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Although Twitter is great for people of all walks of life and professions, it is probably best for what it was designed for originally: keeping in touch with friends.  Twitter makes keeping in touch with friends easier and simpler than ever before.  Because you can tweet, or update, so many different ways, it's flexible enough to be used from anywhere, which lends itself to being used more frequently than sites like MySpace or Facebook.  Read More »

Part of the beauty of Twitter is that it can be many things to many people.  As part of my effort to recruit as many people to Twitter as possible, I decided that I should write posts about how Twitter can be used in different situations.  For example, of course you can just use Twitter to make plans with your friends, but the interactivity of Twitter can be very useful for people in all sorts of different professions.  I'm going to attempt to come up with as many different uses for it as I can and I'm going to start with the one I feel (for better or worse) qualified the most to talk about: using Twitter to promote your band or music.

Your Fans Really Do Care What You're Doing
Believe it or not, if you've been making music for a while, you've probably accumulated a not-insignificant group of fans who are interested in what you do on a daily basis.  These are the fans that download all your songs (whether you want them to or not), go to all your shows and buy all your t-shirts.  Every band has these, no matter how long you've been around or how bad your music is.  These are the people that you can cater to with Twitter. 

I suggest updating at least twice a day.  Once when you get up you should post what you're going to be doing that day, whether or not it's related to your music, and once when your day is done to let them know how it went.  Believe me, if Cedric and Omar from The Mars Volta or Daft Punk were on Twitter, you better believe I would be following them and would get super excited whenever they updated, even if it was just to let me know that they were eating a bowl of Cheerios. 

Promoting Your Shows
Twitter can be an extremely effective promotional tool because you can ask people to come to your shows on several different occasions.  If you are booking a tour, I suggest updating on Twitter when the dates are finalized and linking to the posted dates on your web site.  Also, the day before the show, as well as the day of, you can update reminding everyone to come out to see you.

If you have enough fans and followers, you could make them feel extra special by having exclusive shows or afterparties that you only mention on Twitter.  Once your fans find out that you are having these secret events, they will start following you on Twitter, thereby increasing your reach. 

Take Requests
Since Twitter makes it so easy to interact with your fans, why not ask them what they want to hear when they come to your show?  Maybe you've been neglecting to play an old fan favorite.  Twitter is an easy way to find out what your fans want to hear, straight from the source.  All they have to do is either direct message you or reply to you using the @ symbol.

Twitter-Exclusive Downloads
Say thank you to your biggest fans by giving your Twitter followers the heads up on exclusive new songs and videos.  Posting a link on Twitter and NOT your web site says that you really value your fans enough to give them something special.  Of course, once word gets out that you have a new song available for download, your non-Twittering fans will download it, but your Twitter followers will feel special because you gave them the heads up first.

Get Instant Feedback
Not sure if that hook you're writing is trash or gold?  Post a clip on Twitter and if you have enough followers, you'll get instant feedback in minutes!  Jason Calacanis, founder of Weblogs Inc. and Mahalo, uses it to get feedback on new designs for Mahalo.  Sure, you could say that the fans should have no impact on the music you make, but if you want, you have an instant focus group that has your best interests at heart, wants you to succeed and would love to have you take their feedback into consideration.

Twitter-Exclusive Contests
This falls along the same lines as taking requests via Twitter, except it's more fun.  You could create a contest in which they plug your new song or upcoming show in one of their updates and that enters them into a drawing where the winner gets free tickets to an upcoming show in their area.  You get free promotion, they get to come to your show for free and their followers check out your new song.  It's a win-win for everyone involved.

This is really just scratching the surface of how musicians can leverage Twitter to build their brand, increase their audience and get more people to hear their music.  I'm sure as time goes on and more and more bands adopt Twitter the way they did MySpace, we'll see some really innovative ways to use Twitter, but these ideas should be enough to get you started.  Good luck and follow me on Twitter!

So it would seem that Twitter sneaks its way into the topics of nearly every conversation I have with other Twitter users.  Twitter is quickly becoming one of, if not the most important social networking service out there right now.  Because I believe that Twitter is infinitely more useful than its more complicated big brother social networking services like MySpace and Facebook, I decided to write this post for other Twitter enthusiasts to use to encourage their friends to start using Twitter.

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a web service that allows you to quickly easily keep in touch with friends and family by way of 140 character messages.  Each update is limited to 140 characters (20 less than a text message), which means that it's not like a blog, it's only meant to hold a few sentences at the most.  Users can "follow" other users which means that they get their updates automatically when they log into Twitter.  Following works both ways and you get notified when other users follow you.  You then have the option of following them, which can create a two-way dialog because they now see all your updates and vice versa. 

In a nutshell, Twitter strips away all of the bloated uselessness of Facebook and MySpace and leaves only what's important: the short, quick status update.  I can't speak for other MySpace/Facebook users, but I find that the only feature I use on MySpace is the bulletin board and the only feature I use on Facebook is the Mini-feed and the status update.  Twitter takes it a step further because you can send and receive updates through your cell phone via text message.

What is it good for?
The beauty of Twitter is that it is flexible enough to use it for as much or as little as you want.  The screenshot below is typical of the updates you see on Twitter. 

TheRealJasonLee is just updating what he's doing at the moment, which you may or may not care about depending on your relationship to him.  For example, if you worked with him, you probably wouldn't care about his truck, but if you were friends and planning a road trip in that truck, that would be relevant for you.  MelissaMonroy is replying to Eric_Valdez' post about the new Indiana Jones movie which was a reply to an update I posted asking if anybody wanted to go see it at midnight on opening day.  lauren_fishkin is using it to make plans by asking if me or any of our other friends want to go see the band Chromeo.  JasonCalacanis, founder of Mahalo, is using it to gather information about the best media outlets to focus on while he is in Australia.

As you can see, the value you get from Twitter is based on your updates, as well as your friends' updates, meaning that if you never update and you only have a few friends on it that never update, it's useless.  At the moment, I have 44 followers and of those, I know 15 of them in real life.  Of those 15, only about 6 of them update on a regular basis, so it's a great way to keep up with those 6 people, but it would be even better if everyone I know on Facebook and MySpace started using Twitter because then the value increases immensely. 

Imagine having everyone you know following you on Twitter when you are looking for information.  Maybe you're trying to find a good graphic designer for a new web site or maybe you're just looking for a good sushi restaurant near you.  Depending on the number of people following you, you can get answers and feedback in minutes from a variety of different people and backgrounds.

How do I get started?
Now that you're convinced about the merits of Twitter, just go to Twitter.com to sign up.  If you use Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, it will ask you if it can search your address book to find people who are already on Twitter so you can start following people quickly and easily. 

For most people who aren't chained to their computers all day like some of us, Twitter via text message is probably the best way to go.  Just go to Settings -> Devices and then enter in your cell phone number so you can get text message updates on your phone.  Don't worry, you can automatically turn off updates at night while you're sleeping so you're not woken up in the middle of the night by a random update.  Now that you can get updates on your phone, just click on one of your followers' profiles and you can select whether you want to get their updates on your phone or not. 

Now all you have to do is get all your friends on Twitter and get them to start using it.  Feel free to link them to this page and make sure you start follow me!  My username is Ryan_Gutierrez.  In the next few weeks I'll be writing about interesting uses for Twitter so stay tuned!