Rename and/or move Pimp Your Band forum

pinksoir

[Originally posted this in the wrong forum (forum requests)]

Hey. The Pimp Your Band forum is a really good idea, but it's pretty useless where it is. It has barely any traffic and as a result does very little in the way of promoting new and independent bands/acts. The name is also awful. What's wrong with 'Band Promotion' or whatever?

Case and point; yesterday the user eviltimeban posted in the Music forum (could have been alt & indie) with a new album that he has spent the last year recording. He's giving this album away for free and it's pretty good. It's extremely difficult for artists to self release stuff, and it's even more difficult when you give it away for free as you can't rely on shelf space in shops, and the presence a physical copy can create to sell your wares.

It was extremely depressing then when, because it was himself posting about his own music, his thread was moved to Pimp Your Band. It's equivalent to being put into room 101. This happens quite often and it's always depressing to see because the traffic in Pimp Your Band is virtually non-existent. Pimp Your Band is so empty it's like moving a thread to the outer reaches of cyberspace where few will ever see it. (I don't know eviltimeban by the way, I just like his music and admire him for giving it away)

The traffic in both the Alt & Indie and Music forums is pretty good and if 'Band Promotion' were a sub forum in either of those two forums (or both, or each sub forum of music eg. rock & metal, jazz, hip hop etc) it would create a lot more traffic for acts promoting themselves, a feat Pimp Your Band hardly contributes to in it's current form/place.

Cheers. Hopefully someone can see my reasoning.

Miguel_Sanchez

I'd have no problem with a Band Promotion sub-forum of the Alt/Indie section.

As pinksoir says it'll probably generate a bit more traffic through it alright.

lordgoat

Jeff_Lebowski wrote: »

I'd have no problem with a Band Promotion sub-forum of the Alt/Indie section.

As pinksoir says it'll probably generate a bit more traffic through it alright.

Ya what Jeff says Alt/Indie have no prob with doing a bit of self promotion, but a sub forum might be a better idea. Also agree with the name change as well. Unless Tim Westwood is a moderator of Pimp your band. Then the name stays.

pinksoir

lordgoat wrote: »

Ya what Jeff says Alt/Indie have no prob with doing a bit of self promotion, but a sub forum might be a better idea. Also agree with the name change as well. Unless Tim Westwood is a moderator of Pimp your band. Then the name stays.

Ha. Exactly.



Word.

Malice

Argh, I had a long reply typed out and then my computer had a bit of a fit and I've lost it :mad:

Okay, from what I can remember that I wrote, I assume I was the person that moved the thread into the Pimp Your Band forum. I agree that it's not a great name for a forum and could well do with a change. Band Promotion sounds far better.

For what it's worth I think adding sub forums under the genre-specific categories would not be a good idea. At the moment there is one forum for bands and solo artists to promote themselves which gets very little traffic. I think splitting that into sub-forums would reduce the traffic even more. Some other questions:
Firstly the PYB forum is under Music (the category rather than the forum) so would it simply be closed?
Secondly how does someone figure out where to post? There's already quite a bit of cross-over between Alt & Indie and Rock & Metal for example Just looking at the front page right now there are threads on The Smiths, Weezer and Jimmy Eat World all of which could be in R&M rather than A&I.
Thirdly would sub forums be created for all of the genre-specific forums e.g. one for Traditional and Jazz etc.

I'm not totally against the idea, I just need some convincing that it's worth it!

pinksoir

I didn't mean to single you out, it happens all the time, that was just a recent instance I could remember. And you were totally in the right to do it, considering there is a separate forum for 'pimping' (ugh) bands.

Though you're argument is that because the forum get's very little traffic it shouldn't be split up, I'd argue that it get's very little traffic precisely because it is a separate forum. The only people who look in there are people who are promoting their own band, so you have a situation where it's a load of bands (or very few in this case) listening to a load of other bands' stuff. It's like playing a gig and the only people there being the support act.

If there was a sub forum under, let's say to begin with, the busier forums; rock & metal, alt & indie, and music, then there is a far better chance of the regulars having a quick look and seeing what's on offer. Plus, from within the forum it's easy to see if there is a new post in a sub forum, and by whom. It's just added into people's browsing habits, and the target audience is effectively, well, targeted. PYB is too broad and many's a time I've gone through a bunch of posts and none of them have been in the genres I'd be interested in, which begins to get tiresome. I don't read forums that I have no interest in, and likewise if a forum begins to get full of posts which I'm not interested in I'll stop reading it. I can only assume that others operate similarly. Which could be one of the reasons for PYB becoming a wasteland.

I get what you are saying about genre classification, but I don't really think it would be a problem. Yes, The Smiths, Weezer and JEW could be either rock or alternative, but realistically, the vast majority of threads in R&M are metal related (or at least were last year when I stopped reading it, maybe it's changed), so presumably the vast majority of readers/posters are into metal. There'd be little point in posting a Smiths style band in there and, working on the assumption that those promoting their band are members of the boards community, this would be known already. The way the forums are set up isn't ideal, but it's workable.

I'd close the Pimp Your Band forum and move the bands on the front page, if the OP's want, to the relevant sections.

It could be said to the mods of the less busy music forums if they wanted a sub forum. I mean, hip hop is quite popular in Ireland, but there aren't too many hip hop acts here, and for the few there are there are already better oulets. The other few forums are too quiet to consider. The music forum can be a catch all for the few things that may fall through the cracks.

Basically it's about trying to help the music scene as much as possible. PYB doesn't work. At all. So maybe try something new. I know first hand that even having a few unfamiliar faces at gigs can help build the confidence of bands starting out, and also that more established bands can struggle to grow their fan base. I just think that boards could do a lot more to facilitate this by, realistically, doing very little. Tagging a sub forum onto an already busy forum in order to get passing traffic would be a lot more effective than trying to rebuild a broken forum which has little interest from it's target audience, by definition. If you can deliver your music into the laps of your audience rather than them have to look for it, all the better.

pinksoir

Hey hey. That's much better.