13 Tips on Getting the Best Out of Twitter

I don't how often i have heard people say "No i don't use Twitter, it's just a bunch of people saying where they are, what they are doing and what they had for breakfast" and "What can I do with 140 characters?" Well, it has proven it can do a hell of a lot more than that, from distributing news, social and political commentary, to marketing, distributing not only short bursts of text but also pictures and videos. It has now been around for 6 years, and has pretty much become the leader in spreading information across the world, becoming the social barometer of our times.

It is now an essential tool in any musicians marketing strategy, and there is a wealth of techniques you can use to get the best out of twitter in keeping your fan base informed and engaged.

Not only can you use it as a news service, it also has great potential for you to find new fans, and get them to discover you.

Since its inception, there has become a wealth of third party utilities to help you exploit the potential of twitter to the full. Two i have been using the most over the years are Tweetdeck and Hootsuite. They give you the ability to monitor the 'twitterverse' and search for keywords and hashtags (twitters own keyword system that allows users to find tweets on certain subjects such as #art #photography #ladygaga etc) that could be relevent to you, your music and your goals. They allow you to join in the conversations and connect with people discussing things that could be relevent to you, and in turn, you might be interesting to them.

Chris Singleton over at Prescription PR has put together a list of 13 top tips for musicians and bands using twitter which i think you should take a look at. Here is my favourite peice of advice from his article...

By all means post links to your band's new videos and MP3s from time to time, but do not get too fond of doing so; otherwise you’ll just look like a jerk. Believe me, when it comes to overcommunicating about my own music projects, I’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt…and despite waxing endlessly about the importance of musicians keeping schtum for five minutes, I still see artists (who should know better) bore their friends, family and remaining fan to tears with hourly Facebook updates about their latest creative endeavours. Nobody cares after a while (if they ever did in the first place –geddit?). Instead, post links to great content from other sources – whack links up on Twitter to scintillating articles which don’t happen to be about your music (and rest assured, there are a lot of them). Or make witty observations about cheese and/or the credit crunch. In short, get a reputation for being an interesting dude, not a self-obsessed bore.

Check out the rest of his article here.

We also have an article on our Make It In Music site on twitter for musicians here.

 

Links

http://www.prescriptionmusicpruk.com/the-prescription/2012/5/1/using-twitter-top-tips-for-musicians-and-bands.html

http://www.makeitinmusic.com/twitter-for-musicians/

 

Click to Tweet - great new Twitter service

If you want to get more people to see a particular post on your website or to buy tickets or take some specific action, you want that message to spread to as many people as possible.

This new service, Click to Tweet, enables you to create a pre-written tweet for people to click on. This will open their Twitter account with your message prepopulated with your Tweet.

So, you can email all the people on your fan list (you do have one of those right?) or put the Tweet in a short post on your site or your Tumblr and specifically ask people to click it and spread the word.

Here's an example:

Please click this to Tweet about our latest post on How to promote your music on Spotify -

http://clicktotweet.com/wev2i

Of course, you could change the text in that link to 'Please click to Tweet about this' or similar.

When clicked, it'll open your Twitter account and have this Tweet ready to go - "Great piece on how to use Spotify to actually promote your music - http://ow.ly/7oQUc".

Please do so we can see how well it works!

As a way of encouraging people to spread the word I expect to see this be very effective.

Use Click to Tweet here.

6 Tips for effective Twitter networking

Have you checked out our mammoth post series on Twitter for Musicians?

It's essential reading and really does give you chapter and verse on how to use Twitter as part of your music promotion efforts.

But, I'm always looking for more tips and loved this post from Social Media expert Madalyn Sklar as it distills the essence of Twitter into 6 simple tips.

Here are my 6 simple tips that will help you build momentum and followers. There is no magic pill for instant success. But if you follow these strategies, you will improve your results. And remember, it’s about building your Twitter network… one follower at a time!

It takes time, consistency and a plan of action. So let me ask you… how effective are you on Twitter? People I talk to either love it (and might even admit to being addicted) or they just don’t get it, not understanding how it can help them.

Read them here.

How to find local fans on Twitter

We look at how to find potential fans of your music in your local area in this part of our Twitter music marketing guide.

Obviously, if you can find your fans near to your home base then you radically increase your chances of getting those people to shows.

This video from Ariel Hyatt looks at another way to do this.

 

Timely Twitter Tip

A commenter on our site the other day put me on to Timely, which one of my clients has been trying out with some success. I'm giving it a go today.

It claims to look at your last 199 tweets and then schedule your tweets at the times that they are most likely to be read, Retweeted or replied to.

My client noticed greater activity - I'll let you know if I do too!

Check it out here.

The power of Twitter

I'm not saying that you should set up a hoax using Twitter to spread the word about our music, like this TV writer did.

But, if you read the story it gives insight into how people trust what they read on Twitter and how Retweets and "quotes" from other users can add instant authority to your Twitter stream and profile - and therefore, to your music.

Or maybe it's just time to set up a hoax!

Read about it here.

For the right way to use Twitter as a musician - go here.

5 ways to lose fans on Twitter

Great reminder post from Dave Cool (yes, really!) on Bandzoogle's blog.

Common sense maybe - but you still need to be reminded.

Most artists and bands now use Twitter to promote their music and connect with their fans. But like with all promotional tools, there are certain things you should avoid doing. I’ve searched through literally thousands of artist accounts on Twitter and noticed some alarming trends. Here’s a quick Top 5 things that could cause you to lose your fans on Twitter:

Read the 5 tips here.

Of course, when you have a day to spare, you can read our definitive guide to Twitter music marketing.

 

How to build your Twitter Tribe

There's some great advice in this post on Twitter.

Primarily written for business/ brand users of Twitter, all the advice is applicable to musicians.

Of course, you need to read the definitive guide on Twitter music marketing on our site as well!

We cover some of the same ground but this has good info on how to find people to follow and, in particular, how to make your tweets stand out as interesting - the answer is to treat them as headlines.

You don’t need to dedicate the time to a tweet that you would give a full blog post. But there are a few simple things you can do to make your tweets achieve a better reach among your followers.

Whenever you tweet an article, try to link it with the interests of your community.

This means that sometimes the title of the article will fit this purpose very well, sometimes it won’t. Try finding a quote in the article that particularly relates to your community’s and followers’ interests.

Read the whole thing here.

Twitter for Musicians - the basics

Ariel Hyatt posted these two short videos on the basics of how musicians should use Twitter and although I have posted the first one before, it makes sense to have the two together!

Here's part 1:

And here's part 2:

Of course, once you've got the basics you should regularly dip into our masterclass series on Twitter for Musicians.

Analytics makes the heart grow stronger!

I'm getting very freaked out by Facebook!

In the last three weeks, it has moved the game on so much that if I was a competitor (but who is there, other than Google?) I would be very worried.

It is looking like it's going to rule the internet in so many spaces that you, as a musician, just cannot afford to be left out!

The latest thing that I was gobsmacked by was the extension of Insights - their analytics - to your own site, not just Facebook.

Why does this matter to you? Well, it tells you what people like about what you're doing so that you can give them more of it and tailor your approach to promoting music based on FACTS!

This post on AllFacebook tells you what this is and how to put it on your site.

And this is Facebook's own post about it.

This is serious stuff and you should be implementing this on your site as soon as possible.

And, whilst we're talking about analytics, Hootsuite just upped their game in a big way too with analytics for social media with a very cool customisable tool.

Check that out here or in the video.

 

HootSuite Social Analytics from HootSuite on Vimeo.

Getting to understand Twitter

For those that missed my Tweet earlier - I've finished the 6 part series 'Top Twitter tips for Musicians'

Please check it out. I honestly think it's the best thing we've done on the blog so far.

To go straight to the 6th & final part of the series - click here.

In my last day of research and writing I came across this infographic which perfectly illustrates how your mindset changes as you grow to know and love the way that Twitter connects you with like-minded people.

We all take it for granted already that we can reach and talk to people all over the world who share our interests (such as your music) - but even just a few years ago, that would've been science fiction.

It's a time of unrivalled opportunity for all of us to reach out and engage people - whether that's to promote something like your music or just to share stuff with others all over the world.

Snoop Tweets it like it is.

I really am about to post the final part of my Twitter for Musicians series. Tomorrow!

For now, this is a great post on why Snoop Dogg is so good at handling his own Twitter presence.

As a Hypebot reader, you're undoubtedly informed on the importance of artist-fan relationships and how Twitter has broken down the walls between the artist and the fan by keeping each one at arm's length from another. Yet still, many artists I know refuse to enter the "Twittersphere" as they are still not fully convinced that they need it to communicate with their fan base.

While an artist may not necessarily need to Tweet, it certainly opens up an entirely new landscape for fan interaction and engagement.

One music artist who is a master of digital fan engagement through Twitter is Snoop Dogg. As of this writing, Snoop has 2.4 million followers! This gives him an incredible sphere of influence. So how does Snoop keep his fans engaged?

Just head over to Hypebot and check it out.

 

What do you use to Tweet?

I found this interesting as I am, belatedly, finishing off my series on Twitter marketing for musicians.

I'm just writing the bit about using third party clients like TweetDeck and Hootsuite and came across this infographic.

I assumed that loads of people use these options - and clearly many do, but it's interesting to see that the vast majority use the interface at Twitter.com.

You're missing out if you don't use one or several of the available clients. We look at these in the final part of the Twitter series on the main blog.

Image by Rosaura Ochoa

Twitter Search and finding out what's happening right now

Mashable created this video and posted about it here yesterday.

I've embedded it here though as it goes perfectly with my 5 part post on Twitter for Musicians - which I am desperately trying to finish today!

Dead simple - this video shows you how to use the advanced Twitter Search to find out up to the minute and more personal tips on anything - searching on Google is obviously 'the daddy' but it can take ages for good material to get indexed and if you're looking for the latest view on something, Twitter Seacrch is where to go.

This can be applied to music, music promotion tips, local venues to play - anything you can think of that's connected to your music career.

Find the advanced Twitter Search at http://search.twitter.com/advanced

Using the '@' on Facebook as well as Twitter is essential!

There is one character that should appear in most of your facebook posts and tweets. No, not YOU, silly! I’m talking about the “at symbol” (@). For many of us, it resides on the same keyboard key as the number 2. And now that we know WHERE it is, let’s look at WHY you should regularly use it in your social media communications.

So says the article on CDBaby's Diy Musician blog.

This mystified me for a long time but once I worked it out we have used it for all our clients.

We obviously talk about '@replies' in our Twitter for Musicians guide. But, generally just 'shouting' at someone on twitter with an '@reply' is wrong and just doesn't work. BUT, on Facebook, mainly because you have 140 characters and you can post Fan Page Wall to Fan Page Wall, you can do it without being spammy.

And it can be VERY powerful.

So, for example, you could do an acoustic cover of a song by a hot band and post it on your Facebook Fan page (via YouTube). Then you could post across to the band that you've covered's Fan Page and you will get people to come over and see your post on your Fan Page wall.

BTW - most really huge artists have disabled posts from others on their walls, but there are still a huge amount that haven't.

Read it here - and implement it!

How to make your tweets go viral

So, I've been beavering away on my magnum opus - Twitter for Musicians - for weeks, and it's finally getting published this week.

I'm therefore pleased when I find something to add to it in the Dailies.

This is a great post on the ever amazing CopyBlogger site that looks at some of the statistical data about sharing and retweets on Twitter.

Publishers can complain and wistfully wish for the good old days of blog links and Google juice, or they can adapt to the new reality Twitter represents. Getting your content “ReTweeted” on Twitter (i.e. getting people to repeat what you’ve said, usually along with a link) can drive significant quality traffic to your site, which in turn can boost your subscriber numbers.

So, how does ReTweeting happen, anyway? Well, here are the 5 factors you need to take into account when trying to get your content to spread virally on Twitter.

Read the post here.

 

Twitter usage for bands

Simple - Chris Bracco has dug up a great video about musicians using Twitter. Great stuff full of tips on Twitter for Musicians.

Rather than embed the video here - go over to Chris's Blog and watch it - I guarantee that you'll find other great posts to read as well!

Visit the post on Chris Bracco's site.

What is Twitter?

I am still working on my mammoth Twitter post ('Twitter tips for musicians') - give me a break, I'm rebuilding my whole site, doing these dailies and running a management company!

But, this post from Music Think Tank hoved into view and these opinions of some industry commentators might help you with your twitter music marketing - so I thought you ought to see it!

The what, why and how of Twitter is as confusing as it has ever been.  Since the music industry is one of the first industries to heavily embrace Twitter, I asked some industry friends the simple question: “What is Twitter?”  Their answers and my answer are below.

Read their thoughts here.

Learn from others how and what to Tweet

I'm writing a long series of posts for the main blog on Twitter for Musicians.

In doing so I've looked at a lot of musician's tweets and seen some really good and some really bad.

The series will look at this issue in depth but I've realised that it can really help some artists to see how others use Twitter and learn the pattern of self-promotion, being engaging, funny, forthright etc from watching others.

So, this series of posts on Flavorwire is a good place to start - they list Top 10's of people to follow - all of whom use Twitter in an engaging way.

One of the lists is 'Indie Rockers' but you can look at them all to see what they do that you aren't doing.

Find the lists here.

How Twitter has changed the rules of publicity

Another piece that isn't directly about music publicity but it's lesson can be easily applied.

Scott Stratten is a marketing guy who used his Twitter followers to engage with him and help him set up a book tour - which he KNEW would be a success before he set out!

This is a great marketing lesson that can be followed by bands - do exactly what he did but for your next record release, or get your followers to sell tickets before you book a gig, or get pre-sales of a record before you make it using fan funding or do anything else that you can get your followers to do for you before you commit to specifics.

The Oakville expert in viral and social marketing has used his status as one of the world’s top influencers on Twitter to pre-sell 3,000 copies of his book and pretty much guarantee hundreds, if not thousands, more.

Named by the global PR company Edelman the 19th most influential twitterer by engagement, the business consultant and blogger tweeted to his followers that he’d go to any city where a sponsor would preorder 100 books and pay his expenses. After posting the first 10 cities, fans started rallying.

Read how he did it here.