10 Reasons Why Every Musician Should Join Twitter Now
Overwhelmed with maintaining your MySpace page, blog, podcast, e-mail, website, tour updates and everything else online to promote yourself? Twitter is an ingenious solution that will give your fans more of you and it takes less than 3 minutes a day to stay on top of everything without your computer! I'm just back from summer vacation where I spent a relaxing 11 days in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest right after having attended Gnomedex07.
At Gnomedex, I learned A LOT about Web 2.
0, social networking and blogging and my next several editions of Sound Advice will focus on things I learned.
I became a Twitter convert not only because it's written in Ruby on RAILS just like Cyber PR but also because well, its more addictive than potato chips...
And, I can already see how it directly impacts my business.
Case & Point: last week I met Alex Williams of Podcast Hotel because he saw I was sending tweets from Portland (where he lives).
He got in touch with me and the next day we were having breakfast discussing how indie artists should all get involved with Podcast Hotel! So, what is Twitter? Here is what the Twitter site says: "Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you're doing.
For some friends you might want instant mobile updates-for others, you can just check the web.
Invite your friends to Twitter and decide how connected you want you to be.
" It's a social networking tool that takes less than 5 minutes to sign up to...
Create a username and profile (go to mine to see and add me): twitterdotcom/cyberpr Invite friends to join and start sending tweets which answer one simple question: What are you doing? Twitter a few times a day about what you are up to and watch your cult following spread.
Look through your friends' Twitter friend lists (much like you did to build your MySpace friends) and soon enough you will be following loads of people.
TOP: They don't have to accept you to follow you back, and the great part is you can follow like 50 people but be followed by hundreds or thousands of people! So why should you, my dear indie musician, care? At first it seems a little trite or weird but soon enough you will be part of a community and by just seeing their tweets you can keep on top of what everyone is doing on a daily basis.
I have my tweets posted on my Firefox browser using a cool little app called Twitbin, and I watch my posts all day long as I work without having to log on.
To me, blogging has been a bit daunting, only because it takes time and total dedication to be consistent OK - so here's why Twitter is important and imperative for you as an indie musician to join immediately: It's free & very easy to join! It will help you build your brand almost instantly & It's much easier to stay current with than a blog because all you need to do is "tweet" small texts (the140 character limit ensures that you won't blather on).
Use it to stay in touch with fans, fellow musicians, and friends all at the same time.
Your fan base will feel more connected to you, like they are interacting directly with you.
And, bonus...
you don't have to follow everyone who follows you ;) Text message tweets to your entire list from your phone, so when you are on the road you can easily send updates to numerous people without a computer or an Internet connection.
You can tweet quirky or mundane things that happen to you in real-time...
Take a photo of your lunch, create a tiny URL http://www.
tinyurl.
com/, and and before that burrito is finished you will be sharing it with your entire community.
It's an amazing way to quickly connect with lots of people - it's like people chips! What do I mean? OK, I love and respect a lot of podcasters and there are dozens of podcasts that I like to listen to, but some weeks I don't have enough free hours to listen to all of the updates - but I still feel like I am keeping up with everyone via their Tweets.
Twitter gives you customizable and cool "badges" which are widgets that you can drop onto your MySpace & Facebook pages as well as onto other websites so all of you fans can join and follow you from multiple platforms outside of Twitter.
com.
In other words: Update your websites every single day without paying your webmaster a dime! That's right - stick a Twitter badge on your site and tweet regularly - it will keep your fans coming back for more.
If you get overwhelmed with the tweets coming into your phone, you can turn text messages off and use your phone to tweet out only.
Catch up on your IM, Firefox browser (using Twitbin) or on your band homepage, MySpace, Facebook etc.
only when you want to.
Web 2.
0 is HERE NOW and its all about social networking and Twitter is the easiest of all of the current social netwoking apps to use because you don't need to be in front of a computer to be part of the social networking revolution! And here are two great articles on it if you would still like more convincing...
Wired Magazine http://www.
wired.
com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-07/st_thompson The Guardian http://www.
guardian.
co.
uk/technology/2007/mar/15/media.
newmedia
At Gnomedex, I learned A LOT about Web 2.
0, social networking and blogging and my next several editions of Sound Advice will focus on things I learned.
I became a Twitter convert not only because it's written in Ruby on RAILS just like Cyber PR but also because well, its more addictive than potato chips...
And, I can already see how it directly impacts my business.
Case & Point: last week I met Alex Williams of Podcast Hotel because he saw I was sending tweets from Portland (where he lives).
He got in touch with me and the next day we were having breakfast discussing how indie artists should all get involved with Podcast Hotel! So, what is Twitter? Here is what the Twitter site says: "Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you're doing.
For some friends you might want instant mobile updates-for others, you can just check the web.
Invite your friends to Twitter and decide how connected you want you to be.
" It's a social networking tool that takes less than 5 minutes to sign up to...
Create a username and profile (go to mine to see and add me): twitterdotcom/cyberpr Invite friends to join and start sending tweets which answer one simple question: What are you doing? Twitter a few times a day about what you are up to and watch your cult following spread.
Look through your friends' Twitter friend lists (much like you did to build your MySpace friends) and soon enough you will be following loads of people.
TOP: They don't have to accept you to follow you back, and the great part is you can follow like 50 people but be followed by hundreds or thousands of people! So why should you, my dear indie musician, care? At first it seems a little trite or weird but soon enough you will be part of a community and by just seeing their tweets you can keep on top of what everyone is doing on a daily basis.
I have my tweets posted on my Firefox browser using a cool little app called Twitbin, and I watch my posts all day long as I work without having to log on.
To me, blogging has been a bit daunting, only because it takes time and total dedication to be consistent OK - so here's why Twitter is important and imperative for you as an indie musician to join immediately: It's free & very easy to join! It will help you build your brand almost instantly & It's much easier to stay current with than a blog because all you need to do is "tweet" small texts (the140 character limit ensures that you won't blather on).
Use it to stay in touch with fans, fellow musicians, and friends all at the same time.
Your fan base will feel more connected to you, like they are interacting directly with you.
And, bonus...
you don't have to follow everyone who follows you ;) Text message tweets to your entire list from your phone, so when you are on the road you can easily send updates to numerous people without a computer or an Internet connection.
You can tweet quirky or mundane things that happen to you in real-time...
Take a photo of your lunch, create a tiny URL http://www.
tinyurl.
com/, and and before that burrito is finished you will be sharing it with your entire community.
It's an amazing way to quickly connect with lots of people - it's like people chips! What do I mean? OK, I love and respect a lot of podcasters and there are dozens of podcasts that I like to listen to, but some weeks I don't have enough free hours to listen to all of the updates - but I still feel like I am keeping up with everyone via their Tweets.
Twitter gives you customizable and cool "badges" which are widgets that you can drop onto your MySpace & Facebook pages as well as onto other websites so all of you fans can join and follow you from multiple platforms outside of Twitter.
com.
In other words: Update your websites every single day without paying your webmaster a dime! That's right - stick a Twitter badge on your site and tweet regularly - it will keep your fans coming back for more.
If you get overwhelmed with the tweets coming into your phone, you can turn text messages off and use your phone to tweet out only.
Catch up on your IM, Firefox browser (using Twitbin) or on your band homepage, MySpace, Facebook etc.
only when you want to.
Web 2.
0 is HERE NOW and its all about social networking and Twitter is the easiest of all of the current social netwoking apps to use because you don't need to be in front of a computer to be part of the social networking revolution! And here are two great articles on it if you would still like more convincing...
Wired Magazine http://www.
wired.
com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-07/st_thompson The Guardian http://www.
guardian.
co.
uk/technology/2007/mar/15/media.
newmedia
Source...