Twitter for Musicians

Twitter is like any other social media site in that it can be a tremendous way to drive traffic to your music. However if you are just sending that traffic to your website in the hopes that someone will see how great you are and buy your album you are very likely going to be pretty disappointed.

If you are planning on ditching MySpace and using Twitter to promote your band or music, then I recommend you set up a squeeze page and make sure you are capturing the contact information of those potential fans so that you can market your music later and, with a little luck, actually sell some albums.

The basic way that I use Twitter to sell albums and promote my music is by including my URL to my squeeze page in my profile. I use a twitter bot to grow my follow count by a few hundred each day, a good percentage of these people wind up clicking on my URL and ultimately signing up for my mailing list. Once there, they are in my sales funnel and in time, the album sales start rolling in.

It is also important to communicate with the people that are following you and to a certain extent, the more posts you make the more people are apt to check out your profile and of course your URL. In the end it’s like anything, the more you put in to it the more you will get out of it. But like in the early days of MySpace, I think Twitter is a still largely unexploited traffic generating tool that is great for promoting your band or music on the internet.

If you’re looking for another cool Twitter-type application to join, Blip.fm is it. Blip.fm is great for those who not only love music but who love to discover new music that they may have otherwise never heard before. Blip.fm is like Twitter for music. Not only that, but Blip.fm is linked to Twitter where you can sync the two up so that every time you upload a new song or “give props” to another DJ, it will show up in your Twitter profile. A note to the wise, however; if you plan to comment on a lot of songs or upload a lot of songs, you may want to change your settings so that you don’t overwhelm your Twitter followers!

On Blip.fm, everyone who is a subscribed user is referred to as a “DJ”. You can give a thumbs up to songs that other Djs post, which is referred to as “giving props”. You also have the option of “reblipping” songs that other Djs post. This simply means that you re-post a song that they have posted. When you reblip someone elses song or if you choose to blip a song yourself, you have the option to type in a brief 160 word message to the other Djs who are following you. The DJ’s who like your musical selections and who choose to follow you are classified as your “listeners”. At any time, you can check to see who is listening to your music.

Each time someone gives you props for a song you blip, your profile tracks it in the upper right hand corner. Obviously, the more props you get, the better known you are (yet another popularity contest!). Additonally, the more listeners you have, the better because as you hit increments of fifty listeners, there is a star that appears beside your name each time you blip a song that lets others know how many listeners you have- essentially, how popular you are. Blip.fm is also mindful to let you know how many “props” you have left to give out. The way to earn props is by having other people give you props on songs that you blip. Typically this operates in a reciprocal fashion. For instance, if you give props to another DJ for a song that he or she has just blipped, they will, in turn, give you props back for a song that you have blipped. You also earn props when someone re-blips a song that you have blipped.

There’s a whole lotta blippin’ to be had on Blip.fm, and while it may seem like another Twitter popularity contest, it’s all in fun. The people who belong to Blip.fm really love music and are more than happy to share songs with other people. Not only that, but Blip.fm has a feature that allows you to play songs in a continuous stream, similar to having a radio on or listening to your itunes. You can visit other Djs profiles and click on their props to see what songs they have given props to, or you can click on their playlists to see what songs they enjoy listening to.