The full interview is available at this location, read few excerpts from it below (the most practical ones, in my opinion):

What sort of tips can you give to new music bloggers and new musicians looking to establish the direction of their own blogs?

As Seth Godin recently warned, “the Internet is almost full”. Picking readers’ attention is harder and harder and harder each year and even month or week. I don’t think you need to afraid to fail though, remember that it’s all about fun (good luck if you began blogging to get rich). Experiment, try things that no one or only few have done before, see the results and either stick to the new direction or try something new again. Your goal is to stand out against the crowd of blogs in your niche, so experimenting by itself will do a lot for you.

If you are a musician, of course just blog in any way you can, even if your grammar skills suck. Don’t do it for the sake of being trendy, do it for fun. Keep your posts short if you are not wordy (most readers will appreciate that!), but say something cool each time you leave a post. You are a rock star, and your life IS interesting to others by default. What seems boring to you will sound spicy to others, especially your fans.

Did you do any research to learn new and more effective ways to establish and promote your blog? If so, where did you receive the best information from?

I had been spending hours reading dozens of blogs dedicated to that, like Copyblogger, ProBlogger, Blogging Tips etc. They are all great, that is fact, but these sites are mostly recycling the same information over again. I’ve learned absolutely essential things from such blogs, but also understood that there is no need to constantly keep up with each of them to get your website running great. Instead of falling into the learning trap, like I love to do, just open your online editor and write a new blog post!

Did blogging present new avenues for networking and establishing connections with people that may not have been available to you through social networks?

Yes and this is one of the most amazing things about blogging to me. Owning a blog gives great opportunities in finding new connections in your industry. Most of the people nowadays realize the influence of blogging, so you’ve got very strong chances to get a response from a high profile person even if you blog is young and small.

How can a blog network benefit new bloggers looking to establish their own brand?

If you want to build a name in your niche (and I know that you do), you should find as many blogs of the same topic as possible and start not only reading them, but constantly leaving comments in their posts, contacting their founders, asking to do guest posts. And if you do a guest post, share the best stuff you’ve got!

Networking is crucial for establishing a successful blog and spending more time on networking is one of the top priorities in my to-do list for Dotted Music.

How long did it take you to establish a ‘voice’ within your writing? Do you have any tips for new bloggers looking to find their own voice?

I think I’m still establishing my voice! Writing in English is an exciting challenge by itself, as I’m Russian. But I have to note that expressing ideas in a language different from your native one proved to be healthy. You don’t have a too wide scope for writing unnecessary stuff, and so this is my advice to everyone – keep it clear and to the point.

If interested, read more over here, and be sure to check out other articles from the series – very inspiring.

Also, using a chance, I want to apology for writing here so rarely lately. You will see a lot of interesting stuff on Dotted Music very soon, so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading :)

MicControl

While music bloggers make up a significant portion of the overall population of the blogosphere, there are far too many blogs that just float along in cyberspace without the understanding or direction to put their blog onto the path of success.

Meanwhile, there are far too few artists who truly understand the power of a blog and why it should be used in congruence with a strong social media presence.

Therefore the purpose of The Blogging Side Of Music is twofold – First, to share some powerful insight with existing music bloggers as to how they can get on the right path towards success. Second, is to elaborate on the effectiveness and usefulness of a blog in any artist’s overall marketing strategy.

The bloggers featured throughout the series have all found success at their own levels of blogging, each with their own purpose and motives for establishing a blog in the first place. The following is the schedule for the 5-part series:

• Monday June 7: Matthew Moran – Musician/ Social Media Consultant
• Tuesday June 8: Dave Tamkin – National Touring Musician
• Wednesday June 9: Peter Malick – Award Winning Music Producer/ Blues Musician/Blogger
• Thursday June 10: Andrew Apanov – Editor-In-Cheif, Ultimate-Guitar.com/ Blogger (Jon, thank you!)
• Friday June 11: Christina Duren – General Manager, Ariel Publicity/ Blogger

Photo by: Steve Wampler on Flickr

Thankfully for the more corporate enterprises, though unfortunately for the independent musician, the aforementioned big guys have started to see the benefits that can be reaped using the internet. Public broadcasting is a much wider option on the internet than it is in more conventional methods, such as television and the radio. General view counts will usually be lower on the internet, but only as long as popularity is limited. Once a broadcaster reaches a reliable, wide-reaching audience, the potential for reaching even higher view counts than television. One of the main reasons for this is that your chosen piece of music is constantly available, rather than being singularly broadcast. Much less money can be earned by showing off your music online, but once you reach a certain level of popularity the income begins to fly.

In taking advantage of this, some rather interesting stuff has found it’s way on to the internet. My main example here would be things like ‘Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog’. This is a web broadcast musical, forty-two minutes long and released in installments. Rather than just music, the internet allows the perfect tool for anything that can be created, regardless of budget, cast or preparation. Advertising in these manners is usually done entirely through word of mouth. However, since the company making the video or music file already have a considerable amount of capital behind them, they can put their work out for all sorts of international syndication. While they will undoubtedly spend much more money putting their work onto television, it could easily garner a much reduced reward when it comes to the outcome.

Creating music videos, at a low budget, is an incredibly common thing for any band or musician to indulge in. While some promoters are internet based, and can thus advertise your work all across the internet, but there are still limits to it. On the internet, everybody is on an even playing field. You put your work out there, usually in the same places as most of the more popular content, and hope that it draws attention. From there though, it’s out of your hands. The content can be passed, traded and downloaded, regardless of file size or type. This, though, is where the independent musician has an advantage.

For the independent musician, peer to peer file trading is the absolute best thing for their continuing popularity. If it’s just one or two people pooling together to throw out a track, it’s no big loss to have it traded for free between a few dozen people. For the big company throwing it’s weight around, they’re looking at a gigantic loss between the flight of thousands of free copies.

In a digital economy, big business still loses millions, while the independent musician has nothing but gains.

Tom Colohue is a fiction writer and music instructor from Blackpool, England. Though his main works are in the realms of fantasy, he also writes modern fiction for multiple websites, as well as theoretical and practical music lessons for magazines.

Read also: Effects Of The Internet: Musical Mobility, The Effects Of The Internet: Contract Giveaways, The Effects Of The Internet: “Making It”, The Effects Of The Internet: Music Distribution

While the need to record in a professional studio used to be the standard, the same quality of recordings can now be achieved from the comfort of your own home – you just need to know what you are doing. The purpose of this series is twofold – first, to explore different forms in-home recording in hopes of sharing some insight with other emerging artists looking to record their own music. Second, to expose the music of emerging artists who have put the time and effort into perfecting their craft.

MicControl

The music featured in Recording In The Home will vary from acoustic based blues to electronic based house, where the recordings were obtained in settings that range from an attic to a home-office based studio.

Except from interview with Eric Dennis – Metal Guitarist who goes by the stage name Daemon Blak:

Typical how many tracks will one of your songs contain? Can you explain the different tracks use?

On most of my songs, there are the following tracks – Drum rhythm tracks= 3-  main drum track for the primary beat, one fill track for cymbals, one fill track for drum fills, Bass track= 1. Rhythm guitar =2 tracks- one for left, and one for right, and Lead Track=1 for the guitar solo. There may also be two additional tracks for a lead harmony. That makes for an average total of 7 to 9 tracks for the music. There will be one track for vocals (when I find a singer), so the average track count is 7 to 10 total tracks, depending on the song.

Except from interview with ESEMDEE – Electronic Instrumental Composer:

Where do you get your samples from?

I hit the dollar (record) bins something serious. I had to not shop at the spot I go to for a while because I cleaned house. I got Prince’s “Purple Rain” album for .50 cents not too long ago. Everything from my 404′s & Cold Sores* album was made from dollar records. With vinyl back on the rise, so are the prices. I’m a man on a budget. If I’m feeling lazy, I’ll just sample whatever songs I have on my computer. It could have came out today or in the ’40′s.. I’ll sample it. When I first started, I was using the sound of a heart beat for drum kicks. I might record my vocals to chop up and throw in a track from time to time. I get my samples from anything and everything. I’ll record voice memo’s on my phone when I’m riding the bus or hanging out and use everyday events even. Nothing is safe. You can’t limit your sources.

This series is right in line with the goals and purpose of MicControl.com – to establish a learning network through the use the fully functional blogging platform, where musicians can teach each other and learn from past experience. While MicControl.com is a fully functioning music social network, the primary focus is blogging and learning – forming a level of engagement and trust within the music community that has yet to be established on the internet.

This was a guest post by Jonathan Ostrow. Be sure to check out his ‘Recording In The Home’ interview series next week and express your thoughts on the topic in the comments below.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs iPhone app #1 in App Store’s Music category

Obviously, this is the most important news of the current week for me. Ultimate Guitar Tabs, an iPhone app for searching and viewing guitar and bass tablature from Ultimate-Guitar.com, made it to the first spot in the Music category of the App Store in the US and four other countries, displacing the infamous I Am T-Pain app (UPDATE: after the price increase, UGT is again at 2 – I think this is temporary :)). UGT was also on the 8th place in the general top of the US App Store, which is neat.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs iPhone App

Gorillaz release an addictive online game

Gorillaz announced a simple, but quite well-done online Flash game, Escape to Plastic Beach. “‘Escape to Plastic Beach’ is the first game of its type merging numerous levels of Flash and Unity formats along with a new single MP3 to create an audio, visual, graphical and gaming experience to expand fans’ experience of an album. Increasing the experience beyond traditional album release – the game features original artwork, voiceovers from the band and numerous other tracks from the new Gorillaz album.” This is a part of the act’s broad marketing campaign, which was greatly covered over here.

Noisia spread the Infection, an online music game

And another online game, this time a rhythm based one – from Dutch producing trio Noisia (one of the best drum&bass acts in the world). Noisia have released a Flash music game to coincide with the release of their new single “Machine Gun“. Check it out, pretty interesting experience.

The Chemical Brothers prepare films for their iTunes LP album

The Chemical Brothers are set to release their seventh studio album, called Further, on June 8, 2010 on Freestyle Dust/Astralwerks. This album is said to be the band’s first to be released with corresponding films made specifically to match each of the 8 audio tracks. The films will be included on an iTunes LP and special edition DVD. If the Chemical camp will keep creating and adding worthy content to the iTunes LP, similarly to Gorillaz, then this is definitely an album I am looking to myself.

And last, few cool links from Twitter:

• How to make a great music app (via Forrester Blogs)
• Plastikman launches innovative iPhone app for live gigs (via Sandbox.fm)
• Lou Reed’s New iPhone App For Aging Eyeballs (via Hypebot)
• 8 people you’ll find hanging out in a music store (via Guyism)

So, today in the world of DM:

DottedMusic.com

What to read on the main domain? First of all, recently I broke the news about two fabulous Ultimate Guitar projects I’ve been involved in: Arcade Rocker and Ultimate Guitar Tabs (already first place in the App Store!! 2nd place in the App Store’s Music category, right after I Am T-Pain!). Definitely worth checking out are Starting A Record Label series by Ben Histand, inspiring pieces from music specialist Draven Grey and my friend and a kick-ass publicist Brian Rocha, and comments on the music biz from Jared Leto and Reader’s Wives’ frontman Niall James.

Dotted Thoughts @ Posterous

This is the first time I’m revealing here my Posterous blog, called Dotted Thoughts. Don’t be confused, it’s actually a part of the Dotted Music project, soon to be transferred to a dottedmusic.com subdomain. Dotted Thoughts is more about brief news on music and technology. If you don’t want to subscribe to its updates separately (which indeed might be confusing for some of you), keep an eye on weekly “Dotted Thoughts Round-ups,” containing the most interesting news and links from that Posterous blog and my Twitter account. I will begin posting the round-ups in April.

Fiverr

This is a little weird experiment I’ve launched on the Fiverr platform. For those who hasn’t heard about Fiverr yet, it is a place where people will do various things for you just for $5, and where you can offer your own $5 services. To put it short, I am promising to give you a complex personal music marketing advice for five bucks. Interested, anyone? It’s a limited time offer ;)

Facebook Page

Be sure to join the Dotted Music page on Facebook, if you haven’t done that already. It’s a great way to receive updates from both DM and DT blogs, and to be the first to read exclusive news from time to time. Several Facebook contests coming up in the future, so don’t hesitate to join us on Facebook!

Twitter List

While some of you are following me on Twitter already (please make sure you are among those some though), not many people have heard about the music biz Twitter List I’ve created. Follow it to get tons of exceptional music industry updates in one feed (I will be adding even more intersting personas to the list soon). Moreover, if you follow this Twitter List – I will mention your Twitter name in the nearest Dotted Thoughts round-up!

I think that’s it for now, read Dotted Music and be inspired!

The interwebs is very much a vast ocean when it comes to what can be accessed, what is out there, and how there are sites upon sites that I have yet to discover. Now as a publicist for the past six or so years, I have come a pretty long way. I was once naïve and felt that no blog could matter, no chance, no care, don’t tell me about your blog and please do not ask me to cover my artist – it won’t happen. Humans are evolving now to have one eye, as all the computer screen staring is starting to fit into natural selection. I can’t cite where I read that, but I assure I did not make it up or see it on The Simpsons. More people are reading news and gaining their information via the net, then people are reading hard, tangible media.

Photo credit: qwz on Flickr

Circa 2003, I read lots of print publications, from my university newspaper, to the local newspaper, and of course many music magazines (in high school, my walls were plastered with pages of Hit Parader). It seems in about seven years, I obtain just about all good tidbits of info – news – sports info – arts & entertainment scoops – all from the internet. Print has not completely gone the way of the buffalo though, as my reading of countless print publications has dwindled down to like three or four, including my town’s local newspaper.

Nowadays, I am happy to work with blogs in an effort to get my artist exposure. My recon will never cease in trying to find more neat music blogs on the internet now. Hell, I pitch them now. I hold them in high regard, and I have completely dropped my “any kid can have a website” attitude. Having been on a slew of blogs over the past few months, I notice all of them have a heart in common. Blogs are rather passionate, I mean case in point here, as I type this. I don’t know if this will reach one person, but you know I will finish my thoughts before wrapping this up. You know what blogs do not ask for, ads and money. Maybe they do, I don’t know, but my guess is they will be much more keen to cover an act, ad or no ad.

Rutgers University and Comm. 102 taught me about the outlawing of payola, yet, it runs rampant in so many aspects of life today. Will I provide an example here… no. But back to blogging, you know where else I have been learning about cool bands… yup… on blogs. I don’t really have any favorites but all and all, I am now a sound believer in the importance of the interwebbing of the interwebs. It’s the little guy that actually gives a shit and wants to say something – who cares if someone hears the message, it is out there and it will eventually be found.

Brian P. Rocha is a co-owner at Fresno Media, handling publicity for some heavy bands. When he is not working 25 hours a day, he dreams of taking a subway to Venus.

Not everybody is particularly talented at writing music. While some people find it incredibly difficult others find it easier than anything else. Everybody has specific skills that are worth nurturing in order to gain as much from them as possible. You don’t have to want to be a writer, a poet or a musician. All that you need is a sense of drive with which you might work towards honing your current skills and developing whatever is available to you already.

I’m just laying out something of a list of points here. Using these, it’s up to you to do what you will with the present information. All of these come from almost fifteen years of writing experience myself. I started writing fifteen years ago, started with poetry five years ago and started writing music, which will be covered in later pieces, and lyrics about three years ago when I was gifted with my guitar. Whether you’ve never written a song before or you have written a platinum selling album and sixteen novels, I hope this helps.

Point Four: Take Your Time

Photo credit: chlorinelake on Tumblr

If you write something down and it sounds good, then keep it. Come back a week later and your opinion on it might have changed, so let it change and grow with the time you’ve given it. Your influences may have changed and the character behind the piece might have grown and developed into something brand new. This will always add something to what you’re writing, as well as taking it away from how it originated. The less obvious the original influences become, the more unique the piece is in the end.

You will always be your own worst critic. Coming back to something after a little time is a lot like coming to something brand new that somebody else has written. If you were after comedy, you might find that the jokes are not funny anymore. The rhythm in your head may have changed and a new one might come forth for the poem or song that you’re writing. A new influence from another genre might have crept in, or your new perspective might present a brand new selection of words to follow.

All work evolves, you just have to give it time in which to do that. Don’t be afraid of change. If you end up happy with the results then there’s never any reason to worry about it.

Point Five: Repetition

Photo credit: negative-numbers.tumblr.com

Repetition is always a difficult one to gauge. Choral repetition is generally considered the best way to go, however a catchy line or verse can become much more powerful when repeated. Unfortunately, if the lyrics don’t have the power in them anyway or don’t really say anything that is of particular importance to the song then it comes out weak and pointless.

You have to choose your repeated words carefully. In repeating them, you are empowering them, so you have to ensure that they hold enough power in them to make it sensible. It has to not only fit the piece, but also to fit the perceptions of the person listening to it. Now, obviously, you don’t know what your reader is thinking, so you need to make sure that it has the right affect on you.

It’s handy having somebody else available to read over what you’ve done, particularly somebody evil, cruel and magnificently brutal. They’re the best and most honest critics.

Point Six: Keep A Thesaurus And A Rhyming Dictionary Handy

Photo credit: Jesper Waldersten

Often when writing a song you’ll come across a few problem lines. How you handle this will decide if the song survives or not. If you like to make songs which rhyme but can’t think of an appropriate rhyming word there are three steps to follow which should help you find one:

• Confirm what you’re trying to say.
• Use a Thesaurus on the word you’re trying to rhyme with and consider changing it.
• Use a rhyming dictionary to find a rhyming word that fits the song.

The expansion of your vocabulary is the easiest way to defeat this potential issue as and when it arises. It will come up a lot when you just want to make sure that things fit nicely, but they refuse to do so. Spend some time considering it and working out what your options are, then choose whatever one seems most suitable to you. If all else fails, it’s more than likely that you can just change the line itself. You could come back later and have a completely different line in mind.

Point Seven: Inspire Yourself

Photo credit: arriana.tumblr.com

Inspiration can be hard to find, but it’s not as elusive as people think. Inspiration is simply something that makes you think, so you can see that there‘s a lot of it in the world. Even when you have writer’s block, or you’re too angry to focus, your mind is still constantly active and thinking about whatever random thing that you’ve been inspired to think about. Obviously inspiration is unique to different people as people are unique themselves, but here follows a list of ways I try to think when I’m writing a song:

• Think of a choice you made in life, what would happen if you chose the other one.
• Make a random thought rhyme.
• What were your feelings when you first discovered… (e.g. sex, drugs, rock n’ roll)
• Read a book. Imagine you are your favourite character.
• What would an ex have to say for you to let them come back.

So there you have it. Just a couple of suggestions which will hopefully help any songwriters out there. I always enjoy reading songs so the more there are the better for me. All of these points are things that I have been doing for years, and they have looked after me in their own unique way throughout my career as a writer. If you’re the sort of person who writes, or wants to write, I hope that something here will have proven beneficial for you.

Thanks for your time.

Tom Colohue is a fiction writer and music instructor from Blackpool, England. Though his main works are in the realms of fantasy, he also writes modern fiction for multiple websites, as well as theoretical and practical music lessons for magazines.

In this installment, we’re going to be looking at the most basic aspects of writing. I’m not going to be putting too much focus into writing poetry or lyrics, but there will be some extra attention paid to those because of the flow that verse provides. Becoming comfortable with your own preferred areas and talents is important, but you have to write in order to become aware of just what you’re capable of offering yourself and others.

Photo credit: mikiiglesias on Flickr

Ideally, you can use this as you will. If you want to pay extra attention to writing lyrics then don’t be trying to make your words match the music, especially if you don’t even have music written down yet. If you want to be writing poetry then pay special attention to learning about poetic license. If you just want to write short stories or fantastic tales, take what you will from this and ignore what doesn’t seem to work out for you. It’s all up to you.

Not everybody is particularly talented at writing music. While some people find it incredibly difficult others find it easier than anything else. Everybody has specific skills that are worth nurturing in order to gain as much from them as possible. You don’t have to want to be a writer, a poet or a musician. All that you need is a sense of drive with which you might work towards honing your current skills and developing whatever is available to you already.

So, with that we shall move forwards into the actual content that is the meat of our writing sandwich. Let’s get started, shall we?

Writing Outright

I’m just going to be laying out something of a list of points here. Using these, it’s up to you to do what you will with the present information. All of these come from almost fifteen years of writing experience myself. I started writing fifteen years ago, started with poetry five years ago and started writing music, which will be covered in later pieces, and lyrics about three years ago when I was gifted with my guitar. Whether you’ve never written a song before or you have written a platinum selling album and sixteen novels, I hope this helps.

Point One: Carry A Notepad

Photo credit: Tja'Sha ♥ on Flickr

Whether poet, author or songwriter the golden rule of writing is to carry a notepad with you wherever you go. This works best when accompanied by some sort of writing implement. Random lyrics and riffs will pop into your head at random times and by the time you get home to write them out they’ll be gone. A notepad means you can note your idea down straight away and look back at it whenever you wish. This means you can also continue it whenever you wish.

You will find that a lot of pages end up jumping out at you as you scroll through the pages at some later date. Lyrics will remind you of themselves, while also encouraging you to slip them into other songs in some way or another. Bits of characters or general characteristics will find other ways to fit in with whatever you’ve discovered.

Also, life itself will always find something to throw at you. A friend will say something that sounds nicely profound, so you can just note it down for later use or cannibalisation. You’ll find slogans and jingles that, when mixed up and thrown together, offer you brand new ideas and possibilities. All songs, poems and stories are a simple collection of words. What sets them apart is the unique style in which you throw things together. A notepad will always make for a perfect sounding board. Throw two words together and see how they work out on paper. Throw a few lines together there and then read then out loud and see how they sound to you.

This is one of those things that is so integral just because it makes things that much easier overall. It frees you from that agonising period when you’re trying to work out something awesome that you’ve worked out a few hours previous but simply can not put together correctly now. As a writer, this is likely one of the single most annoying things in the world because you know just how good it was, you just can’t recall it to get it down on paper and into a word processor.

Point Two: Draw From Real Life

Photo credit: isayx3 on Flickr

No song holds more emotion or meaning than one written about something that really happened. The simple reason behind this is because of the descriptive elements. You can never describe a false reality to even a minor percentage of the ability in which you would be able to describe a memory, particularly a fresh one. Dreams hold the same sort of enchantment. Concentrate on the details of what you see and how you feel because those will undoubtedly make things as interesting for other people as it did for you.

There are a lot of examples of this in both modern music and less modern music. Apart from the killer riff Deep Purple‘s ‘Smoke On The Water’ was so popular because it told the story of an actual event. There are a million songs about break ups and relationships in general. People want to find something that they can relate to, and everybody can relate to real life, relationships especially.

It’s not about making something that’s commercially available for absolutely everybody. That’s never the point, no matter what it is that you’re writing. However, being honest with yourself and writing about what you want to write about is never selling out, despite how much people will tell you so if you write about something like relationships. If you experience a break up and get the urge to write a song about it, then do it. A lot of people might be able to write songs about them, but not yours. Things that happen to you can only be told from your perspective by you.

Point Three: Read

Photo credit: ~xRinei on deviantART

As a writer, any sort of reading is research, and research is very important. Your vocabulary is your greatest weapon. There are literally millions of words in the english language, all of which express a different meaning. The bigger the word the more it means and the more it alludes to. That doesn’t mean it’s better, but it does mean that it says much more. Reading a book or newspaper and considering the content can also be a great way to pick up ideas. You can learn about how things flow and how some words work well together and some do not.

Research as well is very important. Allusions and illusions can be created through the knowledge that can be gleaned. In songs, a recurring theme can be set up through researching a direction that you’re aiming for. When it comes to music, listening to the genres and songs that you want to mimic is research. You’re learning the moves, the typical phrases with the most impact and how words can affect people like yourself.

Research also puts background into your work. If you’re trying to write a concept album then you need your work to allude both backwards and forwards to the other tracks in order to keep things encompassed and united. If you’re trying to write something fantasy relative then you can learn a lot by researching mythology and philosophy and then using it as you go. Reading other works of fiction, fact and opinionated ‘fact’ can show you a world of options that simply did not become clear to you when you first started. Over time, this might flavour what you are working on.

Part Two of the Writing Tips by Tom Colohue will be posted next week.

Tom Colohue is a fiction writer and music instructor from Blackpool, England. Though his main works are in the realms of fantasy, he also writes modern fiction for multiple websites, as well as theoretical and practical music lessons for magazines.

Assuming that you haven’t been on a charity tour across Africa without an internet (and TV) access during the past two years, I won’t be telling you how Twitter works (if you are a beginner, you might be interested in checking out 9 Twitter Tips for Artists first). Below you will find a dead simple, up-to-date collection of advises from experts all around the web aimed to help you get maximum out of Twitter.

1. What To Tweet

Image credit: board.milkboys.org

Of course just rushing into Twitter client / website and starting “twittering” some random stuff right away won’t work, as won’t work leaving faceless promotional messages once a week. Read this article to understand what behavior should be avoided.

Think how to engage your followers to prove that you are worth their attention, and to neatly promote your brand and your products. I’d suggest looking into what others do. Remember that there are professional PR agencies behind popular artists, so there is nothing wrong with borrowing some ideas from them – just make sure you don’t become a slowpoke in the internet marketing race (like Homer in the pic below).

Here are few recent examples off the top of my head… Muse used Twitter to announce a track listing for their new album, tweeting titles track-by-track; Dashboard Confessional promised fans to put up a free song online once their Twitter page reaches 16,000 followers; I’m sure you’ve heard Amanda Palmer’s story, etc. You will find hundreds of such examples if you want.

And don’t forget that Twitter is about communication. Spend some time on it, listening to others. There is a good feature called “retweet”, and it shouldn’t be ignored. As this useful post called “Retweet Smarter” states, “retweeting in a proper way will develop followers loyalty.”

2. Give Away Your Music

As (I hope) you already know, giving away the music without asking anything in return is pretty stupid. You don’t have to ask for too much, but must have a plan developed and your goals set. Ask for an email address to rise a database for your newsletter, ask fans to spread the message among friends so more people hear about you, ask for a re-tweet, after all!

With Twitter, it’s a good idea to use existing tools for freely distributing your music. Like these:

• Tweet For A Track
• Tweet My Song
• TwtMuzik

Let me know if you have tried any of them yourself, really curious to hear pros and cons of each one.

For more reasons on why you should be smart giving away music on Twitter, read this great post at WayCoolJnr.

3. Use Twitter Lists

Lists is a new Twitter feature allowing you to combine multiple feeds in a single stream. For example, here’s a Twitter list I created to keep track on music / media news from pros who I trust and respect. What’s good about lists, you can follow them just like any Twitter account (which I invite you to do with this one!)

Use lists at your advantage, easily checking the fellow bands’ activity, looking for important updates from venues in your region, listening what most loyal fans of yours talk about. Find more ideas at this Indie Music Tech blog post and invent your own!

If you want to track specific phrases appearing in your lists’ feed, try this service (it’s like Google Alerts for Twitter).

Conclusion

Image credit: edwheeler.deviantart.com

So, what have we got?

If you think you don’t have enough time for Twitter, read how others spend just 7 minutes a day on social networks. Then think again.  In fact, any mobile phone can handle Twitter work, though die-hard fans might even consider buying a special device like TwitterPeek.

What about musicians like Kid Rock or Taylor? Basically, they don’t have to be on social networks themselves anymore. Are you one of them? Nope (most probably).

After reading this post, you still don’t get what Twitter is for? Hmm…

If you are concerned about the number of your Twitter followers, be sure – using advises above along with some promotional work and common sense will make you a social media rock star (but always remember about the common sense part).

The bottom line: there is no excuse for a musician to ignore Twitter.

PS: A bonus tip from The New Rockstar Philosophy blog. Try Twibbon, “a tattoo for your twitter avatar.”

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