywhere. With the big “delete your facebook acct day” finally over I have realized that the people complaining about their info being shared privately by outside sources is really the best thing to happen to artists like us. A Quote from my Twitter…
    “Today is “Quit Facebook Day”.. Tomorrow is “oh crap I deleted my Facebook” day.. And wednesday is “create Facebook day.”
    Needless to say I am not having the Tuesday blues. It seems that the people so bent on this private, and I use this term very loosely, have something to hide…
    Brainstrain.

  • http://www.global-heat.com Rob

    Does anyone know a way to post the CDBaby badge “Buy the CD” on a FB band page. I know how to get the code to embed. I just don’t know how to embed it on the FB page. I understand a previous poster’s point that fans often won’t return to the band page once they click on “Like” but I want them to have the option to buy the CD from CDBaby the first time they visit the Facebook band page. We get some new fans just by chance because of the name of our band (Global Heat). Thanks.

  • antjuan

    What would be the best way to set up a FB page for someone who is a Multifaceted person? The options I have to choose from are for single use platforms ie: musician, public figure, artist, etc. Which category would be the best to use if this person fits in 4 different cat?

    Thank you

  • http://www.andreagerak.com Andrea Gerak

    That’s my question too: How do I use FB, if I am a singer, photographer and so on?
    So far I have my private profile (the normal profile with friends and all those crappy Apps and Game reqs etc, a page for my music and a page for my photography. Uhhh. Requires time to keep them up…

  • Chris R. at CD Baby

    You’re juggling many hats (to mix metaphors). I’m struggling with this same question right now, managing a personal profile, a band Page, and considering starting one for my writing/poetry life. Hmmmm. I’ll spend some time thinking about this more and maybe write a blog post sometime soon about it. In the meantime, anything you’ve tried that seems to make life easier in the Facebook time-management realm?