New Music Biz 101: Twitter
posted in: Features
This week’s blog post is geared toward helping the musicians of the world use Twitter to their advantage! Twitter is a powerful tool because it’s a viral platform. It’s so easy for a fan to RT (re-tweet) your message to spread your music to hundreds, even thousands of their followers. But it’s not as simple as just creating a profile and hoping for the best (at least for most musicians). There is a process that you can follow to be successful in this quick moving platform. Here are some important things to keep in mind.
Follow the Right People. One way to promote yourself on Twitter is to go out and follow carefully selected Twitter users in the hope that they’ll follow you’re account in return. When reaching out to other Twitter users, it’s important to ensure that you’re connecting with people who are influential to your potential fan base. You can use a service such as http://twinfluence.com/ to figure out what type of influence a Twitter user has. If there is an artist who plays similar music to your music, check out their Twitter profile and discover who is leading the conversation about that artist’s music. Begin a dialogue with that individual talking about the artist’s music. At some point during the conversation, feel free to share your music with them to see what they think. Because it is similar to the artist they’re a fan of, there is a good chance they’ll appreciate your music and share it with a friend. Continue to build up your base in this fashion.
The Right Way to Tweet. Be sure to Tweet carefully. You don’t want to be overly promotional. It’s important to make things relevant to your audience, and engage as much as possible. If you have a follower who re-tweets you, publically thank them by putting @username and a thank you message. Feel free to talk about your genre and other artists within your genre. You want to keep your tweets personal, but also talk about things that will perk the interest of those who may want to check out your music.
Backstage pass. Make your Twitter an exclusive back stage pass for your fans. Share updates from the studio when you’re recording, access to first mixes, touring information, pictures taken on the road etc.
The overall trick here is to engage, engage, engage! Keep a close eye on your Twitter account and be as active with your fans as possible! Good luck, and feel free to leave comments with any other helpful Twitter tips you may have!