Website - Improving interactivity

It was important to make sure that our website was interactive as well as informative so the audience can get the most out of it. This includes how the audience can interact with the website itself, and how they can interact with the band.

We made an interactive banner to put at the top of every page. The banner is a slideshow of these different images, and when you click on it, it takes you to a certain page on the website:

Takes you to the Music Video page

Takes you to the Competition page

Takes you to the Store

Takes you to the Tour page

We kept the same font on all of them - the font that we are using for our album cover and other parts of the website - to keep our brand image consistent. We wanted to have a banner because it means the audience are attracted to different parts of the site and so are encouraged to engage more with the artist in some way, e.g. by clicking to the store page because of the advert for the album, which could lead to them buying merchandise. As well as increasing interactivity, it increases opportunities for purchasing.

We put a navigational bar at the top of every page on the website:

This allows the audience to quickly access any part of the website that they are looking for. The Home button links the user back to the home page, but when testing the website I found myself automatically clicking the logo in the top left hand corner assuming it would take me to the home page:

We decided to add this feature and make the logo a link to the home page too, while keeping the Home button on the navigation bar in case the user doesn't realise that the logo is a link.

Another change that we made was on the store page. Originally, all the items were pictured without any text - the audience could see the price and name of the item by clicking on it. We decided to change this so the audience can see the prices straight away:

This increases the ease of using the website because the information is immediately visible.

To increase opportunities for interaction between the audience and the band themselves, we created social media accounts: an Instagram, Twitter and Facebook page:

Our Facebook page 

Our Twitter page 

Our Instagram page

This is because our audience largely consists of 13-25 year olds, who are generally avid social media users, and even outside of this age group, social media accounts are arguably the most effective way that an artist can promote themselves: promotion can be instant, it is quick and easy, interactive as the artist can directly communicate with fans, and is wide-reaching as it is something almost everyone has access to. Someone would have to decide to visit Sticky & The Melonheads' website, but they wouldn't necessarily decide to see a Sticky & The Melonheads tweet on their Twitter feed, for example. This means the band can be promoted even to people who aren't seeking information about them.

Our social media accounts are linked at the bottom of every page:

We also included an iTunes link so the audience are given an opportunity to download our music.

Another way that we improved interactivity between the band and the audience was by creating a competition that fans can take part in. The competition has its own page on our website, the link displayed on our navigation bar:

The competition can easily be entered simply using social media, which allows anyone to take part for no money, so fans who don't want to spend money won't be excluded from it. It gives fans the opportunity to meet and spend time with the band in person, which would be very appealing to some fans and it also creates the impression that the band want to interact with their fans personally and that they care about them. 

Often being a fan of an artist feels like a one-sided relationship, but competitions like this create a sense of that audience-artist relationship being two-sided. Another way that we tried to do this was by creating a sign up page on the website:

The sign-up creates an opportunity for further consistent promotion to the audience, but it is the option to send the band a message that would really appeal to fans. As with the competition prize, it suggests to the audience that the band genuinely care about their fans, and it provides the audience with a way to interact with them personally.