Most musicians, hip-hop bloggers, rappers, and artists focus on one platform to connect with their fans and build a following to promote their music. And being all over social media can increase your reach and traffic, but it is always a good practice to keep your feet in one place for a start.
Twitter has become one of the best tools to boost music marketing online.
Aside from garnering various acknowledgments on being the best marketing tool, especially for musicians, Twitter has also helped countless newbies in the industry to build their brand.
If you're looking for a platform that can give you real-time information on music trends, popular songs or artists, then Twitter is your go-to social media.
But then, how do you promote your music using Twitter?
Finding Targeted Fans using Hashtags
Searching for your target audience on Twitter is made easy with the use of Hashtags. You can just type in for certain keywords that you're interested in, and it will automatically show you tweets of people with the same hashtag.
Let's say you want to search for people who are interested in music, then you could type in #HipHop, #RapMusic, #Rappers or other popular hashtags that the music industry uses or anything that's related to what you are promoting.
You can even use hashtags that are used by famous artists, bands or any musician that you know or those cut in the same cloth as you.
Always be on the lookout for trending topics that is related to the kind of music that you make or music keywords that is mostly used by a musically inclined group of individuals.
Oftentimes, people talk about specific topics about music. And when a lot of people become interested in this certain topic, then it becomes trending on Twitter. Later on, other musicians will be using the same hashtag once they tackle that certain topic.
A good example would be that time when Ariana Grande tweeted about her Album's title as a hashtag by using #DangerousWoman. She used it to promote her single in her album for people to have something to look forward to and talk about its release.
People can easily react to this kind of tweets. And as a musician, you will be able to reach your fan base and basically attract new ones.
Building A Fanbase On Twitter
Now, you've finally targeted your prospect audience.
So, What's next?
Next step would be following them with the intention that they would hopefully follow you back.
Most people get disappointed during this stage, especially when they've exerted a lot of effort into looking for prospects and following them one by one.
The worst case scenario is that they've followed everyone who tweeted a hashtag with music and ended up with a lot of following but doesn't even have a handful of followers.
What a rip-off!
Not being followed back is a common dilemma for most musicians, especially the ones who are just starting out building their profile on Twitter.
You can follow everyone on Twitter but it will not serve its purpose of promoting your music because people will not follow you back just because you followed them. Thus, you will only see what they tweet and you're not really interested in those, right?
That's why you need to focus on finding the right people.
And once you follow them, keep track of your following. Don't wait when you've already followed a thousand people and only a hundred of them followed you back.
Unfollow some of them every now and then. Besides, if they're really interested in your music they'll keep on following you though you don't follow them back.
They will even retweet your posts once you've captivated their heart.
Add your call-to-action on any page
Share links and drive conversions
Monitor engagements and track results
Building A Following Automatically With Owlead
Keep the fire burning with your followers, be it old or new.
Once you've finally followed your prospect audience, engage in small conversations, give comments, share your content and give appreciation to their tweets.
You might even get lucky and receive a follow back from a renowned musician or hip-hop blogger.
Interact with your followers, exchange ideas and ask if there's a way for you to help them because you might be onto the same page as them.
By knowing each other's thoughts, you'd be able to communicate with them more, musician to musician.
All these music promotion tasks can be made simpler using narrow.io
You could even do collaborations to help each other grow your followers on Twitter.
Try to reach out to well-known music personalities as well as hip-hop bloggers, beat makers or anyone that shares the same passion with you. Tap them and ask for help and ideas as well.
But remember...
Always be mindful of keeping boundaries and approaching them with your utmost respect and professionalism.
Don't just mention them with different links that lead to various websites that you want to promote or your own site with merchandise that you want to sell.
Honestly, music promotion using Twitter should be done right just as with email marketing and guest blogging.
Messaging them directly with links leading to your website can irritate them, and you'll just end up being reported. Now, that is not what we want to happen.
Build connections and ask for permission when you want to share something. You could always DM them if you want to ask a favor. And, that way you won't look too desperate because mentioning people, though their not really interested, is a total turn-off in Twitter.
Tools To Build Your Following On Twitter
What you've read and watched above are just the basic steps to know how to use Twitter for musicians to promote their music.
Twitter gives you tons of other ways to help you grow your brand and get the followers who will then become your future fans. Fans who will help you promote your music as well.
Using Twitter, you'll definitely have a blast promoting your music online. Not to mention these 5 incredible tools can further aid you build your following and promote your music on Twitter.
Again, you want to build and establish your music's brand first.
Focusing on one goal at a time and not being a servant of two masters can ultimately lead you to high-quality results. Meaning, true followers are people who admire your music, people who inspire you, and people who are interested in your music. People who you actually want to be in your circle.
Secondly, you can always expand.
Once you've mastered promoting your music on one social media platform, then you can reach out to other potential fans who will appreciate and admire your music using a different social network site. It would be a good idea to take advantage of third-party apps so you can automate numerous tasks and instantly connect one social media account to another.
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 | There's also a scheduling tool like Buffer that can save a lot of time with your Twitter account by setting up scheduling plans for you. |
 | And, there's IFTTT which allows you to automate actions for different platforms. With IFTTT recipes, you can connect Buffer and your Twitter account. |
Using traditional methods can help you connect your existing followers from Twitter, for example, to Facebook or Youtube by informing them that you have accounts on those various social media sites.That way, it's easier for you to manage your social media sites. You don't need to worry and aggressively put in too much effort on promoting your new accounts on those social media websites.
Maximizing Twitter's Resources
Twitter is definitely a very tough contender to other social media platforms when it comes to promoting music.
With the right mix of attitude and strategy, you can conquer Twitter's community and turn it into your most effective music marketing platform.
It beats Facebook in a number of ways when it comes to music promotion.
Twitter provides a wider range of opportunities.
A defining example is how Twitter thumps Facebook when it comes to its reach. As we know, Facebook has limited its users to use Facebook's certain features like freely promoting music through their post and sharing of links. Thus, cutting possibilities of connecting with targeted followers and audience.
Twitter doesn't restrict you as what Facebook does.
Twitter allows your followers to see all your post. And each time your followers retweet on Twitter, it reaches their followers as well. Unlike Facebook, that doesn't really promote your post unless you boost your posts, use Facebook's Ads manager and power editors (for advanced users only and soon to be merged with Ads manager).
This Facebook update has increased the number of restrictions once you place your music content. Facebook has implemented stricter demotions for pages and/or musicians who use engagement bait tactics.
To promote your music using Facebook, you need to boost your posts and pay a certain amount for the kind of Ad placement you want. It could be narrowing your target to get realistic reach through choosing the right demographics. Or, how much control you want on the visibility of your post.
For instance, you have over a thousand followers on Facebook but it doesn't mean that all of them will see your post. Unlike on Twitter, every follower that you have can potentially see your tweets about what you’ve currently been working on or updates on your latest song cover, recordings, videos and basically anything you share.
Twitter excels when it comes to engagements
Connecting and interacting with your fans and followers is a must for you to be able to keep them and for them to continue supporting your music.
You have to update them every now and then. Don't overdo it though. You don't want to be all over the place, do you?
Though Twitter allows you to tweet a lot in a day unlike Facebook that doesn't give you that privilege, instead limits your reach and not giving you an opportunity to engage with your prospect followers and fans. Don't overuse its features because you just need to be on track.
Twitter Analytics
You can monitor your Twitter's activity through Twitter Analytics which allows you to visit your account home to check certain statistics like showing you your top-performing tweets.
Know exactly how many times Twitter users have seen, retweeted, liked and replied to each of your Tweet through the activity dashboard. You can track your follower growth over time and learn more about your followers’ interests and demographics through Twitter's audience insight dashboard.
Don't be too open and leave some mystery for your followers to be more interested in you.
Twitter lets you build and establish an interpersonal relationship with your followers or fans. You can engage with Twitter communities that share the same interests and other musicians that like the same music and who are inspired by your music.
Using Twitter search even lets you engage in conversations. With hashtags, you can look for people with the same persona as you and create social interactions with them.
Twitter allows you to send pitchy micro-messages to your current and potential audience at any time of the day or night, with little or no objection to why and when you're sending it. These messages will allow you to start a conversation with your audience through your comments, sharing your opinion about their music update and interacting with them on a deeper level.
Being able to connect with people right away is another driving factor why Twitter is a platform that's more conducive to music marketing.
Twitter does not only thrive on the concept of communicating in real-time but reaching through a huge demographic and letting you start conversations with your potential fans and followers through discussions about latest music trends and popular artists or bands.
Responding to your followers immediately and engaging with them is easier on Twitter because this extraordinary platform lets you catch up on latest discussions and trending topics like new music, news on concert schedules of your favorite bands and artists.
Twitter gives you instant grip to people who have similar music interest to you and doesn't restrain you on your continual pursuit of conversing with your potential audience or fan. And eventually, leading them to follow and support your music.
Isn't it convenient? Being up to date with your followers and people in the same pool as you? Yes, it really is such a powerful tool in promoting your music because it does not only let you engage in real-time but it also lets you connect with your prospective audience and future fans.
These are just few of Twitter's amazing features that will give you numerous ways to promote your music.
Other platforms can work too, but in terms of realizing real-time growth and attracting genuine followers, Twitter helps you achieve your goals. With the right strategy, Twitter overthrows other social network sites when it comes to promoting your music online.
Using website Twitter cards
Twitter has become a widespread platform for musicians to grow their followers and reach new and real fan base and also foster relationships with newly acquired followers and attracted fans.
As you promote your music on Twitter, finding the right targeted following is crucial because this will determine the results of your efforts.
Look for people who want to listen to your music and not just randomly follows anyone and tapping them, hoping to be followed back. You will just be wasting your precious time if you do that because following everyone will not just give you fake followers but will create negative signals to your potential audience.
Well, another brilliant way to make use of Twitter as your music promotion tool is to use Twitter cards.
No clue?
Twitter cards hold the URL of the website that you want your audience to check out. It is basically how you want the content that you are promoting will appear within tweets. The idea behind arming your website with Twitter Cards code is to provide exposure and some more content as you tweet.
To get a better understanding about Twitter cards, here's a teaser explainer video I've made for you.
Using social content lockers
If you want to promote your music online successfully, it is important to know that your source traffic must not come from search engines alone. Because no matter how you work hard trying to get your music noticed online, if Google keeps on tweaking its algorithm, then it'll be all just pointless at the end.
And that is why where social media websites like Twitter step in. There are also other social media platforms you can use as alternative traffic source like Google+, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest but Twitter makes for a great startup.
A lot of websites are already equipped with social media logos to promote social shares. However, it is not enough to encourage your visitors to share, like, or tweet what you're offering.
But there is a useful hack that a lot of online marketers out there usually do not take advantage of—Content Lockers.
Generally, if done cleverly, content lockers can generate you lots of beer money.
However, it is somewhat "spammy" and an unhealthy way of bringing traffic to your site if you want to use it the black hat way.
Just to get things straight, I do NOT promote such tool for spamming or anything like the example beside.
What I promote instead is the use of social content lockers.
The idea is to encourage your visitors to share your content on one of the social media tycoons so that they can unlock and access the locked content which could be a Download URL of an audio, free beat, a video, a PDF, continuation of the article, or a new article. Below is a very good example.
Using Twitter Video
There are just so much trends rampaging on the internet today and video contents are only one of the major reasons behind the rampage.
And when the video broadcast app of Twitter called Periscope came into view, in no more than 10 days, there were already about a million downloads coming from Twitter.
So don't even think twice taking advantage of Twitter's video feature to make a buzz on Twitter. Sharing your music and beat through Twitter video is a brilliant online music promotion tactic.
Using Twitter lists
To put it simply, Twitter List is a composition of Twitter users grouped according to their tweets. The number of lists that every Twitter account can have is no more than 20.
By the way, targeting your tweets is not what the lists are for but instead for READING tweets.
Making a lists of people that you follow as well as those that you did not can just really save you from a headache of having to and getting overwhelmed with so many tweets.
There are lists that other Twitter users have made that you can keep track of by subscribing or following. You can have a lists of bands, record stores, booking agents, managers, your fans, fellow artists, and etc.
NOTE: Lists aren't configured as private because they're automatically set to public. Just to be on the safe side in the future, avoid making a list of "International Dummies" and adding potential music reviewers in there.
QUICK TIPS
You can start by writing a list of people you want to attract and target in a page. By targeting the exact people that you want to focus on would potentially increase your chances of having them to follow you back. Consider the followers who are really good for you, the ones who will support your music and help you promote your music.
When setting up your profile on Twitter, make sure that you have an interesting BIO. Phrases that your targeted followers can relate to or words that can easily attract the followers that you want. For example, if ever you like Jay Z, you can put in your BIO,"JAY Z FAN". That way you can attract fellow Jay Z fans and followers.
Use hashtags to find people with common interest as yours, type in keywords in the search engine like hip hop, rap music, and music beats. Follow those who show on the timeline and don't get your hopes up that most of them will follow you back. Oftentimes you'd only get a number of following back which is quite discouraging.
But, the bright side is you'd get people who actually want to know more about your music to follow you back and you don't want people who would just ignore your tweets right? You want genuine followers who will truly support your music and retweet your posts.
The followers you attract can eventually be good traffic sources to get more people to notice your music and will acknowledge the efforts and passion you've put into your music.
"NEVER EVER BUY TWITTER FOLLOWERS"
It's not just risky but could be a total turnoff to Twitter users that you want to target. Besides, it could be a disaster waiting to happen. Once you’re caught using this sneaky scheme, your account could get imperil. In other words, you risk your reputation on Twitter.
Reaching out to influencers is a much safer route or ask for popular blogs like hip-hop bloggers like DJTarzan for example to retweet you or even approach the ones who actually write the blog. It requires a lot of time because you need to communicate with them and relay your message in a professional way that you wouldn't come off being too demanding. You need to establish a relationship and build rapport first. Offer assistance to them in return for the favor your asking.
Or you can go to a faster route and try a costly way which is paying for Ads.
Twitter paid Ads requires a budget but you can always maximize its service to get a return on your investments.
Have you ever wondered why some artists and musicians stick to only one social media platform in promoting their brand or music? Did it ever cross your mind which social media platforms to sacrifice if you only had to focus on one in promoting your music?
In the end, when using a social media as an alternative traffic source and following builder, Twitter is one of the options to invest your time with. Master its use as you transition to use another platform and up your music promotion.
Always remember: NEVER SETTLE FOR GOOGLE ALONE.
