The old idiom “failing to plan is planning to fail” seems proper here.

After reading an interesting article on Mashable the other day, it was reveling at how ill-prepared most of the bands and artists will be when they arrive in Austin next week. Many come looking for that big break that will take their career to the next level, yet why are they over looking such a critical marketing tool?  Are they not rehearsing? No. Is it that they don’t have their venues lined up or that they don’t have enough merch to sell? No.

The article shares some pretty interesting facts on these bands and their ability, or rather inability, to immediately connect with their fans during their performances. The sheer volume of smart phones that will descend on downtown Austin has the major wireless carriers scrambling to push as much bandwidth as possible to satisfy the data hungry mobile users who attend SXSW. Yet the article found that when reviewing the websites of the 1,700+ bands and musicians who will be performing during SXSW 1/3 are still flash-based (clearly a dead-end for iOS devices). They also found that 90% of the sites aren’t able to recognize a mobile device. And when it comes to social media these sites don’t fare any better: only 29% have Facebook integration, 12% have Twitter integration and 6% have Google+ integration.

I can only speculate why some overlook something so critical – and easy. It wasn’t too long ago that the only way to get your content and music on a mobile device was to develop an app. And that costs money – in some cases big money. The other barrier is time. Most of these bands and artists are working multiple jobs just to keep their dream of making music alive. They might be able to steal a few minutes to update their status but the time and effort required to update their website, mobile site or app and keep their social media assets updated just isn’t available.

And this is a real shame because with today’s technology it’s so simple to make sure your website works for you rather than you spending time you don’t have trying to keep up 3 or 4 websites. A mobile optimized HTML5/CSS3  website with social media plugins is a simple and affordable solution. It becomes the single site you support that is connected to all your social media assets and renders itself properly regardless of device.

Then fans can continue to experience the music well after the show.

sources: Mashable / Why Bands Need Better Mobile Website Now / March 8, 2012