My second podcast guest spot, hanging out with Matt Bacon of Dropout Media and Keith Chackles of Ghost Cult Magazine on their long running metal and media focused podcast Dumb and Dumbest.
We get deep into Twitter and social media, discussing community building and organic growth, and about my Twitter chat DIY Music Chat and how that turned into a community of collaborators.
Social media, love it or hate it, has become part of our daily life. As a musician or creative, you are probably painfully aware of the need to be on social consistently (it may feel like constantly!) for engagement and exposure.
It’s generally recommended to pick one or two channels to focus on that cover the sweet spot between where your fans hang out and your own engagement style. As you may know, my long time favorite social media channel is Twitter. It’s so simple that it can be whatever you make it.
Here are my top tips for having a better Twitter experience.
• Make it your own, tweet what you want. It’s more fun if you don’t overthink it. That said, definitely double check your spelling before you hit Tweet.
• Follow who you like, but check their feed first. Don’t feel obligated to follow everyone back, it’s not necessary. Save yourself seeing what you don’t want to see.
• Don’t feed the trolls. This means – don’t engage people who are determined to argue or contradict. Some people need to get out of their mom’s basement. Block and mute without guilt.
• Mute words you don’t want to see. Make sure you mute them ‘forever’.
• You can also turn off retweets for people who just retweet too much. You’ll see.
• Also, you can mute notifications for conversations, like ones you’ve been included in that you’re just over already.
• Hashtags aren’t as important as on Instagram, but they are important if they’re not just made up as emphasis words. They link content together and can be followed, as in a Tweet Chat.
• Images, GIFs, and short videos do very well to stand out. Humor always wins.
• The best way to quickly find quality follows is to check the followers of people you like/respect/resonate with, see who they follow. Peep the feeds of your peeps’ peeps.
• Engage. You can find amazing, like minded people on Twitter instantly and unexpectedly.
• Top tip: make lists of categories of accounts (music friends, thought leaders, etc). If you use Tweetdeck on your desktop, you can make your lists into columns and have columns of curated content! This includes private lists.
• Top tip: another great way of finding and engaging with like minded people is by joining or starting a regular Twitter chat, which is a topic-based discussion held together with a hashtag. Start with #Twittersmarter and get even more tips!
Extra tips for creatives promoting content:
• Create a strategy for posting that aligns with your (music) business goals. Create keystone content posts ahead of time, space them out with a calendar and post them automatically with a tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite.
• Whenever possible, tailor your style to the social channel, while keeping everything on brand. Be authentic and this should never be an issue.
• Social is social, not a broadcast platform. This isn’t Glengarry Glen Ross, don’t Always Be Closing. Instead, Always Be Engaging.
• Definitely feel free to recycle content, everything old is new to someone.
• Don’t fall into the vanity metrics trap, organic reach and growth is always best.
What are your top suggestions for using Twitter? What’s your favorite social media platform? Let us know in the comments below!
Ariel Hyatt is a social media expert who specializes in promoting and mentoring musicians to get their full potential out of the world of social media and online marketing. I’ve followed Ariel since the MySpace days, watching her grow her own business and presence, and have found her insights very helpful, from basic advice on branding to comprehensive year-end self-review exercises. She’s a very positive, knowledgable and encouraging person and I like to think of her as my social media and branding mentor.
With her 9 week online Social Media House course, currently being offered for free, Ariel takes you through all the important areas of modern social media to give you a solid foundation to build your online presence on. To be sure, it’s a fairly intensive course, and depending on where your skills are it may be a lot of work. In my case, I’ve already been through most of this on my own using best practices and Ariel’s advice so I’m using the course to add the missing 20% to my 80% and get some tips to build on.
It’s been a wealth of information, and it’s not something you can get through without a support group — or mastermind group, as Ariel likes to call it — so there are built-in forums available for collective comments, questions, and encouragement. So far I’ve found it to be a very positive and generous community of like-minded musicians and I highly recommend this course, and Ariel’s ongoing advice, to all musicians looking for a leg up in the world of social media and diy marketing.
Social Media House
http://go.cyberpr.com/socialmediahousecourse/
Ariel Hyatt on the Web
https://about.me/arielhyatt
https://twitter.com/cyberpr
https://www.youtube.com/user/ArielPublicity
CyberPR
http://cyberprmusic.com/
https://twitter.com/cyberprmusic
