Well, there’s certainly a lively discussion going on in the comments for Finding Students For You, about online services matching music students with teachers. At first I was just going to let it be, but then I realized that it may be informative for many of us to learn first-hand from some of you out there who have had experiences with student leads from the online student-teacher matching services.
The lively discussion that’s going on is mainly about whether some services are using individual teachers’ addresses in advertising their general service, and whether that’s legitimate. I’d like to address that a little, and also tell you of a strange email I received today as a result of an online teacher listing.
But first, tell us–has any of you gained students from an online service? How did it work for you? Clearly, matching up a student and a teacher is good for both. Increasingly, people are finding each other through online services, so matching music students and teachers probably has good potential. If you have used online services of this kind, have you found it worth any costs or hassles you had to deal with? Or did you sign up for services and receive no students? Let us know with a comment below. Perhaps you’ve heard about student experiences in using the services as well.
The use or abuse of teacher information for the benefit of an online matching service is a concern, but the bigger issue is whether these services are providing real help to both teachers and students. Let us hear from you, to balance our picture.
In the mean time, let me tell you about the strange email I received today! Someone found my name on a music teachers online list and wrote an email that reads an awful lot like one of those scam letters. It’s from a woman who lives in the southeast US, photographs in Africa, lost her husband in the northwest, is moving with her daughter to the northeast, and wants twice-a-week one-hour lessons for her daughter at any time of day, since she’s homeschooled, and since music is the only thing that calms her down following the loss of her father. Now if this is all true, then I’m pretty callous to be skeptical. But the all-caps subject, the capitalization of certain odd words, and some misspellings, make me wonder. And what could possibly be the goal if this is some sort of scam? A live email address for spamming?
Perhaps the main point is that it can be easy for anyone to find a music teacher online and pursue a spurious connection. I believe some of the services try to weed people out but that seems difficult. In addition, the posting of individual teacher’s home addresses connected to Google maps, whether or not the phone number is that of the teacher or of the service, seems a pretty personal bit of information to place on a Google search for, say voice lessons in Boston, as was discussed in the comments to the earlier post. It’s especially questionable if the information is placed on the search engine without permission of the teacher.
I’d love to hear most from people who can tell us about their efforts to match with students through these services, and whether they were successful or not. (If you have theoretical comments about this situation, or feel the need to defend the online matching services, please keep your comments concise and not overly personal.) Hope to hear from you! Check back here for comments!
If you want to take the shortcut route, I think the best way is to create a site that is accessed via Google AdWords. You pay for the incoming clicks, but you can easily choose which content keywords your ads are shown in (especially on valuable Google searches), and in what geographical area. The rate per click for music-related industries is actually quite low (much to the chagrin of those such as myself that run these ads), but does just as much, perhaps more to put students in touch with teachers than paid directories.
by Chris — Fri Aug 3, 2007 @ 7:10 pm
by Heidi — Mon Aug 13, 2007 @ 11:14 am
by Brandon Pearce (Support) — Wed Aug 15, 2007 @ 8:20 am
by bob c — Sun Sep 30, 2007 @ 5:05 pm
Here you can find Lots more instruction for beginner guitarists.
by jeff — Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 3:44 am