In my opinion, Twitter is a great platform for musicians to use; you can introduce yourself to new fans, communicate with existing fans, and most importantly build relationships. However, I still find that there are a lot of musicians who are using Twitter ineffectively – I’d even go as far as saying that they use it badly. Very badly.
So, I would like to share with you three of the biggest mistakes that musicians make on Twitter, and how to avoid them:
1. Spamming anyone and everyone with links to your music
This is perhaps the thing that annoys me – and others – the most. It is essentially the Twitter version of spam email, or an unsolicited phone call. If we haven’t even said hello to each other, what makes you think I am going to check out your video/track? It’s slightly different if the Tweet is personalised, but when I go to someone’s Twitter feed and see that they have sent the exact same message to 20, 50, 100 people… it rings alarm bells.
I completely understand that many musicians use Twitter as a way of getting their music out to new people. I get that. But as with anything, you need to familiarise yourself with the etiquette before diving right in.
Introduce yourself and find out more about the person you’re speaking with. Make sure they’re actually going to be interested in your music before you ask them to check it out. Get to know them and have a conversation – yes, it may take longer but it will be more rewarding…. and you won’t get reported as a spammer. Win/win.
2. It’s all about me, me, me
Twitter can be great for promotion and reaching a wider audience – there is no doubt about that whatsoever. One problem that we come across time and time again is when someone’s Twitter feed is filled with “COME TO MY SHOW” or “NEW SINGLE OUT!” and nothing else. If all you’re doing is promoting your product, your music or your show, why is anyone going to continue following or interact with you? The short answer is: they won’t.
Brian Thomson of Thorny Bleeder has a great rule for this: he calls it the 80/20 rule. In other words, 80% of your posts should NOT be promotional, while the other 20% can be promotional. The argument for this is that people won’t mind seeing the promotional messages as you’re not bombarding them with “BUY, BUY, BUY” signals constantly.
Twitter should be more about making personal connections. People buy from people, so if you can create genuine and meaningful connections with the people you follow and who follow you, it is likely (but not guaranteed) that you will sell more music as a result.
3. Ignoring your followers
Quite often, I see musicians who have a lot of followers and they receive a lot of mentions, but don’t actually respond to them. It’s completely understandable that you may be too busy to respond to absolutely everything, but you do need to make an effort to reply to people who are asking you questions or engaging with what you have to say. Otherwise, they are going to feel insignificant and ignored, which is obviously not what we are aiming for on SOCIAL media!
If you’re feeling overwhelmed and unable to respond to all of your tweets, that’s ok. Do what you can and reply to as many as you feel comfortable doing. If you’re not able to respond to them all, send a tweet and thank people for contacting you – let them know that you DO appreciate them, that you are reading their messages but you’re not always able to reply. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than no response at all!
Let’s hear from you!
There are countless other bad habits that musicians (and non-musicians, too) have on Twitter. What are some that really grind your gears, and how would you recommend they combat or avoid them?