Metal Band Wants Facebook to Stop Charging Artists to Reach Fans
Facebook is a very important marketing tool for bands, but also a complicated place to do business. For 
those who don’t live and die by what goes on in the tech world, the skinny is this: if you have a Facebook group for your band, you will not be easily able to gather a bigger audience (aka more ‘Likes’), or reach those who have already ‘Liked’ your page, without eventually plopping down some money.
In response to this challenging business tactic, Florida thrash metal band Illuminate Me (who appeared in Riffyou.com’s ‘Getting to Know’ feature in August 2014), have launched a petition at Change.org requesting that the social media mega-site change its ways.
“Facebook has raised its rates on bands and small business’s promoting themselves through their website several times over the last few years, asking to pay even more money to simply reach the audience the band or small business has already acquired,” reads an excerpt from the petition page. “It’s getting to a point where it’s blatant greed and is unjustifiable. Bands like us for example, (especially the unsigned ones) pay Facebook a hefty amount of money for an ad, just to get potential new fans to visit our page. On top of that now, we must pay a LARGE fee to talk to the fans already subscribed to our page. So we’re paying double on a service that we heavily rely on. It’s an exploitation of what bands need the most: communication with their fan base.”
Illuminate Me states that it has spent thousands of dollars on Facebook to build an audience, as well as be able to communicate directly with said audience. It is further explained that other bands in which Illuminate Me have crossed paths with, have also paid up.
The band’s aim is to gather 50,000 signatures, in hopes that it’ll inspire some change. Currently, Illuminate Me is just under 12,000 signatures shy of their goal.
“I urge every single musician or small business owner to share this petition around and sign it,” states the band. “If you have a photo of the ridiculous fee that Facebook is making you pay to ‘boost a post’ then please post it as well. I have used social media to promote my bands in the past before, I’ve never had to pay anything let alone this much money just to talk to the people that love our music. Enough is enough, let’s fight back.
“We want Facebook to remove having to pay to reach fans and followers. We are not money-making machines, we are people. Facebook it is not your place to put a price on our fans eyes and ears.”
Facebook’s perspective is that there is so much content floating around, that it needs to determine what posts are most relevant to each and every user. Thus, there is no guarantee (unless you spend, spend, spend), that you’ll reach everyone that you want to.
While Twitter will let you see absolutely every post from every user you follow, Facebook has determined that it doesn’t want clientele to feel overwhelmed. That’s understandable, but can prove annoying for the little guys trying to get ahead.
-Adam Grant
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