Building a Freelance Career #4: Do I Need a Website – Really?

Credit: Cory Doctorow, gruntzooki on Flickr

Back in the early ´80s – if you were actually born at that point when I was a young music student in the UK – on graduating, aspiring soloists organized the production of a nice glossy brochure, set up a few high profile concerts and then gained experience by treading the national music society circuit. You might offer teaching in order to pay your rent and perhaps enter a few local competitions to raise your profile and that was that – all quite straightforward.

With the advent of the Internet, social marketing, MP3 downloads and You Tube, from a marketing perspective it seems to me that a musician’s life is just a mite bit more complicated, or perhaps that’s  just my middle-age talking! These days if you fail to have a presence in the Internet, so far as a potential audience is concerned, you don’t exist – period.

One question I’m asked a lot is whether or not a classical musician needs a website in order to be successful. I know I need a website. The answer to that poser is ideally, yes – should you have the requisite funds to pay the costs of a competent web site designer, but not necessarily – an important consideration if you find yourself in a tight financial corner and already possess some working knowledge from your personal use of the Internet.

Key Web Site Alternatives and Combinations for You to Explore

• FaceBook
• My Space
• You Tube
• Free Blog or Self-Hosted Blog with a unique domain name – Blogger (Blogspot) and WordPress respectively spring to mind
• LinkedIn

Whichever of these you choose, whether singly or in combination, I recommend including the following functionality as a basic minimum:

• Bio and Contact Information
• Photos
• Audio
• Social Networking facility

Consider also incorporating these options:

• Blog
• Video

Reflect Your Image and Brand

All of these applications have features which you can personalise to a certain degree so I suggest that you review your answers to exercises in my previous posts on Image and Branding in order to help you make decisions on design.

Whilst I’m a great advocate for research i.e., checking out the sites of other classical musicians, I believe it is vital to make sure that your personality comes across and you communicate authenticity.

With a mercifully growing number of exceptions, the majority of the classical musician sites that I look at are as boring as playing variations on C# minor scales for 2 hours solid.  Dare to be different!

Don’t fall into the trap of just listing achievements and qualifications!  Your personality is part of your brand package.

In addition, it has been proved time and again in marketing that people are more likely to purchase when the trust element is present and if they feel they have some sort of relationship with the person or company with whom they are doing business.

If you decide to blog, be warned that amassing a significant ranking does take work and commitment on a regular basis. That said, it has certainly been worth the effort for me personally in terms of raising my Internet profile.

Be Professional

Before you conceive an all-singing, all dancing totally integrated DIY set of Internet applications to promote your music single-handed, have an honest chat yourself as to whether you have the time and technical know-how to pull off such a big project.

Whilst you may not have the money to pay for a totally bespoke web site outright, do consider hiring a freelance professional for various parts of your grand plan. What you save in time is immeasurable and let’s face it, wouldn’t you rather be making music?

Whatever way you make your existence know on the Internet, make sure that your presence is professional although do bear in mind that need not equate to “accepted traditional.”

Photo credit: Cory Doctorow, gruntzooki on Flickr