Why every band should use Twitter more!

Monday, January 19th, 2009
by Mark Carras

So you are in a band, a press agent, work for a label, or have some part in the music industry and want to know why the hell you should care about this thing called Twitter eh? Well, the first thing you must know is that the power of Twitter is in it’s simplicity. It is a messaging service, but from a perspective that most do not have.

Who’s already on Twitter? Musicians like Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, MC Hammer, Patrick Wilson of Weezer, and many more. Legendary actors like Levar Burton (Actor – Kunta Kinte, Geordi La Forge, Host of Reading Rainbow), Janina Gavankar (plays Papi on The L Word, Ms. Dewey the search engine), Brea Grant (plays Daphne Millbrook on Heroes, Season 3, and was on Friday Night Lights), Greg Grunberg (plays Matt Parkman on Heroes and previously Eric Weiss on Alias), David Hewlett (plays Rodney on Stargate Atlantis, goofs off online), Kate Hewlett (sister of David Hewlett, co-starred in the movie A Dog’s Breakfast, guest appearances on Stargate Atlantis), David H. Lawrence XVII (Plays Eric Doyle on Heroes), Michael Pennie (Earl TV show writer), Richard Roeper (columnist and film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, and former co-host of “At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper”, William Shatner, Wil Wheaton, Stephen Fry of BlackAdder, and many more I don’t care to write out. Even President-elect Barack Obama used Twitter as one of the ways to get the vote out for his campaign! It helped lead our country to it’s first black president. If that’s not enough to convince you I don’t know what will. CNN & the BBC are even starting to integrate Twitter into their broadcasts so get with the program already!

So why is Twitter getting so big so quick? Well, it is a way to get a message out very quickly. Where as an email list only works if spam filters don’t block it, twitter is an opt in service so your message always gets out. Where as email has to wait until the person gets to it, Twitter users can accept their Twitter messages through SMS text messages, instant messenger, email, as well as their own Twitter profiles. So if the band is about to go on some live show they can send out a message to their fans and have an unannounced event suddenly have thousands of people flood in online, tv, radio, or whatever else. Got a “Secret Show” for a major band at a small club? Wait until 30 minutes before the show and send a Twitter message directly to the band’s fans.

Now for smaller more unknown bands things get a little more tricky. Where as some major rockstar might be able to get away with sending Twitter messages about eating breakfast at some cafe in the middle of nowhere, you might loose followers that way. Try to keep it to band related info only. Got a show to announce? Make sure and send a reminder on the day of show as well since many will forget. Going into the studio to record your next cd? Updates once a day at most might make for some great “content” fans will want to read. The second your cd is available you can send a Twitter message to let everyone know. Imagine some small unsigned band getting a few hundred sales in one day because they didn’t wait until each fan felt like going to their website or MySpace page. Twitter goes to their mobile phone too, so it’s instant!

One of the biggest mistakes band’s make is not following the fans back. If all you have is people who follow you, it looks bad. It is proper etiquette to follow people back. Especially your own fans!

Now for some words of caution.  There are many you should never follow back. Be aware of scammers, spammers, and lowlifes! They are very easy to detect. If they are following tons more people than are following them back there is probably a reason. 99% of the people who have the terms SEO, marketer, or blogger on their bio should be approached with loads of skepticism. If someone fits more than one of these, don’t bother following them back. They are not worth your time. If they have one of those potentially shady items in their bio, but their followers and following numbers are pretty close they might be able to help you.

Honestly I could probably write an entire book on ways band’s can use Twitter, things bands should do on Twitter, and things they should avoid on Twitter, but this is a blog post that has already gone on way longer than I prefer my updates to be. If anyone has any questions they can contact me on Twitter or make a comment below. I hope this helps some of you and make sure and follow me on Twitter. I am pretty active on there.

http://twitter.com/MarkCarras