Artist lament passing of custom CSS Myspace pages

Is this true? Rupert says, “they are not giving up on Myspace yet“.

I’ve had a few of my clients log into their Myspace account lately and be presented a chance to “upgrade”. Poof. Custom CSS Myspace site all gone. Now they have to start from the ground up using the new “templates & plug-ins”. Bummer.

Well, now who’s to say that this is bad? There is even an option now for a graphic header above the infamous Myspace ad banner. Whoa fancy pants! Get back!

This is Social Media, it’s free, and policy is subject to change at any time without warning. The digital music and social media sites are just this way. Only a very loud community backlash can * maybe * get an unpolular policy changed back. I for one have no time or interest but to roll with the punches with this one. Yawn.

Either do not upgrade, or just do it. Poke into Myspace and manage your fans if you have a fan base worth managing there. But do not completely ignore it, Rupert is not done yet. Myspace is good SEO/SMO too.

Ok, here’s the deal…..I’m kidding! Your custom profile did not go away, yet. You simply have to revert back to the old profile. Check out this blog post to see the details of how to get your profile back if you have made the same mistake as some of my clients.

Now fair warning we have some great details here courtesy of this MS blogger:

• New Regular User Accounts (starting 07/19/10) cannot switch from 3.0 to any other profile type. Those accounts are locked into 3.0.
• If you had a Regular User Account and upgraded to 3.0 you can still switch back to your previous account.
• Regular User Accounts do not have a custom CSS option (yet!, still in Beta testing).
• Some think that New Band User Accounts are automatically given 3.0 like with Regular User Accounts. They are not. New Band Profiles are given the old profile structure (for now). Then you can upgrade to 3.0. If you upgrade you can still switch back.
• Band User Accounts can still enter custom CSS codes into their Bio section. New codes will need to be generated as lots has changed. Check back in the coming days for new codes.
• For either account type, and this is speculation, I think you only have 7 days trial period before you are locked into 3.0. So if you try it out, make sure you switch back after a few days if you don’t like it or you will be locked into it.
• No matter the profile type, the instructions on switching back are the same.

We’ll see ya in Cyberspace kiddies. Pay attention to the _music_ and pay attention to the buttons you click!

Cheers,

Your 5thbeatle

Music Marketing with Myspace

Oh Myspace! The new bottomless pit of indie music.  Some say right now Myspace is dead/dying and that you could say “My house is on fire” via Myspace…and your house would indeed burn down. And of course the all-knowing bloggers saying “Myspace, where bands go to die.” Ok we went from #4 to #11 most visited Website on the Web? What Comscore? Ok, but then again we have a lot of artists with huge followings and music players that show plays in the millions.  No matter how they got these numbers is not our debate today, my fine furry friends, maybe they used some “Friend Adder” software or simply jacked-up the numbers via other devious ways; who cares. We are talking about music, fans, and the artists/managements’ valuable time. For many Myspace is still very much alive and kicking. We just don’t want to live there. And for all intents and purposes we are talking about simple DIY design. Here at 5th Beatle Dot Net we are talking about setting up your Social Media platform so the conversation can start, and continue.

One good random example is the Hawaiian “Sublime-esque” band “Pepper.” I hear these cats do well out there. A modest following on Myspace. 25 million plays to date. 181,000 friends. This looks to be authentic fan engagement. And a great example of a Myspace page that didn’t break the band’s pocket book. Let’s look at the components of this page:

Header – Great “not too fancy” graphic head at the top advertising that a new CD is available
Show Calendar
Music Player with 10 songs including some remixes
Mailing List collector widget
Image links to Facebook Fan Page and iLike page
Embedded flyers selling Merchandise
Links to all 6 CD’s on iTunes
Twitter feed
Top friends visible (some are choosing to hide friends these days with “hide codes”)
44000 non-html comments posted (no huge embedded images from fans or spammers, no mafia wars invites)

So I imagine this is a pretty much post it and leave it page, basically well done and probably doesn’t take too much time for the artist/management to maintain what fan engagement arrives through this “channel”.  Ok, enough Pepper let’s move on.

The all important HEADER:

Some visual excitement is needed in my opinion on an artists Myspace page. With my group “Life Love Misery,” I went for a really basic header as I had no budget to hire one of the best companies I have come across that do custom Myspace pages.  I hear the CSS capabilities of manipulating Myspace pages are pretty open for developers but of course you have to know how to code CSS. I myself have some intermediate experience with html, php, java, and now as I hacked this myself…CSS. I simply took a Myspace Layout CSS template and hacked the shit out of it until I got this page. It was a pain in the ass in the beginning, but now I’m essentially finding the coolest pages from the hottest bands (or at least ones spending money on their Myspace pages) and copying the CSS between the style and style/ tags and bingo monkey see monkey do, no cheesy Thomason Myspace Editor made pages.

And just for a reality check. OK? Ready? Not everyone cares, nor believes that Myspace is even a concern within their Social Media Marketing for Music Campaign.

Let’s take double-awesome indie artist troubadour John Vanderslice for an example; “Everything is better at http://www.johnvanderslice.com.” He simply wants all Myspace traffic to go directly to his Homepage; he is saying just skip it all together is my impression. Seven songs (including a cover of Radiohead’s “Karma Police”) and tour dates. That is all. He simply had someone manipulate the CSS to hide everything else. Even friending is disabled and hidden. That is a statement. Go John!

But then we have the “other camp.” If you are with that other camp or “on the fence” like me I have to say I am thoroughly impressed with the work of Outloud Marketing. I recall some reasonable prices from $200-500 and up for a good page. Sure there are probably more companies like this, but I found these peoples first. Look at some of their work:

Man Like Machine – I really, really like this page, especially the header with “add to friends” at the very top.
Cambria Detken – Another nice header, though order of top nav under header should be (in Western culture anyhoos): *Website*Twitter*Facebook*YouTube* in my own opinion, of course.

Simply put, the best and most effective way for fan engagement on Myspace is to not live on the thing and:

1) Answer “friend request” with clever and unique comment graphics on fans page or personal notes back to select fans.  My graphics guy (also my engineer / bass guru) did these for me in one “sitting.’

MySpace Comment Section Banner - order CD!

Anyways you get the idea, I have 5 of them right now, the idea was to use various banners for the specific “campaigns.”

I have:
a) Rocking! Thanks for add!
b) Order CD at Homepage
c) Order CD at Cdbaby.com
d) Available at iTunes now!
e) T-Shirts
f) We can easily make more for whatever the case may be…

Moral of the story is to get the fan back to a purchase point, or at least a value point, i.e. “Free song for your e-mail address and zip code.” TopSpin Media does a good job providing technology to mount on a homepage with “value add” / unique merchandise offers i.e.  “Fan Packs” available at an artist’s Homepage.

1-2 KO!!!! Good luck! Figure out a way to quickly do your biz on Myspace and get out fast. Drive it all home or to a value point.

Don’t have time for these shenanigans?? I may be of some assistance if I am available. Let’s continue this conversation if need be.

Most of the information on this site is painstakingly formatted in this PDF file below so you can print it on white paper with easy to read black text. Or you can print for FREE by subscribing to the RSS feed at the top of the page, and also be in tune with any and all updates. Try Google Reader, its’ pretty cool. Also many hyperlinks will take you into the Web and show you the examples given. In some cases better then the Website! Ha!

Ebook – ” Web and Social Media Presence for Music Marketing and Fan Engagement” by Todd Tate -
Take it for free!