One of the great things about social networks is the friendliness it has towards artists. Soundclick and MySpace were the first to really be artist-friendly, but FaceBook tagged along afterwards. As artists, promotion is key. To gain fans, you must make sure that your work is out there and easily accessible. Social networks made it easy for artists to put their stuff out there to the public, and fans were able to pass it on to other fans, creating a chain reaction.

The first social network you should sign up as an artist for is MySpace. Whether you are an actor, musician, comedian, fashion designer, or whatever, MySpace is the first social network to sign up for. You can create your profile, put your portfolio/demo/reel up and start befriending like-minded people. This will help you network and get your name out there.

The second social network to sign up for is twitter. Once you are on twitter, you can start following people you admire, as well as start gaining followers. On twitter you can make announcements and get to know your fans better through micro-blogging. It is important that in this day you start a twitter account.

Lastly, make a FaceBook fan page. A FaceBook fan page will help you gather all your fans and act as a portfolio of your work. Your fans can see each other, befriend each other, and make your buzz bigger. It also helps you get to know your fans better and in the long run will help you with marketing.

Frequently update all of your social network profiles and stay active in the community. Engage in discussions with your fans and get to know them, this will help you make your buzz bigger and create loyal fans.

Make sure that on each social network profile, you provide a link to your other profiles. This will help you gain friends in all of your profiles and help you make your buzz bigger.

FaceBook recently beat out MySpace for the most popular social network. With hundreds of millions of people on FaceBook, it is very easy to network. On my FaceBook account, I have over 400 friends, many of whom I grew up with, went to high school and college with, and family I didn’t even know I have. I am part of my company’s network, and am connected with all the other employees who work with me.

FaceBook is very useful for networking and promotion. One of the key tools to promoting is the FaceBook groups and Fan Page features. Another useful feature in FaceBook is the paid-advertising. FaceBook collects a lot of detailed information about its users, making the advertising extremely targeted.

Here is a breakdown of the three different methods you can use FaceBook for:

• Groups: Groups are great for putting together a lot of active people. This is good for businesses looking to gather all of its employees in one collective group so that everyone can bounce ideas off of each other and be updated about the company. It allows for a lot of collaboration and contribution between members.
• Fan Pages: These are for companies literally looking for fans. If you have a lot of customers who want updates on products and more information about your products, this is what you are looking for. Put together a fan page and spread the word!
• Advertising: FaceBook advertising is great for targeted marketing. You can specify the age, location, gender, interests, and much more all within FaceBook advertising! This is for the marketers who are looking to sell, because it gets pretty expensive at times.