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A Guide to Twitter for Performers

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The Basics

Start by setting up a Twitter account. Getting your Twitter page started is simple – visit the Twitter website and click the ‘sign up’ button. Twitter will walk you through the steps of setting up your page. The whole process takes just a few minutes, and you can use your account immediately. The reality is, most performers have already setup an account but may not be using it wisely or beneficially. Tweeting, like most things requires skill.

Learning from the masters

When it comes to web trends (Twitter – Facebook etc), some people just, ‘get it’, use it and find the advantages are considerable. The ‘I don’t get it’ people likely start out because people tell them they should and then fizzle not long after. Whatever the case we are here to say – if you are a performer with any sort of profile, the little effort required to engage with your fan base on Twitter is hugely beneficial. Why? Well lets consider someone who is doing it really well and when we say ‘really well’, we mean so well that it is a model for others to follow. Jimmy Barnes has been prominent in the Australian Music Industry since the early 70’s and when it comes to using Twitter Jimmy has really got his Twit together. For the rest of this article we will use Jimmy as the case study. Oh, and by the way at the time of writing this guide Jimmy has 57.9K followers. So lets be clear about what that means – when Jimmy Tweets, potentially 57,000 people see it – and remember, these people see the Tweet because they want to – they have chosen to follow him. This is the most effective promotion you can get and best of all it’s FREE! – By free we mean there is no financial outlay. It does however require a strategy and a little time.

Making it look the part

Twitter allows for customisation of your Twitter page. As with all your promo material it is important to have a consistent ‘brand’. So, for a music professional, getting a designer to customise your page is essential. Jimmy uses Twitters’ large background image effectively.

Jimmy Barnes Twitter page

Who to Follow

For most people the best way to begin is by following friends who use Twitter. The trick here is to get people to follow you – and the best way to do that is to start following them. That is the way most people start and this usually means your followers will be roughly half the number of people you follow. However, for performers and people with a significant public profile this doesn’t apply. Looking at Keith Urban for example you will see he has 2.16 million followers and he is only following 9,672 people, Rod Stewart has 203,000 followers and is following 61 and  Jimmy Barnes has 57,900 followers and is only following 78. You get the idea, if you are famous your followers will vastly outnumber those you follow.

Followers-Twitter

This does not mean that if you are famous you will automatically have zillions of followers – it does require some effort. Not a lot of effort – but a little effort and compared to the benefits it is well worth it. There is no doubt that Twitter and Facebook are currently the most effective form of direct advertising to fans. If you’re not using them skillfully – you’re looking a gift horse in the mouth.
AND HAVE WE SAID IT’S FREE!

Sweet Tweets –  How to Tweet wisely

The beauty of Twitter is it not only keeps fans informed about your news and events but it can also make them feel closer to the whole process. The trick is not to go too far and overload people with so much info they ignore your Tweets. For instance, peppering your Tweets Marshallabout your show dates with Tweets like; “just breaking in a new guitar for tonights show” works well. Don’t feel you need to chronicle every breath you take – that’s overkill – it’s a pain for you and your important Tweets will just get lost.

Although giving people too much will dilute the effectiveness of your message – not giving them enough is even worse. If you have fallen into the trap of not Tweeting for weeks or months people soon forget about you, think you’re not performing or make their own
assumptions, like your career has dried up. In short – if you ignore Twitter people will start ignoring you.

Let’s face it some people are just not natural Tweeters and can’t be bothered with it. However if you are in the business of performing you need to view these forms of free promotion as tools of the trade – as important to you as a good set of Marshalls.

The Recipe for the perfect Tweets

OK – before we reveal our secret recipe let’s just remind ourselves of why you are Tweeting.

You are not Tweeting because you want attention, or millions of followers – you are doing this for no other reason than to promote what you love doing – playing music. And if a 140 characters a few times a week will mean you can play to more people and have a longer career, then why wouldn’t you…… just do it!

The recipe is very simple. It only has 3 ingredients. See the next page – sorry for the coffee stains – it’s an old recipe handed up from my eleven year old.

Don’t Waste Too Much Time

Like Facebook or any online activity, Twitter can be an enormous time sucker. For those who find Tweeting easy this can be a danger but for those who can’t be botthered this is not the issue.

I Can’t Be Bothered!

If you really find Tweeting annoying – and let’s face it many do – if you are clever you’ll get someone to do it for you. Choosing who Tweets for you is very important for obvious reasons. You don’t want someone Tweeting things you would never say. However, if they know their stuff, a ‘ghost’ Tweeter can deliver fantastic results. A word of caution – when not done well it is obvious that someone apart from you is doing the Tweeting. This then becomes a negative – people don’t like feeling they are being deceived. Remember the appeal of Twitter is the feeling you are getting something real, straight from the horses mouth. So does this mean Ghost Tweeting is too risky? No, not if it is done by the right people the right way.

Ghost Tweeting – Best PracticeDownload FREE Recipe

It is important to understand that Ghost Tweeting requires a level of commitment from the real person otherwise it is doomed to fail. They will need to contribute some time, however compared to doing it yourself it is only minimal. Our advise is not to use a big company. Ghost Tweeting by its’ very nature requires an intimacy best delivered by a smaller boutique agency.

It is essential that the Ghost Tweeter knows the person they are Tweeting for. They don’t need to be married to them or be a relative but they do need to understand them enough to know how they write, their writing style and what they would write if they were writing. This obviuosly requires skill, descretion and co-operation. As an example, we recommend the Ghost Tweeter send a reminder text to the real person asking them to take a photo on their phone and email it to the Ghost for Tweeting.  The ideal scenario is for a manager to handle the Professional and Promotional Tweets leaving the real person to send the personal Tweet.

Download the free Perfect Tweets recipe


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