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.

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.

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.

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

Bln.kr launch their 'tweet for a track' service

I wrote about Bln.kr in the Dailies and then in the latest part of our Twitter music Promotion guide - please check it out if you haven't yet.

Well, Bln.kr have launched the 'tweet for a track' (which, in fact, is also a Facebook share for a track service as well) in a bit of a private Beta.

I am loving their whole service and can see it being a default for rapid sharing online. In fact, if you're not going for the paid option that the actual Tweet for a Track site offers, in order to collect the email addresses of downloaders, then I don't see why you'd choose that service now over Bln.kr. Bln.kr offers more and is adding new stuff all the ntime.

Check out their video of this particular bit of the service.

 

 

If you want to get on and use it, it seems that at the moment this isn't available on their site and you'll need to email them at feedback@bln.kr. Obviously, this will be an on-site faeture in the very near future.

Share music on all your profiles from one place

You might've seen this mentioned on Mashable the other day, but I was just checking it out as it fits in the last part of my now delayed but mammoth series of posts on 'Twitter for musicians'.

Bln.kr allows you to upload tracks and then spread them across all your social network profiles with one click. The Pro version (currently free for 30 days) has some additional functionality.

Mashable had this to say:

Bln.kr is kind of like Hootsuite for bands — a platform that allows musicians to share a song across Facebook, Twitter, etc, as well as track how fans are digging their jams.

The service is rather simple to use: Sign up for a Pro account ($10 per month), and connect Bln.kr to social accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, YouTube). Upload a track, add a title, cover image, category, tags and download setting (it’s also possible to enable a “Track for a Tweet”-esque feature, which is pretty cool), add a custom message to one’s share and go for it. One click lets a person share the track to all of his or her networks.

Read the whole Mashable post here.

And here's their video explaining the service.

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