Grow Your Band’s Following With Twitter!

If you’re not yet on Twitter, you must have heard about it by now. The Twitter phenomenon is in full swing. The faster it’s popularity grows, the more effective it can be for promoting your band online. Online music promotion is all about spreading the word as far as possible. By using Twitter, you can grow your band’s following and network with others around the world at the same time. Here’s how to get more twitter followers and convert them to grow your band’s fanbase.

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

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