Find Twitter Followers

The first thing Twitter newbies always ask is “How do I find followers?” My best advice I can give you is to follow as many people as you can. A large percentage of them will follow you back. Many “tweeps” (twitter + peeps, get it?) even have it set up to automatically follow back everyone. But increasing your following count is only worth it if those followers are interested in what you have to offer.

Before you go following just anyone, seek out “twolks” (twitter + folks) who have the same interests as you. The way to do this is to use Twitter search. Enter keywords, such as your favorite band names, local venue names, favorite TV shows, etc. Anything that people who are like you would be tweeting about. Then click through those search results and follow as many of them as you can. The ones that return the follow will be more likely to read and follow your tweets because you share a similar interest.

Here’s a tip to make this process easier: Do a search in twitter, then click on “Feed for this query”. Add this search results page to your RSS reader (my reader of choice is Google Reader). Then click through the feed once or twice a week to constantly add relevant Twitter friends to your following.

The powerful Twitter app, TweetDeck, also makes the process of searching for followers very easy.  Check out this in-depth article on TweetDeck for Power-Twitter users.

Turn your Twitter Following into you Band’s Following

Finding followers is only half the game. You must be an active tweeter to maximize your impact. You want to convert your twitter followers to followers of your band. The way to do that is to post regular and interesting tweets, and engage your followers with replies and direct messages.

Ask questions, reply to other tweets, Re-tweet (RT) others to show your active support for your followers. Make your tweets interesting, funny, controversial, valuable… Anything to draw a response or re-tweet.

Tweet links to your band’s website or blog. Tweet about new songs, new gig announcements, and other band happenings. But don’t make this your only Twitter content. You must engage others directly and vary your tweets among any subject or mood that strikes you. Your promotional links should only be a small percentage of your tweets. The more people know you and pay attention to you, the more likely they are to click on your promotional links when you do post them.

Useful Twitter Tools

tweetlater.com – set up tweets to go out at a scheduled time.

tweetdeck.com – a very useful and advanced twitter client.

snipurl.com – Not only a URL shortening service, but a way to track how many people click yourlinks.

hootsuite.com – a power packed web-based twitter client, including link tracking.

blip.fm – tweet the music you’re currently listening to!

twitip.com – a fantastic blog about all things twitter.

Follow me on Twitter! @Casjam

By the way, Happy 311 Day! They’re one of my all-time favorite bands.  And they’re on twitter too!  @311

I bet a bunch of you are asking “what the hell is a ReverbNation?” ReverbNation is a social networking site for people interested in music. Now you’re probably saying “Isn’t MySpace based on music too and like, 1000 times the size of ReverbNation?” True, MySpace is heavily involved in music, however it doesn’t even come close to providing the kinds of services and opportunities for bands that RN does. MySpace does the basics, you can host a blog, post videos and pictures, put music on your page, and interact with people by adding them to your friends and messaging them. That’s about it. ReverbNation does all of that, does most of it better than MySpace, and then does a ton more on top of that.

The internet has obviously become one of the most important aspects of a band’s promotional agenda. However not every band can afford to hire a seasoned web master or has an internet-guru for a best friend to hook them up with free help on their web needs. That’s where ReverbNation comes in. They’re like the web-savvy best friend you never had, and they’re offering you all kinds of free help.

In order to get the most out of ReverbNation the first step is obviously signing up. Registration is free, and after that there is a little progress bar in the right hand corner of your home page (called the control room) to show you what parts of your profile are still missing. There are also a lot of FAQs and video tutorials so you should be able to get the hang of everything pretty quickly.

Once you figure out your way around the site the next obvious thing to do is put up some content. You don’t have to go crazy and post every demo recording you’ve ever done, just make sure that once you start getting people to check out your profile there is something exciting waiting for them when they get there. That should seem pretty intuitive to you, since the profile page is the basis for every social network out there you probably have some experience setting one up by now. After you’re profile is done it’s time to really start digging in and using ReverbNation for the powerful tools it offers. This is where I’m hoping to help guide you to get the most out of RN with a minimal amount of trail and error on your part.

The biggest advantage for using ReverbNation as the foundation for your web presence is how interconnected its services are. Because everything is being supplied by one provider they can link different features to each other, making each one more powerful in the process. Taking advantage of this connectivity is the fastest way put ReverbNation to work for you.

For me the most important service to set up would be the “Fan Reach” mailing list. If you already have your mailing list hosted by someone else I’d seriously think about switching over because once you have your mailing list on RN it makes a lot of other services on the site more powerful and effective for you. I’d send out one last e-mail from your old mailing list letting everyone know that you’re going to be switching providers for your mailing list, and that they will be getting a confirmation e-mail asking them to approve that they want to be added to the new list.

ReverbNation has fairly strict anti-spam measures put in place, which can sometimes feel like a hinderance. However abusing your fan’s trust is probably the most effective way of destroying your audience, so if you’re running into issues try to remember ReverbNation is most likely doing you a favor in the long run.

The reason I said to e-mail your fans from your old mailing list one last time to let them know you’re switching services is because one of the anti-spam features ReverbNation has in place requires all new contacts to “opt-in” to your list. This means that before you can e-mail someone that you’ve added to your mailing list by hand, one of two things has to happen. The first is that the new contact clicks “confirm” in a confirmation e-mail they get in their inbox, at which point they are added to the mailing list. Don’t worry though, if some of your fans are worthless and don’t check their e-mail on a regular basis the second way they get added is if there is no response after a 72 hour quarantine period. I know that it seems like a big process just to add someone to your mailing list, but in the long run it means you wind up with a lot less people putting your band’s e-mail address in their spam filter and a much more realistic perspective of who actually wants to hear from you.

One of the other benefits of the opt-in process is that it prompts the people signing up to enter information about themselves, like their birth date, gender, and location, which you can use to filter your contacts. Not only that, but you can also create groups for your contacts as well. This allows you to target your fans only with the messages they want to hear. If you’re releasing a new shirt or tank top for your female fans, you can filter your addresses to only message the girls on your list. If you’re playing a show in Belle Mead, NJ (where I’m from, come say hi if you are) you can message all the fans within a certain number of miles of zip code 08502 (the zip code for Belle Mead, NJ). If you usually play bars that are 21+ you can make sure to e-mail all your under-age fans when you’re playing an all-ages show by filtering your contacts by how old they are.

While those filters are a big help, in reality not everyone is going to enter their information for you, and I think that being able to let your fans in specific areas know when you’re coming back to play near them is probably the most important filtering option to have. To address this I’ve also created groups in our mailing list that are based on location. For instance our last show was in New York City, so when I was adding all the addresses that we got on our clipboard after the show, I made sure to tag them all with our “Tri-State Area” group label as well. It’s really easy, just click the check box that says “add these people to group [group name]” when you’re submitting the addresses and all of those new contacts will also get added to the group. That way when you’re looking to contact people about future shows in their area you’ll have two different filters in place to help make sure they get the message even if they don’t put the zip code in when they click confirm.

Another thing I’ve found helpful is hanging on to the mailing list papers you have people sign at gigs, because if someone never clicks “confirm” in the subscription e-mail they get you won’t have any information for them besides their e-mail address. If you still have the paper they signed at the show after the 72 hour quarantine period, you can go back and at least add first names, last names, and most likely genders if it’s easy to guess based on their name, for the people who didn’t fill in any of their own information. Also you can put in the zip code of the venue they saw you at since you don’t have their exact zip code, but if you’ve got them tagged with the geographic groups like I mentioned in the last paragraph you don’t have to.

Ok, so now that your profile is setup and your mailing list has been transferred over to “Fan Reach,” it’s time to take advantage of the connectivity I was talking about earlier to use other aspects of your ReverbNation profile to enhance the value of your mailing list, and visa versa. The next part of this post will go over using widgets, graphic/text links, and “Fan-Exclusives” to drive more people to subscribe to your mailing list, and then will finish with some tips to help speed up the composition process when it’s time to send out your first message from your “Fan Reach” mailing list.

Check out the newly redesigned website for rock star, Chris Cornell.  Aside from being a cool and clean design, it truly embraces social media websites and makes them the centerpiece of his web presence.  Right on the home page, you have an integrated twitter feed (it appears Chris is an active twitterer), headlines from his blog, and links to his myspace, facebook, and youtube pages.  Rock on.

Finding success as a band or a songwriter is all about promotion, promotion, promotion.  Spread your music to as many ears as possible.  Increase your head count at live shows as much as possible.  Expand your audience and fan base as far as you can. The question is, given the new state of the music industry, and the changing scene on the internet, how do we do all of these things?

If you haven’t already, you have to stop sleeping on social media and dive in.  That means really making the effort to work it into your daily routine, even tap into it several times in the day.  These days mobile computing makes this very easy.  The thing about social media is that you really have to get consumed in it for it to take effect.  Just dabbling in it won’t do you any good.

Ok, so you’re ready to get in the mix.  Where do you start?  It seems there is a new social media outlet emerging every single day, adding to the endless list of social sites out there already.  The question is, which of these web hotspots are worth investing time in?

Before I get into the descriptions of the most important social media websites, I want to note an important factor in your social media success.  That is, choose only a few of these sites to focus your time and energy on.  If you try and tap into all of them, you will spread yourself too thin, minimizing the overall impact you bring to these communities.  And of course, the lesser the impact you bring, the less you gain in return.

Here is my list of important social media outlets.  Aside from being the most popular ones out there, these sites have the most potential to help the promotion efforts of working bands and songwriters…

Songwriters on Twitter

By far the most explosive social media phenomenon in recent months has been Twitter. It’s popularity has spread like wildfire. Two previous posts cover all things twitter: Why Songwriters Should Get on Twitter and Twitter Links for Bands & Songwriters. Just about everyone who isn’t familiar with twitter has the same reaction off the bat.  ”I don’t get it”.  All I can say is you must give it some time and eventually you will be hooked.

The best advice I can give you about using Twitter is to be real, and be interesting.  Let your real personality flow into the twittersphere (yup, I finally coined my own tword.  Hey, I just did it again!).  Despite the fact that the homepage of twitter asks the question “What are you doing?”, don’t necessarily tweet about every one of your mundane daily tasks.  You can tweet about what you’re doing, but make it something interesting, unique, funny, witty, or bold.  You could also tweet with a link, promoting a recent blog post, an interesting article you just found, or a link to your latest songs.  Maybe you just posted a youtube video from last night’s gig.  Tweet it.  You have special pre-sale ticket pricing for upcoming tour dates.  Tweet it.  You’re in the studio, crafting your next batch of musical goods.  Tweet about it.  You get the idea.

Facebook Band Pages

Chances are, you’re already on Facebook.  I mean, who isn’t these days?  My parents and aunts and uncles have opened accounts, so that means Facebook has clearly hit the mainstream.  Here’s a previous post about Facebook.  A good idea is to create a dedicated Facebook page for your band.  This will give it some separation from your personal Facebook profile.

The big piece of your social media puzzle that Facebook brings is event promotion.  It has been my experience that most people turn to Facebook to promote parties and gain attendees for special events.  It’s also a great way to get an idea of who’s planning on coming out to your next show.  Somewhat related is the community aspect of Facebook.  Not only can your fans connect with you through Facebook, but they can connect with each other either through your page, your event pages, or a fan group created about you or your band (should you become so popular).

Myspace Music

It’s still important.  Sure, it may be a bit out dated in terms of web 2.0 evolution.  But for songwriters and bands, it’s still key to host your music on Myspace and design an awesome presence on the site.  Many potential fans will look for you on Myspace before trying your band name + .com or googling your band name.  Since Myspace is the online home for so many bands and songwriters, it’s also a prime spot to network with fellow bands and arrange for gig swaps and touring arrangements.

The biggest word of advice when it comes to your Myspace presence is to come up with an awesome design for your myspace page.  Don’t settle for those free Myspace design generators.  You will only end up looking amateurish.  Find a skilled designer who specializes in Myspace design (this is a specific skill, not for just any web designer).  Check out this previous post about design links for bands.

YouTube For Bands

Again, nothing groundbreaking here, but super important for bands and songwriters nonetheless.  Utilize the power of youtube to host videos from your gigs, behind the scenes footage of your rehearsals, studio work, or even funny / interesting footage of you and the band hangin out.  The fans love video.  Web surfers love video.  Get on it.

Beyond hosting videos, YouTube offers a ton of social media features.  Customize the look and feel of your youtube page and connect with as many other tubers as you can.  Link to your YouTube presence on all of your other social profiles and your website.  Embed your YouTube videos in your blog, website, Facebook profile, ect.  Promote new videos in your Twitter feed.  Do you see where this is going?  It’s all connected.

Flickr for Band Photography

For your still photos, create a presence on Flickr.  It has become the most popular photography websites out there with a ton of social media features. Bloggers turn to Flickr when searching for engaging imagery to post in their articles (I do this myself).  Users comment on photos and share them. You can embed your Flickr feed in your website and blog.  Awesome photos are still a super important piece of the big picture for any band and Flickr is the go-to hot spot to promote photography on the web.

FriendFeed

FriendFeed is a somewhat lesser-known social media outlet, but one that is growing in popularity quite fast.  It shouldn’t be totally new ground though, because what it does is connect all of your social media updates into one feed.  I must admit that FriendFeed is somewhat new to my personal social media use.  Here’s an excellent article I found which details how to connect and utilize the power of FriendFeed.

Blogging

This is a pretty general thing, but blogging is becoming a hugely important factor in any promotional strategy.  If you haven’t already, it’s a good idea to seriously consider starting a blog for your band or for you personally.  Take into consideration that if you do start a blog, it requires a large amount of time investment and must be updated regularly in order to reap the promotional benefits.  Here’s a previous post which talks about the importance of blogging in the new music industry: The Music Industry and the Blogosphere: Two Revolutions Unite.

Obviously, blogging is social by nature. Each article is meant to begin a discussion with the comments that follow. Readers pass on links to your articles through twitter and social bookmarking sites like digg.com, stumbleupon.com, and reddit.com.

Over to you…

As always, I turn the conversation over to you.  Which social media sites work best for you?  How do you prioritize them?  Any useful suggestions for how to promote yourself on these sites?  Share your secrets!