Internet Boundaries

One of the most powerful tools in networking today is the Internet. Particularly the various social sites with Facebook being one of the most popular right now. This site can be very useful and addictive. The original premise as I understand it was to have a site where you and your personal friends could share and dialogue about whatever things you have in common. Once you reach five thousand friends you are automatically switched over to what's called a fan page. This is usually only done by artists or musicians. The thing that we have to be careful about as musicians is that we don't become a victim of this medium. We have to have well defined Internet boundaries. Most of us use Facebook as a place to build a fan base. I mean come on, how many people do you know that can say they REALLY have five thousand friends. It is important that we keep our posts and information focused on what we are marketing and we have to always understand that a lot of people don't really know us and will try all sorts of things on line. I recently received a rather vulgar comment from a woman that has purchased every CD I've put out and produced. She was admitted as a friend because she supported the music but she then began to make advances and vulgar inbox comments so I defriended her. After a time she continued to buy my music and sent me a message via one of my other websites asking to be reinstated so I gave her the ground rules and allowed her access again. Low and behold to only walk in a find that she had began to send me the inboxes again and my significant other saw it and was quite understandably upset. I have now had to go through and purge my friends list. This happened to me and all I ever post about is this business. The Internet creates fantasy for a lot of people. They can be who they want to be and they can include whoever they want to in their fantasy. As artist it is important that we realize that we can be targets of some one's imagination. I mean we are in the business of creating surreal states that help people escape their lives for a moment. The only thing is with the Internet the boundaries can become blurred and people can misread our intentions and disregard our boundaries. Let's just be aware that social networking for us is just another part of the job. We should only put things on the web that pertain to the music or art we are marketing. I know it can be tempting to bare your soul on your posts but resist it. Just write a song about. Mind your Internet boundaries. Enjoy the journey.

The Truth

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