Who’s Listening?
There are a lot of bands registering for Twitter these days, and while the subject of this post is not specific to Twitter, it certainly was inspired by what I’ve seen a lot of while spending time using the service. I know I’ve touched on this topic briefly in one of my previous posts, but I feel this particular behaviour needed a post of it’s own. The behaviour I’m talking about, is “broadcasting.” This is when a band (or a person) uses the internet as an outlet to send outward one-way communications. Something like “NEW SONG NOW POSTED ON OUR MYSPACE” is a broadcast. Sure, it’s informative, but it’s not engaging at all, and it doesn’t make the most of the opportunity that having friends/followers listening to what your saying presents. And when this is the ONLY type of communication being sent, and in the worst case scenarios, the same message is being broadcast repeatedly, with no other types of messages in between, the offending communicator ends up doing themselves more of a disservice than they would by deleting their account and keeping quiet.
The feeling that type of communication engenders in the listeners is one that tells them the band doesn’t care about them at all. At least, not beyond needing some attention paid to them, and they don’t care from who.
In this modern age, attention is fleeting, and it is PRECIOUS!!! Someone who follows you has gone out of their way to click on (or search out) your profile, and then click again to request to follow you (or subscribe to your email list, or friend you on Myspace, or what-have-you)… and while a few clicks don’t seem like a lot of effort, they really are. Because that person didn’t have to bother at all! That means you’re speaking to someone who wants to hear what you have to say. Unless of course, you followed/friended them first, and they’re reciprocating to be polite. Those people need to be treated with respect too, but while they have said it’s okay for you to send them your messages, they may not be your biggest fan (yet!), so keep that in mind when communicating and don’t presume anything.
The bottom line is, just because you’re online, it doesn’t mean the unspoken rules of conversational behaviour go out the window. Respond to people who say something to you, answer people when they ask you questions, don’t just broadcast your promotional messages all the time. Treat your listeners with respect, and take good care of the attention they are giving you, because it’s very easy for them to give their attention to someone else.
Listening to what your listeners are saying – responding, asking questions of them, and engaging them in conversation are things you can do to make the experience they get from listening to you, much more rewarding for your listeners.
And then they’ll listen to you even more.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Twitter is a waste of time for marketing purposes. I now have 1,500 followers and follow pretty much everyone back and I guess 1,000 of them are junk accounts but don’t have the time to delete everyone. Direct messages? Nothing but spam. I don’t read them.
When you follow as many people as I do, it means that anyone’s tweets that I see are all of 30 seconds old or gone forever. Go to your page? That’s rich…forget that, I don’t have time.
If you’re a musician hoping to cash in on Twitter, the average person who will probably see your tweets is a 16-year-old girl with 20 followers. I’m 47 and busy as hell. I’ve told some singers who are friends that they are wasting their time tweeting because I will never see a word they write, and I’m not going to be bothered to visit their stupid Twitter pages to read through babble, that the best way to reach me is by mass e-mail to keep me informed. Some have listened, most continue down the path of the stupid and sending tweets into the wind that I will never see, words forever lost in that wind. A couple of musicians I really like and know respond occasionally to @replies (one of them has 23,000 followers and gets bombarded and fans have no idea how much they get bombarded with @replies), but most often don’t have the time to respond to @replies, so that has discouraged fans and sent them packing onto the next group.
I actually thought Twitter was a great idea a few months ago, heck, I’m now actually going BACK to myspace to find out about musicians I may not have heard about … and the afore-mentioned musician with the 23,000 followers still tweets like crazy but we’ve actually stayed in touch better this summer through myspace, which too, sounds crazy, but it’s true.
So if you like advertising to 16-year-old girls, Twitter’s your perfect tool. Other than that, forget it. Good luck using it.
Jeremy, thanks so much for reading, and for your comment. I’m glad you enjoy the discussion on my site. Your input is very much appreciated. I agree with you, that the “seemingly mundane” posts are equally important as the informative or the promotional, or the engaging ones. Those ones are indeed where the personality comes through. Ashley does a great job with her twitter account, she’s replying to people, showing her personality, giving fans a sneak peak “behind the curtain”, and posting promotional/informative posts in a way that’s not “shouting from a rooftop.” And she’s also doing another really important thing… telling people about other things she likes. More bands should be talking about the other bands they like, and supporting music as a whole. I remember when I was younger, I scoured music mags looking at what band shirts my heros were wearing, then I went and listened to those bands too. Twitter can be used the same way. Very cool.
This site has always had good discussion about use of twitter for music artists. I evangelize and teach a broad category of artists to use twitter and many more have done it on their own – artists often do things their own ways. But I still encourage those who even don’t use 100% correct.
Disagree with DIY slightly. There is no way to judge the quality of posts out of the stream. Your reference to “in studio recording a hot record” might be part of an authentic stream, it might not.
Posts like “getting coffee” can be extremely powerful, if part of a regular flow. These small details engage and connect users even if they are being “broadcast” and can bring fans to their level.
A distinction also needs to be made between superstar artist, and developing artists. Again, the post itself may or may not be appropriate depending on the strategy.
http://www.jblogg.com/2009/07/03/ashley-tisdale-and-twitter/
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. You get ONE chance. If you are LUCKY enough to have gotten someone’s attention, they’ll give you one chance and decide whether or not they’ll come back. If you don’t give them something that is of value (of any size), they’ll stop listening.
Think about it. If you visit a website that doesn’t deliver what you expected, do you go back periodically to see if they are doing a better job? Nope. One chance. Make it count.
Also, this gaping void cartoon is perfect: http://is.gd/C4uw
@iheathen A really good post. Thank you.
TWITTER IS AS USELESS AS MYSPACE!
…for musicians intent on shouting about themselves.
PLEASE DON’T just Tweet messages like ” we’re in the studio working on a really hot record” or “drinking a Starbucks” – it’s pissing in the wind and you’ll get nowhere.
HERE’S HOW TO GET IT TO WORK IN YOUR FAVOUR:
Look at it from your potential fans point of view… “What’s in it for me?”
Example:
1) IDENTIFY YOUR POTENTIAL FAN/COMMUNITY
Pigeonhole yourself – it’s the best thing you will ever do to market your band effectively. Because…
If you sound like NIN, most Britney fans will not like your music but there’s a good chance @trent_reznor ‘s audience will. If your target fan is already talking about NIN or with @trent_reznor and other bands in the same pigeonhole, that’s where you will start… Not sure of your genre? Ask. Got it? Good.
2) CONNECTING WITH/ENGAGING YOUR POTENTIAL FAN
Tweet @trent_reznor AND his followers to ask AND answer their questions.
Get involved – it’s OK to Tweet into a conversation to which you were not invited, as long as you stay on topic. If it was a private chat, they’d have used the Direct Messaging option.
If they like your conversation about NIN, they’ll Tweet you back and the conversation can grow.
3) BUILD YOUR RELATIONSHIP/DO NOT ABUSE THEIR TRUST
Now you’re engaging potential fans in a conversation – NOW IS NOT the time for “I’m in a great band, check out my MySpace/Bandcamp… blah blah blah”, they will lose interest when you give it the hard sell. If they bring up the subject, point them to you link and invite them to a gig but DO NOT BANG ON ABOUT IT or about how good you are – the listener is the expert on what they like (unless you’ve spent serious cash on a PR & marketing budget targeting the key tastemakers in your genre to do that for them already – a strategy the record labels use).
GIVE EACH FAN THE POWER to ‘discover’ you by putting yourself in the right place (their conversation) – they can click through & listen to your music whenever they choose, so be sure to link to it in your profile.
As you need people at your gig, it’s wise to target people in that geographical location, too – it’ll help with this last bit…
4) TAKE YOUR RELATIONSHIP OFFLINE
Organise a Tweet-up (meet in public, maybe at a NIN gig or somewhere you know you both actually WANT to be). If the conversation comes round to music bands etc, that’s the time to mention it again and invite them to another gig. JUST DON’T BANG ON ABOUT IT, OK?!!!!
Other people will post great ideas below but these are the basics that really should be understood/mastered before you go any further.
Kindest regards,
@DIY_Musicians