Twitter can be an excellent resource to help artists new and existing fans and strengthen their brand online. But 11 years in, Twitter is still confusing, as well. Here we look at how musicians can make their Twitter life easier.
________________________
Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0
Twitter is great for building your brand and an amazing way to reach a lot of people that you probably couldn’t reach any other way. That’s said, after eleven years and over 300 million daily active users, many musicians are still confused by Twitter. Many seem baffled as to why anyone would want to use a service providing short 140 character messages, or why they should be bothered using it as a promotional tool. Top that off with the many horror stories of PR disasters started by the errant tweet from celebrities and professional athletes, and they’re skittish about even getting involved in this highly successful social network.
The flaw in that thinking is that Twitter works and works well for promotion and marketing, if you know how to do it. This is discussed at length in the 2nd edition of my Social Media Promotion For Musicians handbook, but it’s sumerized here with these 20 Twitter tips and tricks.
1. Set up your profile. Your bio should include who you are and what you tweet about.
2. Be sure to use a photo of you, not a baby picture, celebrity or avatar.
3. Include your website or blog link in your profile.
4. Use fewer than 120 characters in any tweet for greater response.
5. Place a link in every tweet.
6. Don’t use more than two hashtags per tweet.
7. Stay away from bashtags or anything negative.
8. Use link shorteners like Bit.ly, Tinyurl, or Ow.ly to make more room for text and links.
9. Use a Twitter client like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to see all your Twitter feeds in one place and obtain Twitter analytics.
10. Don’t worry about your number of followers. If your content is good, they will come.
11. Find your favorite brands/bands/artists/companies on Twitter and follow them. Tweet them your feedback.
12. Find people talking about your band, music or brand and follow them.
13. Be sure to respond, if someone mentions your brand/company/you.
14. Set up Google Alerts for topics of interest to tweet.
15. Tweet live from gigs and events. Tweeting from events keeps your followers and positions you as an expert.
16. Balance your tweets, replies and retweets. Too much of a good thing is too much.
17. Tweet photos. A picture is worth a thousand words.
18. Don’t feed the trolls. You’ll always find a person who wants to pick a fight. Don’t get in the ring.
19. Whenever someone mentions you, add them to a “Fans” list. Follow them closely and tweet them separately about gigs, videos and song releases.
20. If you use Hootsuite, create a search stream for any mentions of your band, song or video, including any misspellings.
You can read more from Social Media Promotion For Musicians and my other books on the excerpt section of bobbyowsinski.com.