Okay, let me preface this post by saying that I am not a prolific tweeter and I don’t pretend to be. Having said that, I’ve learned a thing or two about Twitter that I’m guessing many people may not have discovered for themselves.
I’m all about sharing what I know to help out my fellow musicians so here’s my quick guide to Twitter in two parts.
Twitter Promotions without all the Following B/S
I’m going to be upfront and tell you what I don’t like about Twitter – all of the “you have to follow X number of people and get X number of people to follow you” and blah blah blah. Most of this is done to boost your influence while not giving a crap or paying attention to those who are following you. After all – how can you possibly manage to engage with hundreds or thousands of followers? It’s just not happening.
This territory is where Twitter quickly becomes a colossal Time Suck, so I tend to avoid it. Having said that, I’m not going to argue with people who get results with this strategy. If you want to learn a systematic way to build up your followers and automate it in an intelligent manner, I recommend you check out the two part Twitter post recently published at Independent Music Advice.com.
Twitter Tactics That Don’t Require Followers
Believe it or not, you can use Twitter without having any followers at all- I’m going to share two tips for you showing you how. Before I do, for those of you who do have followers – it’s time to get organized to avoid the dreaded Time Suck monster.
Twitter Lists
Time saver tip #1 – organize the people you follow into specific lists, this will allow you to dive right into the content you want without getting quite as overwhelmed. Using Twitter effectively will require setting a time limit, using a timer and getting the heck off when it sounds. The sooner you start creating lists the easier your Twitter promotions will be.
Here’s how to get started – from your home page on Twitter:
- Click “Following” to see the list of people you’re currently following
- The people you’re following appears with a green check-marked box followed by a smaller grey box with lines on it: Click on the grey box.
- Create a list with a cool name (i.e. a music industry list called “cool music peeps” or a band list of ‘awesome indie bands’ you get the idea).
- Scroll through your list and check each person to the appropriate list
- Rinse and repeat until all the people you follow has been assigned to a list
Now, when you just want to check out your “cool bass guitar stuff” list – you can just click the “Lists” link from your home page (below your Tweet status area) and then click on the particular list you want to pay attention to. You’ve now cut out a ton of competing noise allowing you to interact, click on links and do whatever else suits your fancy before the timer goes off.
Twitter Trends
On the right half of your screen, you’ll see a link called Trends. You can change this from the default “Worldwide” setting to your particular country or one of almost two dozen cities around the world. You can see what the popular trends are and engage in whichever ones seem appealing to you (if you ‘hover’ your cursor over a tweet that you’re interested in, the option to ‘reply’ will appear – this allows you to connect to the person without having to follow them or vice versa).
Why bother with this activity?
Indirectly, this approach can help you gain new followers and potential subscribers (if you add a link to your squeeze page in your Twitter Profile). If people find you interesting, they’re naturally going to want to find out more about you, a percentage may then choose to sign up for a freebie and join your list.
Don’t use this as an opportunity to spam people – spam just pisses people off.
The people who succeed with promoting their band or business on Twitter are those who actually listen and engage others rather than blasting out waves of self-serving tweets. Again – the three E’s (Educate, Engage and Entertain) will serve you well.
So those are two quick Twitter marketing tips for you that don’t require you to spend hours every day following/unfollowing people. Check out part two of this article for my favourite Twitter tip of them all – stay tuned for part 2!
