Practicum Post: Attracting People to The Site

What I have been doing to get people to the Virgo Vertigo website is:

1. Passing out promo copies of the CD
2. Passing out download cards
3. Posting on Facebook
4. Promoting of Reverbnation
5. Talking about it

I saw a "spike" in my web traffic for a few days after release when I was handing out CDs and spending money (I don't have) on promotion. It really reminded me of why I do not really do music anymore. It is time consuming.

I am basically learning from the web perspective what I know already...., IT'S EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO GET PEOPLE'S ATTENTION. Especially if they don't know you. Your favorite musicians and art creators spend hundreds of thousands doing so. Public attention is expensive.

Additionally, as I talked about in presentation and have confirmed to be even more true now is that if you are going to have a personal website, you MUST also use social networking site. People are saturated with media, so in order to even begin to have a chance that they will look at your site you must go where they are and that is SNS.

To be honest, I probably would not have built a website or put out a new album if it were not for this class. I used to be gung-ho about passing out CDs, doing shows, and promoting. But, you really do need to have access to mass media on some level in order to do anything. This is true for whatever you are trying to do be it selling a book, product, doing comedy, remixes, and so on. The only time that I have been successful at promoting is when I was getting radio play in the early 2000s, back when everything wasn't so saturated. Without access to mass media, you are basically playing the lottery, but with a lot more time involved than going to PDQ and buying a ticket. I know people say, "You should create art for the sake of it". I say, "Bullshit". It's time consuming to record an album, then promote it, AND rehearse to tour, then tour.... People who talk about "free art" are usually not the ones who have spent a life time learning an instrument, spent hours and money in a recording studio, and so on.

The point is, it is difficult to attract people to a personal website because the public is saturated with media options. I am guessing that the majority of people I gave my CD to did not listen to it, which is to be expected. I know when I take a CD I have every intention of listening. But, life happens and I usually never do.... Too busy watching NCIS :-D