Using Twitter For Your Band

ReverbNation.com is connected to the twitter API so that you can tweet right from your dashboard. This is a handy interaction right from your RevNat control room. You can twitter your current chart standings or update your band's followers on a new mp3 or video upload.

ArtistData.com also does the same. Along with so much else with relation to your band's PR. A definite recommendation! Brenden is constantly trying to come up with new things to enhance the site to help bands out.

Also if you have accounts at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, Plurk, and many of the other social networks, consider using FriendFeed to connect them all together. FriendFeed also connects many other networks and now allows pictures, music, and video to be posted. Besides that it is a free service that causes a post from one social network to be echoed across all of the other networks.

Tweetspinner is the service that I mentioned at the first of the page. It is capable of scheduled tweets, follow scripting, and some other powerful tools like intelligent response scripting. The follow scripting is what I'd like to talk about here. It is also the only time I'm going to talk about how to follow someone. Tweetspinner can keyword follow. Meaning you can follow someone if they have recently tweeted about something you are looking for. Especially location. Enter a local city (for me I follow people from Fayetteville, Tulsa, Fort Smith, Bentonville, Springdale, and others). Now what that does is allows them to make the decision to follow you.

This brings me to another situation before I move on to the next service. You don't have to follow back with every one that follows you. You can but eventually you end up bringing on spam bots and others. Besides it is always better to have more followers than you follow back. You can keep up with your friend to follower ratio and make sure it doesn't cause you a TwitterSlap. More on the Twitter Slap in a moment.

Another service that I highly recommend is HootSuite. It gives you control over multiple Twitter accounts as well as FaceBook and other social services all with an easy selection system to choose which account to broadcast from. It can also shorten and track clicks on your links and tell you the last time that link was used from your account or when someone else retweeted it. It also tells you which account (including someone else) that the tweet originated from.

1. Your @username Is Your Calling Card - Attracting followers is an important part of maintaining a highly visible profile. The simplicity of its username system and the ease of following and communicating with a user is one of the advantages of using Twitter. Promoting your @username in an e-mail signature, in fan correspondence, on your band's business cards, and anywhere you'd normally mention a Web presence is helpful. (Sean Combs walks around wearing a black T-shirt with white text that says "@iamdiddy.") Also, interacting with fans through Replies and Direct Messages (DMs) displays a certain level of engagement that can be attractive to anyone considering following your account.

2. Twitter Spontaneously Unlike a blog or website, where it makes some sense to share only the most important news, on Twitter waiting for something really important isn't necessary. If fans are following you, then they want to know anything and everything. Twitter is an easy way for artists to get involved, so your tweets have a very quick and authentic voice that can be a powerful tool from a promotional perspective.

3. Find Your Music's Sweet Spot There are ways that musicians can use Twitter that no other kind of user could take advantage of. Releasing exclusive tracks through Twitter is interesting. Twitter really shines during shared experiences like concerts because people are communicating in real time among a group. If an artist became similarly involved, that would be awesome. We've seen a few artists experiment with displaying live tweets from fans during a show, which is very cool because it makes the audience part of the show.

4. Establish Your Rules of Engagement While direct back-and-forth contact with fans is easy with Twitter, the simple nature of it allows artists to invent their own boundaries. Although Replies are possible on Twitter, they're not expected. This means artists can be as engaged as they want-some are very engaged and others are more reserved. Artists can connect with their fans on a personal, meaningful level but they can also use Twitter to promote a spontaneous concert or share a new track.

It Is Commitment-Free Fans don't need to have a Twitter account to start following a band right away through mobile texting. Twitter can create new accounts over SMS on the fly. For example, anyone can text "follow sirkeystone" to 40404 in the United States and start receiving my updates. This means that a fan who wants to get an artist's updates through text but isn't using the service regularly can easily do so. Bands and musicians can simply tell this to folks during a concert or an interview.

Photo Background courtesy of jdurham Image manipulated with WinGIMP.

A mythical creature that is rumored to appear when ever you do certain things to bring too much attention to you.

One of your no-nos is to just jump in and follow way too many people at once... which really isn't a good thing anyway, but it will gather a lot of followers. Most of them will be bots, but they will follow back. Once you hit 2000 followed and your ratio isn't close to that 2000 mark of followers, your account will get locked automatically.

Another no-no is to post the same links hundreds of times. Actually it won't take even 20. The rule here is to be engaging, talk to others. Join conversations. Follow links yourself then comment and retweet those links. Many people have a habit when they run out of anything linkful or conversational, they will use twitter to ask for blogs to stumbleupon or digg. Or they will post inspirational quotes.

Yet another reason for a Twitter Slap is to use too many hashtags to try to bring attention to your spam. Hash tags should be used sparingly. This system was designed for searches and trend following.

There is no reason under normal use to get a Twitter Slap. What happens under a Slap? Your hash tags are ignored (unlinked and they don't rank) and I have reason to believe that a good ratio of your tweets don't get broadcast to you followers.

Continued abuse of the system will get you banned for suspicious practices. In which case you will get locked out of your account. Not good.

Aside from this, there is a good chance that if you don't behave you will get ignored or even unfollowed by people, even if you don't get a slap or a ban. Twitter is actually pretty generous. Most of your followers aren't.

Again the best thing is to just be yourself.

There are many third party sites dedicated to be of an immense help to anyone needing to find a certain niche market. One trick for a band, would be to find local tweeters and follow them, post some interesting facts about your take on the area, then talk about the band.

The trick is to get locals to start following you because you are local, and you are interesting. You will find that there are several newspapers likely, from your area, that have accounts on twitter and post info there. This could work into your advantage if you have an Electronic Press Kit (EPK) online somewhere. I recommend Reverbnation.com's EPK

I will be listing more than 50 links soon, but here are a few that I use for info when I need some: Please let some of these pages load.

TweetDeck: Make use of TweetDeck, and you can keep different categories of Twitter users separate.

TweeTube: With TweeTube, you can share captured videos on Twitter.

Twitscoop: On Twitscoop, you can learn what's hot on Twitter, and search to see what's going on.

Twitt(url)y: Sort URLs by how frequently they are mentioned in Tweets using Twitt(url)y.

Twubble: Twubble highlights Twitter users who have specific interests.

Twellow: Twellow's Twitter directory offers a Twitter yellow pages.

TweetChannel: Create Twitter channels to monitor through TweetChannel.

Twits Like Me: Twits Like Me will allow you to find related users.

WeFollow: Check out WeFollow to find users based on interest.

Twitter Packs: Twitter Packs offers an organized listing of Twitter users in a variety of different categories.

Nearby Tweets: Check out Nearby Tweets to seek out local Twitter users.

Atlas: Use Atlas to see tweets on a map.

GeoFollow: Using the GeoFollow directory, you'll be able to find users in specific areas.

CityTweets: See real time Twitter activity for cities on CityTweets.

Twittervision: Check out Twittervision for real-time geographic tweets.

TwitterLocal: On TwitterLocal, you can find tweets in a designated location.

Localtweeps: Check out Localtweeps to find Twitter users near you.

First never follow more people than you can get to follow you back. You are limited on your ratio of how many followers versus followed you have from your account. Many tricks have been tried, still the best is just to be yourself and follow only those who seem to be genuinely following you for your accounts sake.

Be link-less. The more you can say without adding a link, especially a spam-ish link. The more personal you make the link the better. Never say the link is one thing then point some where else.

Now as far as quality links, there are a good deal many people will follow your links when you offer good advice, etc. Your fans or even prospective fans are going to be skeptical of the links. So like everything else, you will have to fine tune your 140 character spiel so that it 'sells' what you want them to see.

If you just post a regular reverbnation stat or a constant link to your myspace or facebook page, people may even stop following you on twitter, not just not following your links. If you have something big to say, post a blog then link to it a couple of times, don't just keep bothering people.

Your Fans Really Do Care What You're Doing
Believe it or not, if you've been making music for a while, you've probably accumulated a not-insignificant group of fans who are interested in what you do on a daily basis. These are the fans that download all your songs (whether you want them to or not), go to all your shows and buy all your t-shirts. Every band has these, no matter how long you've been around or how bad your music is. These are the people that you can cater to with Twitter.

I suggest updating at least twice a day. Once when you get up you should post what you're going to be doing that day, whether or not it's related to your music, and once when your day is done to let them know how it went. Believe me, if Cedric and Omar from The Mars Volta or Daft Punk were on Twitter, you better believe I would be following them and would get super excited whenever they updated, even if it was just to let me know that they were eating a bowl of Cheerios.

Promoting Your Shows
Twitter can be an extremely effective promotional tool because you can ask people to come to your shows on several different occasions. If you are booking a tour, I suggest updating on Twitter when the dates are finalized and linking to the posted dates on your web site. Also, the day before the show, as well as the day of, you can update reminding everyone to come out to see you.

If you have enough fans and followers, you could make them feel extra special by having exclusive shows or after-parties that you only mention on Twitter. Once your fans find out that you are having these secret events, they will start following you on Twitter, thereby increasing your reach.

Take Requests
Since Twitter makes it so easy to interact with your fans, why not ask them what they want to hear when they come to your show? Maybe you've been neglecting to play an old fan favorite. Twitter is an easy way to find out what your fans want to hear, straight from the source. All they have to do is either direct message you or reply to you using the @ symbol.

Twitter-Exclusive Downloads
Say thank you to your biggest fans by giving your Twitter followers the heads up on exclusive new songs and videos. Posting a link on Twitter and NOT your web site says that you really value your fans enough to give them something special. Of course, once word gets out that you have a new song available for download, your non-Twittering fans will download it, but your Twitter followers will feel special because you gave them the heads up first.

Get Instant Feedback
Not sure if that hook you're writing is trash or gold? Post a clip on Twitter and if you have enough followers, you'll get instant feedback in minutes! Jason Calacanis, founder of Weblogs Inc. and Mahalo, uses it to get feedback on new designs for Mahalo. Sure, you could say that the fans should have no impact on the music you make, but if you want, you have an instant focus group that has your best interests at heart, wants you to succeed and would love to have you take their feedback into consideration.

Twitter-Exclusive Contests
This falls along the same lines as taking requests via Twitter, except it's more fun. You could create a contest in which they plug your new song or upcoming show in one of their updates and that enters them into a drawing where the winner gets free tickets to an upcoming show in their area. You get free promotion, they get to come to your show for free and their followers check out your new song. It's a win-win for everyone involved.

This is really just scratching the surface of how musicians can leverage Twitter to build their brand, increase their audience and get more people to hear their music. I'm sure as time goes on and more and more bands adopt Twitter the way they did MySpace, we'll see some really innovative ways to use Twitter, but these ideas should be enough to get you started. Good luck and follow me on Twitter!

Article Courtesy of Ryan Gutierrez

Ryan Gutierrez is a technology expert, specializing in internet marketing.

When Twitter first emerged, I was one of many people who greeted it with significant skepticism. After all, why should anyone want to sift through an endless array of comments about how satisfied a complete stranger was by their breakfast/shower/airbag? However, now that Twitter has gained a larger audience, it seems to be an ideal platform for bands to connect with potential fans.

Fascination Tweet
If you have never even heard of Twitter, you are probably not from the USA and/or don't do much online social networking. Basically, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform - you write small 'tweets' that can be about anything you like, within a 140 character limit. You can also 'follow' other Twitterers, so that their tweets appear as a sort of feed on your own page.

The key to a good Twitter initiation is probably in who you choose to follow. Because the barrier to posting is so low, you can tweet the smallest thoughts or observations, or quickly share a link that caught your interest. If you follow someone who is doing interesting things, then these glimpses into their daily life can be very revealing (on the other hand, if you follow someone who only documents how many times they floss, the rewards may be somewhat less, unless you're a dentist).

Where The Tweets Have No Name
Twitter is in many ways a slimmed-down version of blogging, where tweet-feeds are a streamlined form of RSS. As such, it's a very fast way of getting information from and to large numbers of people - even from your mobile phone.

It's very easy to find and follow people on Twitter - and equally easy to unfollow them if you change your mind. This means that tweets flow quickly, and connections form just as quickly. Whereas a blog post requires quite a bit of time and effort, a tweet can be a throwaway comment - but somehow the cumulative effect of a tweet stream has considerable appeal.

Twitter for Musicians
So how can bands leverage this new system? Ariel Hyatt (Twitter id @CyberPR) posted an introduction to Twitter for musicians over at Music Think Tank. This is preceded by an interesting piece on the general Twitter environment by Laura Fitton, who is one of the Twitterati - a celebrity in the sphere of social networking.

These are two people who 'get' Twitter, and have had success in using it to further both their business and social lives. The case for using social networking to promote your band/brand is compelling, and will certainly be essential in the years to come - so don't waste any time getting on board, at least to test the waters. If you feel like keeping up with the world of music technology on Twitter, I will be using @podcomplex and @musictechnology to explore this arena.

Up to now, you have read everyone elses take on using Twitter for your band. Here's my $0.02...

Chances are you are just getting started with this. You might get 20 or 30 followers the first week, which is a good ratio. Don't add followers too fast. Getting them too fast could get your account locked for suspicious practices.

Also, about the sites that tweet your every move? Those 20 or 30 followers will unfollow you if they don't hear new, interesting, and relevant news. They followed you for what you offered. If you turn your account into a spam account, they will not hesitate to remove your spam from their twitterstream.

All of that said, I use one awesome site as a tool for updating my personal and band twitter accounts. hootsuite not only is a handy interface for tweeting from, it allows you to broadcast from all of your accounts at once, or one at a time, or anything in between. You could also schedule your tweets for the day.

The former attribute is cool because twitter's peak time for response by other twitterers is from 10 AM to 5 PM which is out of my range, because I can't access from work. So I have started setting up my tweets the night before.

I also use a killer new system called TWEETspinner It has following scripts and scheduled tweeting as well as a rotating upload for profiles and profile page layouts. They are adding new features every week and with a paid subscription you can have multiple accounts and well the features really increase exponentially. I definitely recommend these guys!

Your links can also be monetized by setting up a profile at LinkBEE.com This is a link shortening service that makes a flash page or a banner at the top of the page for a brief moment. And it may not seem like much money, but, if you were advertising on two or three accounts and people were retweeting good links, your money would add up quickly.

The downside of LinkBee is that people tend to run from a site that has a jump page, which is how you make money from LinkBEE. They put an interstitial page up for 5 seconds then redirect to the site you posted. It could loose potential readers.

Also for making money with Twitter, Magpie is an interesting thought. They now have four different kinds of advertising that you can make money from. They are simple link ads and no redirects. And you can choose the kind of ads that they post from your account.

The downside of Magpie is, they will suspend your account (like they did mine) for scheduled tweets, which they call illegal and they said it was against their TOS to use "robot" services. Because of this I'm leaving this up for you to decide, but I have even unfollowed their twitter account and will not be doing any further business with them.

My experience with them was also tainted because of the 2 months I spent with them I only was selected for 3 ads to run on my account. I never made any real money with them.

So in the end, the best bet is to just be yourself. monetizing your links doesn't work very well. Your energy could be better spent toward designing ETSY/CafePress/Zazzle products for your band and advertising them yourself on Twitter.