So You Have Signed Up For Twitter, Now What?

You have now set up your account in Twitter.  You have, haven’t you?  If not, Click Here to set up your account.  It’s free! 

So, what do you do next?  You want to start following people and have people following you.  Keep in mind that Twitter is a social network, so it is all about building relationships.  Before you start looking for followers, you must decide what your focus is for “tweeting”.  Are you just looking to make new friends?  Do you have a business that you want to promote?  Are you a musician or band and you are looking to interact with fans and attract new fans?

For the purposes of this blog, I will focus on musicians and music lovers finding the right followers.  However, the same concepts will apply to any business. 

For musicians, there are several ways to find followers.  Some passive methods are as follows:

1. MySpace:  You can send bulletins out to all of your friends on MySpace to get them to follow you on Twitter.
2. Twitter “badge”:  Add your Twitter “badge” to your MySpace and Facebook profiles.   Once you have logged into your Twitter account, click on settings.  You will notice a message in parenthesis under the box where you entered your website URL.  The message says “You can also add Twitter to your site here”.  Click on the link and it will take you through the steps to create your badge.  Click here  to check out my MySpace page to see my Twitter badge.
3. Facebook:  Post your Twitter URL on your Wall for your fans to see.

All of these passive methods will work to get your current fans to start following you on Twitter.  However, Twitter is a great place to find new fans!  This will require you to actively search for fans.  Some active methods are as follows:

1. Follow other musician’s followers:  This is a great method to get “active” tweeters.  Find other musicians on Twitter and start following their followers.  Some musicians currently on Twitter – @GeorgeStrait, @CollinRaye, @LBTmusic (Little Big Town), @MCHammer, @cunderwood83 (Carrie Underwood).  Get the idea?
2. Follow music publications (great way to promote yourself with them):  Some notables on Twitter – @Billboarddotcom, @countrymusic (CMA), @FollowCMT.  Starting to make sense?
3. Twellow – Twellow is the Twitter Yellow Pages.  It’s a free search engine to find targeted marketers.  You can search by categories or my specific interest.  Click here  to check it out.

Important Tip – Twitter has guidelines just like MySpace and Facebook. As you are building your followers, be careful not to start following more than 400 per day. Twitter watches this type of activity just like MySpace. These guidelines are there to protect all of us from SPAM. Support them and we will all be successful!

Now you are ready to start building your followers and finding new friends and fans!  Check back for my next post in this series on Twitter.  Till next time!!