Musicians Twitter Roadmap

By Ariel Hyatt (@CyberPR) & Laura Fitton (@Pistachio)

I recently interviewed my friend Laura Fitton AKA Pistachio (that’s her twitter handle) and I asked her to walk with me through creating a musicians roadmap for Twitter. It answers the question: If you wanted to create a community to promote yourself as a musician on Twitter and you didn’t really have a lot of technological “social networking know how” How do you do it?

The full interview can be found on my blog here: http://arielpublicity.com/blog/archives/148 and I encourage all of you to please go to my blog and leave your feedback.

Step One - Think About Your Brand First
Set up and account and use your brand name, your band, whatever name it is that you want people to be able to find using Google. That’s very important. Don’t just pick a name you like. Whatever name you choose on Twitter it becomes very Googleable.

So the thing you want fans and prospective fans to find you as. If you’re just starting out, you might use a generic like singer/songwriter or something. But choose something you’re comfortable with, that you want to do well in search results and that’s the name you want to get out there.

Step Two - Sign Up
Go To: http://twitter.com to sign up.

First: You may want to watch the video that gives an easy-to understand overview of Twitter - It’s right on the homepage - just click the button that says Watch a video!

Second: Twitter will take you through a few sign up steps and you will enter your username and your password and your email

Third: Twitter will help you search your email address book to see if anyone you know is already on it. You may be surprised at just how many people you know are already using it. You will also have the option of sending email invites to your friends.

TIP: Take some time and set up your profile properly. Think about it this way: You probably had a website made for your music and that either involved spending a bunch of money or hitting up a friend for a favor. You put a lot of thought into it and you really worked it out. Well, here’s a chance to have a free website. It’s not going to be as souped up as your own website, but put a little bit of time. You can set up a static electronic image as your background, just single image, maybe an album cover, maybe a candid of you on the road. Put up a good profile picture. Tha’s the little, tiny square picture that goes next to all your messages. If you’re in Twitter, you’ll see what I mean. Write a couple things about yourself. Make sure there’s a link to your web page. Just get it all nicely set up so it looks cool when you get there.

Step Three - Link Your Mobile Phone
You should enter your cell phone number (it is up to you if you want to accept tweets via texts) this depends on your text messaging plan and your tolerance to loads of texts hitting your mobile constantly. You will have the option of receiving tweets to your phone from individuals so you can have only a few select people tweet straight to your phone.

TIP: To text from your phone send messages to: 40404 and they will immediately go to your Twitter feed

TIP: To message friends that follow you from your cell phone you can type d (for direct) then their username.

Step Four- Search Keywords
Next go to the search page: http://search.twitter.com

On this page, start searching key words, words that are important to you, topics that you like to write about, words about the music you play, whether it be the genre or the instrument. And f you want to really bond with other musicians just to start, you can even search the brand names of your band equipment. Like your amplifiers are from so-and-so, you search that keyword, you’re going to find a bunch of other people who’ve made remarks about that word. That gives you a jumping off point.

You can click in each of their profiles. Remember how I said reading one to four pages of someone’s Tweets gives you a surprising accurate sense of their personality? Just find random strangers that way and start following them and see if you have anything in common. If you don’t, you just stop following. That’s the way to find people with common interests.

Step Five - Link Twitter To Update Status At Facebook
Next go here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2231777543&b&ref=pd and you can link your Twitter page directly to your Facebook and you will be able to update your status on Facebook by using twitter from your phone

Step Six - Follow At least 100 People
Twitter does not work in a vacuum (OK - unless you are Dave Matthews!) But even Dave is directly responding to people and really connecting with his fans - It’s amazing to see.

Here are some people to check out and follow:

TIP: Take the time to look at each persons profile to get to understand them more deeply

Ariel
http://twitter.com/cyberpr

Laura
http://twitter.com/pistachio

Musicians Who Twitter
http://twitter.com/DaveJMatthews
http://twitter.com/SLessard
http://twitter.com/QtipTheAbstract
http://twitter.com/matthewebel
http://twitter.com/NicholasHoward
http://twitter.com/Reykjavikband
http://twitter.com/andrewhand
http://twitter.com/joshcharles
http://twitter.com/kellyrichey
http://twitter.com/NatalieGelman
http://twitter.com/carlalynnehall
http://twitter.com/HeatherMariePh
http://twitter.com/jodyg
http://twitter.com/steinebone
http://twitter.com/MarkWilliams13
http://twitter.com/johntaglieri
http://twitter.com/KaitlinMcGaw
http://twitter.com/RBPviolinist
http://twitter.com/IncaMaya
http://twitter.com/kalliopimusic
http://twitter.com/bjork
http://twitter.com/tellingontrixie
http://twitter.com/SaraBareilles
http://twitter.com/JeffKrantz

Music Industry Thought Leaders
http://twitter.com/dubber
http://twitter.com/kavitharia
http://twitter.com/MrBuzzFactor
http://twitter.com/sivers

Music Bloggers & Podcasters & Zines
http://twitter.com/rnrgeek
http://twitter.com/coverville
http://twitter.com/fave
http://twitter.com/weheartmusic
http://twitter.com/indiefeed
http://twitter.com/cc_chapman
http://twitter.com/billpalmer
http://twitter.com/jeffhinz
http://twitter.com/wellroundedradi
http://twitter.com/zaldor
http://twitter.com/MikeyPod
http://twitter.com/rubyfruitradio
http://twitter.com/cybster
http://twitter.com/indieradiochatt
http://twitter.com/fascinated
http://twitter.com/DprShadeOfSoul

Web Thought Leaders & Brilliant Marketing Peeps
http://twitter.com/chrisbrogan
http://twitter.com/briansolis
http://twitter.com/davedelaney
http://twitter.com/cspenn
http://twitter.com/leelefever
http://twitter.com/stevegarfield
http://twitter.com/charleneli
http://twitter.com/Ed_Dale
http://twitter.com/jeffpulver
http://twitter.com/jowyang
http://twitter.com/jasonvo

The Superstars Of Twitter
http://twitter.com/BarackObama
http://twitter.com/scobleizer
http://twitter.com/leolaporte
http://twitter.com/kevinrose
http://twitter.com/JasonCalacanis
http://twitter.com/dooce
http://twitter.com/laughingsquid
http://twitterholic.com/twitter/ijustine/

News Feeds, Celebrities & Products
http://twitter.com/cnn
http://twitter.com/nytimes
http://twitter.com/CNETNews
http://twitter.com/bbctech
http://twitter.com/nprnews
http://twitter.com/BreakingNewsOn
http://twitter.com/digg
http://twitter.com/JohnCleese
http://twitter.com/andersoncooper
http://twitter.com/woot
http://twitter.com/macworld
http://twitter.com/amazonmp3
http://twitter.com/pandora_radio
http://twitter.com/GuitarWorkshop
http://twitter.com/RhapsodyMP3

People Who Work At Ariel Publicity/ Cyber PR
http://twitter.com/cyberpr
http://twitter.com/cyberprvideo
http://twitter.com/cyberprurban
http://twitter.com/cyberprsports

Step Seven - Tweet 3x A Day
At first it seems really weird - just keep answering the question “What are you doing?” It will feel strange to just broadcast what you are doing at first but soon it will all make sense!

TIP: Don’t Over Hype Yourself If you set up a Twitter account and every day, every Tweet just says, buy my album, buy my album, you’re not going to get any audience there.

Step Eight - @ People you like!
To comment back at things you would like to react to or to connect directly with someone just tweet: @ and then their username. So if you want to say something directly to Derek Sivers type @Sivers - this will turn up in the @ Replies in Derek’s Twitter dashboard and he will see your comment.

TIP: This is a public message that everyone on Twitter will see.

Step Nine - Connect Directly
To send someone a direct and private message - go to your dashboard homepage at Twitter and click on the right where it says “Direct Messages” and then choose the person you want to send a message to from the pull-down menu at the top of the page

TIP: This is a private message that only that user will see.

Finally, please read the full and in-depth interview with Laura which will give you useful strategies and insights about how to best maximize Twitter!

• New Media Pioneer: Andrea Guy of Mossip Blog
• New Media Interview: Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting
• The New Facebook – A Musicians Guide
• New Media Pioneer: Bond of Bonds Big Leather Couch Blog
• Derek Sivers 7 Rules of Marketing