Should You Use Auto Friend Adders in MySpace, et al?

In the world of social media, I understand that everyone wants to have a lot of “friends”. This has opened up a new world for software development that has the ability to add friends for you, and send messages to your friends without you having to do too much.

I admit, I even bought a friend adder product myself a few years ago. I knew of other musicians using it, and I was jealous of their friend numbers. But I just couldn’t bring myself to install it. My conscience wouldn’t let me, and it wasn’t just because auto friend adders are against the “Terms of Service” of most social media websites. In my opinion, using auto friend adders is basically gaming your friend numbers, and it just doesn’t feel kosher to me.

I know that everyone has other things they need to do with their time, like write songs and rehearse, but I believe that building your friend lists should be organic – like the way you make friends in real life.

My friend Carmelina uses MySpace as her main social media website, and she has amassed over 16,000 friends, and over 270,000 plays of her song “Mueve Las Caderas” (Move Your Hips) the old fashioned way. She has a full-time job, and plenty other things going on in her life, but she swears that she only dedicates an hour a day to making new friends, and connecting with old ones. Consistency and time management are her methods of choice, and they seem to be working. (By the way, I sing backup vocals in “Mueve Las Caderas”, which you can listen to here)

That’s just my two pennies, which was inspired by a great blog post by Andrew Dubber at New Music Strategies that gives his two pennies. Check out his blog here and don’t be afraid to chime in with your own opinion on this debate.