Five MySpace Mistakes for Visual Artists

The 2006 blog post Five mistakes you’re probably making with your MySpace page (on Andrew Dubber’s blog New Music Strategies) applies equally to visual artists as it does to musicians.

The five mistakes (expanded on in much better detail in the blog post itself) are:

1. Using MySpace as your website
2. Using MySpace as your email
3. Having an impressive background image
4. Embedding lots of media
5. Writing lots of text

All of these points are absolutely correct. MySpace’s “My Pics” should not be your gallery. By all means, put loads of examples of your work in there (if they comply with MySpace’s image content rules) but don’t direct people there instead of to your own site.

Andrew Dubber reminds us:

Remember: MySpace is a tool. It’s one of many. It’s not your only shot at engaging with your audience or prospective market. It’s an important one though, and it’s one that it’s very easy to make mistakes with. Use it well.

MySpace, like any social networking site, should just be one of many outposts of your main website. In no way should it be your website (and nor should Flickr, deviantART, Artbreak, or any other social website).