As lovely looking, informative and generous as this site undoubtedly is, we are nevertheless aware of the need for the label to be more visible on the internet. A brief Google search of our label name returns less than staggering results and actually suggests users amend their search to “Commercially Invisible Records“, which isn’t exactly great.
We need a bigger digital footprint and towards this end we’ve embarked on a lackadaisical campaign to bring Commercially Inviable Records to the good, the bad and the ugly social networks to see what happens. There are many benefits to having a presence in such a variety of places, not least the fact that if there must be bullshit, then you should create your own.
On a very broad level, users of these sites should be able to easily find us, listen to the music of our artists and, if they like it, share this experience with their friends. Moreover, our various profile pages will provide those sufficiently interested with a route back here, where they can find more music and more information, also easily shareable with online buddies. Additionally, and for those so sufficiently interested that they wish to part with cash in exchange for musical artefacts, there will be links to popular places online that can make such transactions happen.
So far, so obvious…and, on paper at least, all very easy and beneficial. Since over 30% of the traffic we’ve received thus far has come from the links on our personal pages in fabulously hip internet places such as Twitter, it seems that taking Commercially Inviable to the social networking rodeo may be an approach worth pursuing. There are, however, in the short term at least, more immediate problems than there are potential benefits…
Beyond the glaringly obvious ones, identifying which sites we should be using and prioritising is something of a minefield and, as ever, we are indebted to Andrew Dubber for his advice on this matter. We’re starting with a reasonably small list and will grow it from there.
Setting up profiles on the various sites is also proving to be time-consuming and occasionally frustrating, but since we’re pretty much entering the same photos, music and information onto each one it’s really a case of understanding what each one does (or doesn’t) do and then jumping through the hoops provided.
The biggest problem, or perhaps question, is deciding how much of our meagre and precious time we should be dedicating to the individual communities we are joining. Is merely having a presence enough (we doubt it), or should we be actively growing our network on all fronts? Is throwing snowballs at virtual strangers on Facebook really a better use of our resources than, say, contacting radio and press on behalf of our artists and releases? Can these two things go hand-in-hand somehow?
All of this remains to be seen. We’ll post a partial list of links to our new, online second homes shortly. In the meantime, we’d welcome your suggestions, comments and recommendations on this subject.
