To Link To Your Press Or Not To?

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with a friend. He had a grievance with a practice that many of Musformation management’s artist do which is to link their good press, interviews and articles in their Facebook , Twitter and Tumblr feeds. The argument was those who follow you are already your fans and do not need to hear how amazing you are all the time. A great and reasonable point, I disagreed 100% on his point about interviews are clutter and feel that fans are interested in reading them, however he did have a great point about reviews.

It can be tacky and frivolous to always post your good reviews especially if they are really pouring in (MusforMGMT’s artists are lucky to have that rain pouring hard). Your fans will see it as clutter probably not be interested and eventually get annoyed. While this is true, one of the other perspectives I have is that many online outlets create content hoping the bands will link their material and can turn on a band and give up on them if they do not link it.

My philosophy has always been that you should overshare on one of your social networks (I prefer Tumblr) and keep it all business on the rest. Every once in a while drop a hint to your fans if they want more from you they can get it from you there. An easy solution to your oversharing problem.

http://colortheory.com Brian Hazard

Good points! I confess I often link to my own positive press, usually in a status update. If the rain happens to be pouring hard, I’ll list the most important ones in a “catch-up” post. I try not to link to stuff like personal blog mentions, unless I’m trying to bring a friend some traffic. Even then, “Bob likes it” isn’t always media-worthy.
Brian Hazard
Color Theory
http://www.tightmixblog.com Chris Bracco

You and your friend make some great points, Jesse. Another idea that could work is to have a press page on your official website that links to all of the press that you would like to show off. Whenever you get some new press, you can add the links to the page, maybe delete or archive some old ones, and send a quick status update that your press page has been updated. It is much less obtrusive and doesn’t come off as gloating, IMO. And, the person that wrote the press will be happy that you linked to & promoted his/her website as well.
Win, win, frickin’ win.
Chris
tightmixblog.com
http://www.tightmixblog.com Chris Bracco

You and your friend make some great points, Jesse. Another idea that could work is to have a press page on your official website that links to all of the press that you would like to show off. Whenever you get some new press, you can add the links to the page, maybe delete or archive some old ones, and send a quick status update that your press page has been updated. It is much less obtrusive and doesn’t come off as gloating, IMO. And, the person that wrote the press will be happy that you linked to & promoted his/her website as well.
Win, win, frickin’ win.
Chris
tightmixblog.com
http://twitter.com/slainson Suzanne Lainson

I always have a press page on an artist’s website for press quotes and article links. I believe it is important to show promoters, etc.
I have also gathered quotes to use on MySpace. Again, I’ve used it to show that the artist/band gets a lot of publicity, which I think will help with booking and encourage more media coverage.
I’ve included press on SonicBids, but don’t like that setup because it doesn’t use direct links to online articles.
I haven’t set up any Facebook fan pages yet, and don’t pay much attention to them myself as a fan. They aren’t my preferred way to get info about artists/bands.
Sure, if you are already a household name, then there’s no reason to highlight articles because everyone already knows about you. But if you are still building an audience and there are places where people have never heard of you, I believe it helps to put you and your music into context for them.