For a long time, Myspace was the go-to social network for musicians looking to connect with fans. Today, Facebook has surpassed Myspace to become the social network of choice for most.  As most users leave Myspace to join the ranks of Facebook, the same goes for musicians wishing to promote their music.

However, Facebook musician pages leave a lot to be desired for those promoting their music within the world’s largest social network.  The Facebook music player is either tucked away in the box tab or it is halfway down the page in the side bar.  Even worse, the fans who actually look hard enough to find the music player are unable to share the songs with their own friends.

RootMusic is working to make Facebook pages more musician friendly withBandPages.  Their simple tool creates a tab for your Facebook page where your fans can hear your music while they interact with the page. BandPages also pull in your Twitter stream and offer a functioning Facebook wall, along with providing a shareable music player.

The process of setting up a BandPage incredibly quick and easy. Any band with a Facebook page can head to RootMusic.com and have a functioning Facebook BandPage in about five minutes.  One of the really nice features is the music playerpowered by SoundCloud. It gives your fans the ability share your music with their friends on Facebook or a number of other sites. The music player even expands the functionality for musicians by giving them the option to offer free song downloads.

One big criticism of BandPages is that the music player is still tucked away in a tab. However, this is more of a critique of Facebook music pages themselves.  The best way to direct traffic to your tab is to make your BandPage tab the landing page for all non-fans (Once again RootMusic has made it very easy to do this).

Musician pages on Facebook may not be substantially improved until Facebook decides to do a major overhaul. In the mean time, a BandPage is one of the easiest and fastest ways to customize your musician page and expand it’s functionality.

Check out a few BandPages in the wild:
OONA
Con Brio
BATTLEHOOCH

J Slider, CEO of RootMusic, was nice enough to answer some questions for me in a quick interview:

Interview with J Slider, CEO of RootMusic

Q: Can you give me some background information on yourself and RootMusic?

Answer: We are made up at the intersection where music and tech folks meet.We have a great time working on RootMusic and have in depth experience in our respected fields. As musicians, band managers, venue managers we were frustrated with the lack of good clearly organized tools that were available for the music community. So now we are building them, and always keeping an open ear to ways the music community would like to see things improved.

Q: How many musicians are currently using BandPages and how long have BandPages been available?

Answer: There are right around 100 currently using BandPages and we really just opened it up to the public a few days ago. We had about 15 bands helping us test it out before we opened it up to the public.

Q: How can you offer BandPages for free?

Answer: Well first off this is a very basic need that every musician should be able to afford. That is to represent yourself well on the biggest social network where your grandma, next door neighbor and fans all are. Instead of making them come to your site go to your fans. We have many things already in the works for the future that will be affordably priced , but this is a basic version that everyone should be able to have it they want it.

Q: What are you looking to provide for musicians with BandPages?

Answer: A place that is informative and clean for musicians to represent themselves on the biggest social network. It provides a way to bring all your Facebook tab’s,Facebook Wall, music player and more into one easy to use page. One of our users said “Myspace musicians welcome to Facebook”

Q: Why is there a need for your tool?

Answer: Because every single musician/fan we have talked to has asked for it. To this point we have not heard anyone say…”eh thats not really a good idea” so we figured there’s a pretty big need.

Q: What do BandPages do better than any other Facebook tool for musicians?

Answer: There are a lot of apps out there that were built to do one thing to help musicians. BandPage brings together many of those tools onto one page. Where it makes it easy for new fans and current fans to check out your band. We also keep the music playing so it is more likely for your fans to read your bio, look at your shows etc, because they are free to move around as the music is playing. There is much more to come and things we plan to make better and more useful, can’t wait to share those with you!

Q: Most of a Facebook page’s activity happens within a user’s newsfeed. How can a BandPage help a musician utilize his/her fans to spread content virally?

Answer: Oh you just wait, its gonna be pretty sweet! Currently when you use the wall on BandPages it’s the same as your regular wall, so it posts to your news feed like it normally would.

Q: Tracks uploaded on a BandPage go to the RootMusic SoundCloud account. Why did RootMusic choose to use SoundCloud within BandPages?

Answer: SoundCloud is the best music player we have seen, if you have other suggestions, we are all ears! They have a great reputation a mature api, built in sharing functions,stable, and the public already trusts them.

Q: Are there any new features in the pipeline for BandPages?

Answer: Yes! We will be around for a while and you will see new features coming out in the next few months. We are currently building them for you as we speak! And again we want to hear the public opinion as to what you would like to see. So if you have any suggestions about what features to add let us know. At the end of the day we build what the people ask for.

Q: Are there any new features in the pipeline for BandPages?

Answer: Yes! We will be around for a while and you will see new features coming out in the next few months. We are currently building them for you as we speak! And again we want to hear the public opinion as to what you would like to see. So if you have any suggestions about what features to add let us know. At the end of the day we build what the people ask for.

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