Tips for the unheard : For bands and artists who are new to Twitter
INTRO FOR THE UNHEARD
Before you read this, PLEASE appreciate I am not some sort of Social Media guru, with 10’s of 1000’s of followers. I’m mainly a producer of bands and artists and I don’t need to work hard at it because I like where I’m at right now. But 2 years ago I had resurrected my Twitter account and made a massive muddle of trying to be heard. It really affected my mental health because I couldn’t quite figure why my art was so uninspiring to the millions out there. Hell, I even wrote a song about it which to date is my most listened to track on the streams ;-)
So here is an article that contains much of the knowledge I was lacking back in the Spring of 2020. The people who crow on about knowing these secrets tend to charge for it and game the system. I’m telling you this because I love music. I want you to not let the grind piss you off. If you have awesome tunes you should not be getting down about it.
To begin, with read this tweet of mine on “I need new music” tweets.
Now we have got that out of the way….Where are you right now? This is your situation - You’ve created your Twitter account and you’ve got a few of your best friends to follow you. You’ve released your first couple of tracks and there’s silence. The tumbleweed on your streaming stats is starting to get you down.
First and most importantly, is your music seriously good? When you play it to a new pair of ears are they massively enthusiastic? Because that’s the most important piece of this jigsaw before you embark on a promotion campaign.
SELF BELIEF / TALENT
Self belief is important for the slog ahead but don’t convince yourself it’s worth all the effort if you’re putting out generic beats with stock Garage Band ‘heard it all before’ weedy drum loops, mediocre guitar and a vanilla vocal. Save us all the bother and keep working at your song-craft and how to mix (As Danny Milner, playlister and DJ, told me - He hears great tunes but the mix is muddy and sounds awful on headphones). There is too much beige out there on the streams and if you’re going to spend the next few months pounding it out on Social Media trying to get your songs heard, you might well be ruining it for that time in the future when you do write a banger. So seek trusted opinion, not polite affirmation from those close friends and family who don’t want to hurt your feelings. Do not start too early as a band, songwriter, performer, producer or whatever you describe yourself as. It takes years to be good at this game. Spotify is full of dross that should not be there. DO NOT BE THE DROSS!
Now I’ve got that out of the way, here’s that Twitter 101 for you glorious people who are creating amazing but unheard music under the radar.
STARTING OUT ON TWITTER - FOLLOW BACK “HARVESTING”
Let’s start with your Twitter account with not many followers. How the hell do you bring that number up? To get started you need to engage in the equivalent of mutual back slapping. Known as the ‘follow back’. Let me make it clear before I explain a few things. I’m not a serial ‘follow-back’ type of guy. But the following is to rein in the enthusiasm of someone who takes this part too seriously. The Twitter police are brutal. Anyway, read on!
Work out what genre you inhabit and research who the small/big hitters are (Playlisters with decent audiences, bloggers with clout, Independent Radio Stations etc) and click on their list of followers and follow anyone who is doing what you do, as well as the ‘influencers’ themselves (sorry for using that word!)
Here’s the admin: Rumour has it, there’s a specific limit on how many people you follow each day before Twitter thinks “Is this a bot?” and suspends your account for a few hours/days. This is quoted by Twitter as 400 but some say if you squeeze that 400 into a furious couple of hours you’re still going to wake up the Twitter police. So take it easy, researching each account you follow and you’ll never get near these limits.
Whilst you ‘harvest’ followbacks you’re looking for the following.
Are they harvesters too? You’ll see they usually have as many followers as follows and in their 1000’s most likely. Following this type of account will usually get a follow back.
After a few days go back into your list of ‘follows’. Which of these ‘harvesters’ followed you back? If they didn’t. Unfollow. Also people might follow you so always check every day if you have any new followers, so you can return the compliment and follow back.
Unfollowing is a different game. If you unfollow 400 in a day you will definitely get your account suspended. I didn’t write the rules. What I won’t do is quote the limit because no one knows what it is. I’ve heard it’s 50 but best you google that question and see what the consensus is
Some follow backs will fill your timeline with dross. Mute them
Some accounts are bullshit PR companies promising fame and fortune. Right now the trends in these scammers is FM Radio stations from Nigeria and Bangladeshi playlist bots. I apologise to the people of those countries who are legitimate but unfortunately I can only pass on what I observe.
Some follow backs will be those influential playlists, bloggers and Radio stations. Do the opposite of mute. Put them on Notify all Tweets. This is where you’re going into the next stage
ENGAGEMENT WHEN YOU’RE NEW ON TWITTER
You might have now harvested a 1000 follows from artists / bands / bloggers / playlisters and radio stations but they’re not going to be reading your tweets until the Twitter algorithm ‘sees’ the connections you have with them. Otherwise their timelines will never include you.
If you’ve abided by my point 6 in my last chapter you’ve been listening to their output and you’ve been refining the list of those who you’ve kept on ’Notify’ so you can narrow down your workload to the influencers who are in your genre.
Do what feels natural as far as commenting, but keep it nice and retweet things you enjoy (but try and limit yourself to an endorsement of others to a level that is measured)
If you’re only tweeting about yourself you’re not going to be developing your voice within your genre bubble (Did I just say that? Jeez Joe, that was wanky)
Hashtags are not as intrinsic to Twitter as Instagram but they can help, I’m still undecided about their value but admit to putting #NewMusic in the odd tweet and John Michie said he bundled all his promo off his last album with the album name as a hashtag.
Twitter for new music is all about mutual support. Be kind and praise tracks that are awesome. Like tweets because you like them but it will put you momentarily under their gaze. No matter how brief that GLIMPSE of your name is to them, when they see you’ve liked or retweeted their tweet, it’s feeding the algorithm and forging the connections you need to get their timelines to include your tweets.
‘THAT GLIMPSE’
That moment when someone reads your tweet and investigates further by reading your bio, what have you got in it? Is it a link to your work? Is it eye catching? Have you got a pinned tweet that says most about your most recent or strongest track? Every tweet you put out will have a link that says “VIEW TWEET ACTIVITY”. This, I understand, is how many timelines your tweet has sat on and momentarily been scrolled past, or better still, has been clicked on. Don’t get bogged down with investigating the numbers, but it gives you a good understanding of the opportunity to be GLIMPSED at what you have out there.
So that’s the lowdown for starting out. You’ve now got the algorithm tweaked as best you can (or in my case, Twitter has become unnecessarily intrusive in you spare time and quite frankly is now an annoying barrage of Notifications) It is now time to….. Take a break!
Pin a tweet to say you’re chilling. It’s hard work and easy to become obsessed with the chase. Remember I’m writing this advice to get you known but not for it to become all consuming and poor for your mental health.
When you come back, you’re going to start on submissions. You can do this whilst you’re building your following but I think it’s best to save your big campaign when you’ve got your Twitter up and running and you’ve started to make those connections.
SUBMITTING
There are a lot of small independent music stations on the internet. They’re mainly doing pre-records which they stream from their websites. The best ones in my opinion do it live, tweeting live, giving shout outs to those listening in. I have a list of them at this link on Twitter. Not in any particular order but all on there have at some point shown the values I appreciate of supporting New Music with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. Then there’s the playlisters. I prefer the ones associated with the radio stations as they are more supportive people on the whole. Then there’s bloggers who are the most passionate people of all. They are listening to music 24/7 and if they write up one of your tracks you can definitely file away the link to the article for ever more. Here is a link to the playlists and blogs I have connected with. They are Indie/ Guitar Rock/ Alternative aficionados so if you’re in that genre, give it a thorough read.
TWITTER LISTS
As you find new Twitter accounts add them to a Twitter list (make it private or public, you choose) and use that resource for your next campaign. It keeps you organised.
So that’s it. I’m now done with typing. I am often wrong. There are many other things to know. But this, off the top of my head are some of the killer facts to take on board as a newbie. Scroll to the bottom and you will see that list of Bloggers and Playlisters I mentioned earlier.
Edited to add a really important point raised by Sam Gaetani - Make sure all your Social Media links are on your Spotify profiles!!
Edited to add a point raised by Brits & Pieces - keep checking your DM’s and emails or you might miss out on stuff. Make sure your notifications are set up to do this.
Good luck!
Footnote: A lot of this advice came from John Michie a year ago. Thanks John and to everyone else, PASS IT ON!