So let’s talk Twitter.  Twitter is a free micro-blogging tool that allows you to create messages of 140-characters or less.  It is a great tool for community building, self-promotion (yes those are two different things), and actively engaging fans in your brand.

1. Broadcast promotional material.

Twitter was not created as a Press Release System.  Some users employ twitter as a tool for one-way broadcasting.  Please don’t do this.  Social media is about creating a relationship with your community.  I want to connect to you, not promo tweets written by your marketing team.

Interact with people on Twitter that are interested in you, your product, or your field.  Use @ replies and Retweets to build relationships.  People often wonder “why is no one tweeting me?” or “why isn’t anyone writing on my wall?”  The answer is almost always because you haven’t invited them to.  Ask a question.  You’ll be amazed.  No one is going to interact with you without being invited to, unless your audience is 13-year-old-girls… and you are the Jonas Brothers.

2. Use a username with “gurl”, “hot”, “boi” or any variation thereof.

This isn’t your AIM screen name from high school, so resist the temptation of a “prettypony6794” or “monkeysRcrazy4242”.  Be consistent with your brand and choose something that people will easily identify as you.  You can change your display name in Settings without creating a new account. (acceptable options: your name, band, gallery, company, etc.)

Internet rural (Credit: Caliaetu on Flickr)

3. Only tweet at night.

Most artists work weird hours.  But keep in mind that a high percentage of Twitter users are on a 9-5 work schedule and that is when you are going to get the most visibility.  This doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything at night, but save a large percentage of your tweets for the day, when you will be most likely to elicit a response.

4. Tweetflooding.

Also known as spamming.  Your 30 tweets about The Real Housewives of New Jersey are unappreciated and unnecessary.  Overtweeting is a good way to get unfollowed.  Also, people are less likely to want to interact if you are overwhelming them.  Think before you post.  Exceptions: If you are live-blogging an event like a conference or breaking news story, it is acceptable to tweetflood as long as you use #hashtags.  Find out what hashtag other people are using and add it to your tweets to help connect with other people talking about the same thing.

5. Miss out on conversation.

I see this all the time and it kills me.  If someone is talking about you or something that you are knowledgable and passionate about, you should be right there in the conversation.

• Use Twellow to connect to other people in your industry.
• Set up alerts on Tweetbeep and Google Alerts so that you know whenever someone mentions you, your brand, or something you are interested in.
• Check out Tweetmeme for what links people are most talking about.

In my last post, you learned that no one cares how good you are if they don’t know who you are. Social media literacy is an essential skill for all artists to master. And by social media literacy, I don’t mean being able to create a facebook event, or tweet about your breakfast, or add friends on Myspace. My 10-year-old cousin can do that. I mean being able to effectively use social media to self-promote and create a lasting, active community that will continue to support you.

When using any social media tool, there are 5 important rules to follow:

1. Don’t lead with tools, lead with relationships. You aren’t going to get anywhere by blindly twittering promotional material 20 times a day. In fact, that’s probably a pretty good way to annoy your fans. Instead of looking at these tools as a platform solely for spewing content, think of them as a way to get involved in the conversation of your community. Amanda Palmer, lead singer for the Dresden Dolls, is a great example of what an artist should strive for. In May, she made $11,000 in one night. She twittered her fellow “Losers of Friday Night” (fans who had decided not to go out on a friday), got together a group of people to hang out on the internet, chatted about stuff, made a t-shirt on the spot about the stuff they were chatting about, and sold over 400 shirts in the next few days. That is how you harness the power of a community.


Great Big Sea (Photo Credit: Cindy Funk on Flickr)

2. Use tools as an aide to build community. When you are an artist, community is everything. It is your bread and butter and if your fans are not strong and loyal, you will not survive. You do not have to be a household name to be successful if you have a strong community. Have you heard about Great Big Sea? Probably not. They are a Canadian celtic-rock band. Last summer I went to one of their concerts and then saw the Backstreet Boys the following weekend at the same venue (don’t judge!). Can you guess which concert was sold out and which one wasn’t? It’s hard to believe, but a Canadian celtic-rock band actually beat the Backstreet Boys in ticket sales. Great Big Sea enjoys consistently sold out concerts because they have an active fan base that will travel thousands of miles to see them and they recognize the power of having this community. An example: their website is titled “The Community of Great Big Sea.”
3. Tell your story. You want to use social media to connect and engage with your audience on a personal level. There’s an Indian Proverb that goes: “Tell me a fact, I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. Tell me a story and it’ll live in my heart forever.” People remember stories, so why not tell yours? And I don’t mean a stale bio that you find on all these artists’ websites. I mean something personal, written by you, about you, that readers will want to tell other people. One interesting and memorable anecdote or fact makes it easier for your fans to promote you. I can’t count how many times I’ve bragged that Lady Gaga was one of 20 applicants accepted into Tisch early decision ever.
4. Create an incentive for users to come back. There was a Mashable post a few weeks ago about 5 great Facebook fan pages. They all had one thing in common: original content. You want to make content that is not available elsewhere. We yearn to be on the inside, getting the “exclusive sneak peek”. Make your fans feel special and give them something they can’t get anywhere else.
5. Don’t sign yourself up for more than you can maintain. Having 8 different profiles on various media platforms won’t do any good for you unless they are all well developed and updated frequently. If you have enough time to maintain 8 accounts, then that’s great. However, if you are an artist, you probably are busy working on your, you know, art. Focus your time on one or two platforms (using points 1-4). And don’t ever hire someone to maintain your profiles. There is nothing that will make you look more out of touch with social media. Your fans want to connect with you, not your 20-year-old intern. The whole point is to engage people, and you can’t do that if you are spread across eight different platforms or aren’t even using the tools.

Building community, making a personal connection, and actively engaging your audience is not only important, it is necessary to set yourself apart from everybody else. Be authentic and be yourself.

Originally published on StillIndie.com