The Jackwagon Blog (Social Media)

My band Jackwagon had a show this past weekend at the Music Room @ Pizzeria Vesuvius and I’m happy to report it was fabulous. Local guys Tin River and Remerra from Nashville opened up the show for us and they were great. 

We had a nice crowd and it turned out to be a really fun evening of live music. We play shows all over town and we try to promote these shows as best we can, because if we wanted to play to an empty room we’d stay in the garage. 

 I have always taken on the role of gig booker in the bands I’ve been in over the years mainly because I enjoy doing it.  This process has definitely changed over the years.

In the old days you would send a cassette tape with your music and a bio of the band to the club you wanted to play, then you would start calling and keep calling the club till you got someone the phone and hope he or she took the time to listen to your music. 

Now, like everything else these days, booking a gig is done electronically.  Most venues have a website of some sort that directs you to it’s booking process, which usually involves sending an email with a digital press kits attached or just a link to the bands website where the club booker can check you out.

Today there are tons of websites out there designed to help musicians promote their music and book gigs.  Sites like Myspace, YouTube, Jukebox, Twitter, Reverbnation and a host of others.  As good as all these websites may be, they all bow to the sheer power of the mighty and all-powerful social media god that is Facebook (FB).  

As most of you know everything that is posted on FB has 3 buttons associated with it, like, comment, and share.  These functions tell you how many and which of your FB friends liked or didn’t like the picture of your dog wearing sunglasses that you posted last week.   If you are a business or a band for that matter, the comments on your site can be informative even helpful.  The amount of “likes” on your FB page can translate into real influence because as we all know when FB takes over the world and make us all slaves, “Likes” will become the new currency. 

Is it really important to be liked?  Yes it is because it tells business or bands what people enjoyed about their experience with you and who your fans are, once you know that you know how to bring then back. 

My theory is that “likes” are mini positive reviews about your operation; by themselves they mean nothing but get a bunch together and now they are saying you are bona fide, righteous even, the “hot spot” the “in thing” the “cool kids”, “all that and a bag of chips.” You get the idea.

I propose a simple cause and effect experiment to test this theory. Let’s get as many people as possible to go to a specific FB site and bombard it with “likes”. Let’s call it a “like-a-thon,” or “Likapaloosa,” “Likeorama,” ”Likefest”  -- anyway, the Jackwagon Facebook Page is the perfect page to use.  Right now the site has a measly 30 likes on it, let’s see how high we can get it and if that has any impact.  If all this feels like a lame attempt by me to promote my bands FB page that’s because it is, but its also science.

Like us! and come see us play.

Saturday April 21^st

@ The Famous Pub

Sunday April 29^th

@ Smith’s Olde Bar

Sunday May 6^th

@ The Avondale Estates Art-B-Que

http://www.reverbnation.com/jackwagonrocks

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jackwagon/156235571066744?sk=app_2309869772

Thanks for reading.