A Little Self-Respect with Myspace Comments

Just a little. That's all I ask.

Here is what I'm talking about. I found this on Lil Wayne's myspace.



Unknown artists leaving spam comments on the websites of big name artists is one of the many reasons for the social network's decline (the phrase 'A Virtual Detroit' comes to mind). Artists presumably do this to direct traffic to their own pages with the assumption that at least some of the people who visit will enjoy the music and become fans. I'm here to tell you that this logic is beyond flawed.

First of all, even on the off-chance that there IS some potential crossover between fans of the top selling urban artist of 2008 and this terrible unknown artist, why on earth would Lil Wayne's dedicated fans reward the unknown artist for spamming Wayne's page by giving their music a listen?

Second, even if you get a click-thru, what are the chances that the visitor will stick around long enough to give your music a thorough and objective listen? This becomes even less likely if the page itself is poorly designed-- unattractive and unnavigable, which it is in this particular case.

Now take a look at this comment from Beyonce's page:




A quick scan of her 100,000+ comments will show you that somebody is taking the time to approve only positive, meaningful comments from true fans. To me this gives the page a level of legitimacy that no amount of spamming will create. Think about it. If I'm an A&R exec checking out the page of a potential signing, I want to see that there is a real 'story' going on.....that a real and energized fanbase exists, and that your entire friends list isn't made up of meaningless spam. If you have 20,000 friends and I can't find a single comment about your music, I will be unimpressed.

Here is what I recommend:

1) Adjust your settings to require approval for all comments. Only allow friends to comment, and require CAPTCHA for all comments. This will cut back on spam. Only approve comments that are personal and complimentary. Feel free to reject 'thanks for the add' comments as these are of little value.

2) Block any user that attempts to spam your comments board with their own marketing message or advertisement. If they've done it once, they'll do it again.

3) Change your settings to prevent friends from posting html comments. Any non-text code that appears on your comments board (pictures, videos, links, etc) will slow down the load time of your page.

4) Reject friend requests from bands or anybody with exclusively commercial interests. These are the worst offenders in this arena and are unlikely to turn into true supporters of your work. Unless you are truly receiving too many friend requests to manage, turn off the 'automatically accept friend requests' option.

5) Post comments on the pages of friends sparingly, with limited or no html. Do not ever post comments on the pages of other artists.