Friday, May 25, 2018

Why Twitter Still Matters For Musicians

Although some self-promoting musicians may choose to eschew the platfrom, Chris Robley here details why the controversial social network still holds significant value for artists as promotional tool, particularly in comparison to some of the other social media platforms out there.

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Guest post by Chris Robley of DIY Musician

Twitter lets musicians do three things they can’t do on other social platforms.

First, if you hate Twitter, fine; don’t be on it.

Same goes for ANY social platform. Concentrate your efforts.

The new rules of social media say you SHOULDN’T be everywhere.

But if you ARE on Twitter, if you like using Twitter, if you’ve seen results on Twitter, don’t lose hope just because media reports have shown it on a downtrend over the past few years.

Most Twitter users don’t know your music. Introduce yourself.

It’s worth remembering, Twitter still has hundreds of millions of active monthly users — and most of them have never heard your music. That’s a big untapped market right there.

Next, Twitter lets you do a few things that you can’t do on other platforms.

1. Post links without hurting your reach.

Facebook downgrades your posts if they contain URLs, especially off-platform links.

Instagram doesn’t even let you put linkable URLs in your captions; you just get the one link in your profile bio.

Twitter lets you tweet all day long with links to Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, websites, whatever. And those tweets don’t get ground to nothing just because they lead users to content that isn’t native to Twitter.

Even better, lots of those external links (like YouTube videos and certain music links) will open right up within Twitter so you get immediate interaction.

2. Post as frequently as you want without hurting your reach.

Instagram lets you post pics to your heart’s content. But sometimes you want to SAY something.

Facebook might be amenable to a few updates per day, but the more posts you write, the less likely your followers are to see them.

When you want to say something with words, when you want to say a lot of things with words, there’s Twitter!

A string of tweets can show you building a larger story over a short time. A tweet every 15 minutes can reveal the random misadventures of your life. The one-off tweet can share a revelation.

Whether you want to let your fans in on your stream-of-conscious mind or you prefer to schedule 50 tweets ahead of time in HootSuite, Twitter doesn’t hold you back.

3. Support others without hurting your reach.

Being a member of a larger music community is important, but when you want to share info about a friend’s new music, or thank a blogger who covered your latest release (on the same day your video goes live on YouTube), or just ask your fans what they thought of that cool article about your favorite artist,… you might be reluctant to do so on Facebook if it hurts the reach of other important posts you need to make that day.

Who comes to the rescue? Yep, once again, Twitter.

Twitter has zero barriers to being a good community member. You can tweet, retweet, reply, and like things whenever you want. When there’s no cost to being a supporter of others’ work, generosity follows. Sure, Twitter is the digital home to plenty of trolls, but it can be a really supportive place as well.

What else can musicians gain from Twitter?

Those are just three of the things you can still do on Twitter that you can’t do elsewhere on social platforms. I’m sure there are other unique opportunities there too.

Want to weigh in? Please leave a comment below.