There is no doubt that people love to share their latest status updates with their friends on social platforms.
Enter Twitter, a micro-blogging platform that allows users to update their followers with new statuses as often as they like in less than 140 characters.
At its inception it sounded like a silly idea, but it caught on like wildfire. Today, Twitter is considered an important social media tool by bands, marketers, corporations, and celebrities alike.
The Twitter money movement has always been around, but today, it’s bigger and more vibrant than ever.
So, used correctly, Twitter can prove to be a powerful tool for musicians.
Let’s delve in. How can musicians take advantage of Twitter?
Twitter Bio
The first and perhaps most important consideration is what to put in your Twitter bio.
This is the first thing people see when they go to your profile. As such, you’ve got to come up with an attention-grabbing bio.
I recommend picking a theme for your profile and sticking to it. And make your theme about the people you’re trying to attract, not about you.
For instance, if you play punk rock in the style of blink-182 and have that “college frat boy” esthetic about you, your theme might be something like “angst-ridden, immature frat boy humor.”
And, when posting tweets, make them as angst-ridden, immature, and humorous as possible. Deliver the goods you’ve promised to deliver.
Bonus Tip: don’t leave the URL space blank. This is where your dot-com domain name goes. Don’t put your MySpace, Facebook, ReverbNation, SoundCloud, or Bandcamp link there.
Following Other Users
The next step in setting up your Twitter account is following other people. If you don’t follow anyone, it can be hard getting anyone to follow you back.
But this doesn’t discount the need to be strategic about this. Following people haphazardly won’t take you very far.
Brenna Ehrlich’s article on Mashable has some great tips:
- Follow bands who share a similar fan base, look, aesthetic, or genre.
- Follow their fans.
- Follow the reviewers, bloggers, or tastemakers in your particular genre.
That’s enough to get started.
Tweeting
As the number of people following you grows, you will begin to reach more people with each tweet.
So, you want to make sure you have a steady stream of content rolling out.
But I like to schedule 10 tweets per day, between the hours of 8AM and 5PM. And it’s easy to do with a tool like TweetDeck.
What to tweet?
Well, like I said earlier, you want to tweet based on your theme. If your theme is “inspiration for creatives and creators,” which is what mine is, you’d want to share short, inspirational thoughts, quotes, platitudes, and so forth.
Stick to your theme, and you can’t go wrong.
You can also:
- Tweet a song. Share a link from Spotify, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, or otherwise.
- Tweet about your recent performances. Or share your blog posts.
- Give away free tickets to your shows. You could also run a fan contest in connection with this.
- Give away free downloads. You could also run a fan contest in connection with this.
- Run a poll. Ask your fans what song they want to hear at your next gig. Ask them about where they’d like to see you perform. Think of other interesting topics you could engage your fans with.
Three in every 10 tweets can be promotional. Otherwise, just stick to your theme or model tweets from bigger accounts.
Interact
Most of your following is going to come from you interacting with and engaging other people on Twitter.
Here, too, we need a proper strategy. Here’s what I suggest:
- Respond to recent tweets (that have been posted in the last 24 hours) you like with thoughtful comments (target accounts that have engagement and are a little bigger than yours). If anyone else has responded to the same tweet, like their tweets and respond if you have something to say. Also, follow the people who interest you.
- When you come across tweets you especially like, quote retweet them. Add a meaningful comment. This can get you in front of the fans of the profile you quote tweeted. And, hopefully, your quote retweeted will also get retweeted, as that will certainly boost your following!
- Buy retweets. They only cost $10 to $60 depending on the profile you’re targeting, and this can grow your following fast.
Conclusion
Don’t forget – social media is about connecting and engaging with people. It’s not a good idea to spam, scam, or publish useless and/or pointless content.
For example, if you have a contest, don’t flood people with the same tweet over and over again. Keep it to three times a day maximum.
Bonus Tip: if you happen to be a particularly busy artist/band, plan out your tweets in bulk or in advance using a tool like TweetDeck or Hootsuite. These allows you to schedule tweets months advance. You could plan out an entire month’s worth of tweets in one fell swoop. Also see: How to Automate Your Social Media Marketing as a Musician
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