Band website, facebook or both?

Misty

I've had a website for my band for the last 6 or 7 years with Moonfruit. I also run our Facebook page. However Moonfruit have just emailed me to say that as from next month they will no longer offer the free option. So my choices are to stay with them and pay, use the opportunity to change to another website builder hopefully offering the free option, or just use Facebook on its own. Regarding the website, I do own my domain name, so ideally would be looking for a free website where I can also use that, if such a thing exists. To be honest I do think Moonfruit is a bit cumbersome to use, and somewhat outdated anyway, so don't mind changing. I'm thinking it would be easier all round to just use Facebook for general PR, gigs, etc.

I'd be grateful for any wisdom here, thanks in advance!

John_P

Depends on the band I'd say - if it's a semi pro pub band then I've given up with having dedicated websites and just use Facebook now,    but if you're a more serious function band then perhaps a website would be more useful.    Last site I used for free hosting was wix and they seemed pretty easy to use.    

Misty

Yes I should have said, we're a blues rock band playing mostly pubs. Been going for 24 years now, but as we've recently consciously been more selective on the gigs we do, as well as cutting down from 40 or 50 a year to around 20, we no longer need the sort of coverage a website can give us. However, it does present a more professional image, hence my dilemma. I have looked at Wix, but can't make out whether I can use my own domain name with their free option. 

Roland

We run both a website and a Facebook account. What goes on Facebook stays there, whereas we can remove stuff from the website when it gets too old. It's also easier for potential customers to find pic, videos and sound it's on the website

Misty

Roland said:

We run both a website and a Facebook account. What goes on Facebook stays there, whereas we can remove stuff from the website when it gets too old. It's also easier for potential customers to find pic, videos and sound it's on the website

Good point. Any recommendations for a website builder?

bluechargeboy

We use a web site built in Wordpress, hosted on 1and1.co.uk (which has been no problem).

It collects our Twitter and Facebook postings via Wordpress widgets and puts it on the front page. We then update Facebook and Twitter.

The web site also has static pages showing gig dates, video, bandcamp, soundcloud, gallery and all that crap. Most of our activity is on Facebook (know the favoured social media of your target market!).

We update BandsInTown gig dates from Facebook, and it auto-propagates to the web site and Twitter.

We put things on Instagram and that auto-propagates to Twitter.

It's easier than it sounds!

thomasross20

I use WordPress for myself.
Band uses Facebook and gets more traffic.

Misty

Thanks for these helpful responses, I'll probably ditch the Moonfruit site and just use Facebook while I decide on a new website builder.

not_the_dj

We had a similar dilemma and decided to just use Facebook  

Misty

not_the_dj said:

We had a similar dilemma and decided to just use Facebook  

I think that's the way I'll go. In the longer term it looks as though Wix won't incorporate my own domain name unless I pay, though Sitebuilder looks more promising. 

EricTheWeary

The downside of not having a website seems to be that you won't come up on searches. Someone looking for 'electro hip hop reggae band,  Purfleet'  won't bring your Facebook page up; although searching the band name will still bring the Facebook page up. 
Badly maintained websites can give a poor impression as well. At a pub gig level a lot of venues will have a facebook and not a website so they are comfortable with it. 
For us we discussed this and a website would have been pretty much just a vanity project. 

Vaiai

I don't think people use websites now - maybe for function bands but not for pub bands - if it is original material then you could justify having one but most traffic I see is on FB. There are good tools you can use to make your FB more website like and plugins for YouTube linking etc - just need to look at other bands pages

Jalapeno

Google pages is free and you can redirect your domain name.   Pretty basic site builder options though

bluechargeboy

Most of the emails we get via our web site are from people/robots who want to offer us web design and SEO services. We have had  a few queries though. And we do get page hits.

I just find it easier to say "hedgegods.com" instead of "Facebook forward slash hedgegods AllOneWord".

Also it possibly looks more "pro" on flyers and whatnot and looks better for festival applications.

If you are going Facebook-only I would look into some means of auto-posting the same content to Twitter, as many prefer that to Facebook.

TheBlueWolf

Twatter can auto post to whatever FB page you choose.

Misty

Thanks for all the responses, very helpful. I'm going with FB for the time being, and will see how that works out.