My advice to indie musicians about Twitter

I think Twitter is a phenomenal vehicle for interacting directly with the world, especially your fans, and your future fans.

My advice to you is the following:

1. Tweet links to your songs that people can play.

2. Tweet links to your music videos.

3. Tweet about upcoming gigs.

4. If you would like to get mp3's of your music circulating out there, tweet links to free downloads when available.

5. Be interactive with people who show an interest in you; don't be a stiff.

6. If you think that as a "creative" person you're too busy to do what I just suggested... revise your thinking.

7. If you think all you need to do is get signed with a label, and then they can take care of everything for you... revise your thinking. The record companies are out for them, not you.

8. When you tweet your music, DON'T (a) address your tweets to any specific person or (b) send direct messages... that would be s.p.a.m. [unless you are actually engaged in actual dialogue with them]

9. If you want to connect with other people tweeting about your type of music, use "search" to find them, and follow them if you like what they tweet.

10. When you tweet about your music, consider using hashtags to make it easier for people searching for your type of music to find you. [E.g., if you are a jazz guitarist you could use hashtags #music #jazz #guitar, whereas if you're a gospel vocalist you might want to try #music #gospel #spiritual]

11. Think of twitter as a place to interact with, and hang out with, your fans, and to show interest in, and respect of, others... not as a place to just keep promoting yourself and tooting your own horn. Some examples of great musician peeps, who treat their fans like friends, not "fans", are @zoecello, @amandapalmer, and @marysarahmusic.

Any questions? Post them in a comment to this post, and I'll try to answer them.

Any additional twitter tips for indie musicians? Post them in a comment, and I'll select some for inclusion below.

Additional tips [most recent first]:

5/10/11 4:25 pm tip from @rob_t_firefly: Avoid the temptation to just hook your Facebook or similar to Twitter, let it pull down your posts into Tweets, and think "okay, I'm on Twitter" and leave it at that. Most Twitter users will not be pulled in by posts they could see elsewhere; if they wanted your Facebook they'd probably be following your Facebook. Tweeting your Facebook posts, Youtube uploads, or whatever else is a good thing to add to a Twitter presence, but it's not the only ingredient in itself.


1/11/11 5:04 pm tip from @GraceRodriguez: Use a tool like Hootsuite, CoTweet or Tweetdeck to schedule reminders for upcoming gigs or links to merch/music for sale.
Since Twitter is a constant info-stream, you can't expect people to see every single tweet..... just make sure you inject your personality into it so it doesn't become spammy [note from RB: I use SocialOomph to schedule time delayed tweets. Also sometimes Tweetdeck Desktop]


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How to find info thru Twitter: lesson I learned from Leslie (@1txsage1957), Libero (@ldellapiana), & Eric (@ebrooks)

Sometimes people comment about my ability to find important news and information that is not available elsewhere.

I really learned this skill from 3 people on Twitter who were here before me: Leslie (@1txsage1957), Libero (@ldellapiana), and Eric (@ebrooks)

I noticed that they were coming up with news stories that were simply not available to me in the mainstream media.

From their work I learned that Twitter was a great tool for finding the news that's hard to find.

I started (a) doing keyword searches for topics that were of interest, & following the people I found who tweeted good material, (b) following people who were retweeted consistently, and (c) following the RSS feeds of some of the more interesting websites to which my tweets had led me. These made twitter a powerful tool for finding the stuff that doesn't make it into the mainstream media and the mainstream history books.

I learned the importance of this firsthand in 2004, when I was basically an eyewitness to massive election fraud taking place in Ohio during the presidential election. The Ohio media were reporting on it, but the mainstream national media had adopted a "company line", creating a fictionalized version of what had occurred. I assume they did so because they thought the American people "can't handle the truth".

In 2009 the US "mainstream media" suppressed information about the all important protests of the indigenous rainforest peoples of Peru, who were standing up against their government's illegal attempt to confiscate most of the remaining Peruvian rainforest for the benefit of oil and other mineral exploration interests. These humble people were waging a struggle not just for themselves but for all mankind. Not a single mainstream US media source covered the story. Had they been covering it, the bloodshed which ensued -- a massacre which appeared to include the hunting of unarmed people with machine guns from helicopters supplied to Peru by the US -- might have been averted. The only major media coverage of the protests was in the UK.

Only after the massacre had ensued, did the US media give any coverage, and it was slight, begrudging, and falsely reported.

So I continue to look for the real news. And Twitter helps me do it.

And I can thank Leslie, Libero, and Eric for showing me the way.

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