Music Bloggers are Good at Twitter

The birth of music blogging really gave the gridlocked relationship between the music industry and mainstream media a run for its money when it came to who calls the shot in the making or breaking of an artist.  With the extreme daily traction that music blogs receive, an artist can go viral, spelling out “that new thing” without relying on the springboard of music industry-mainstream media handshakes and lunch dates to take them to the top i.e. the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. The international sea of music bloggers brought together by the Hype Machine and other music aggregators has become the epicenter of music discovery across the Internet.  Music bloggers successfully added themselves to the equation of those who held the power, evolving the music industry from a monarchy into a republic.

And then this thing happened: Twitter. Everyone went all crazy for that little bird; and we all woke up to 140 characters and words like ‘tweet’ ‘twit’ and ‘twidiot’ added to our repertoire of household names.  Facebook freaked out and everyone joined in on the antiphon: “Facebook’s just like Twitter now.” But that didn’t seem to effect the exponentially growing population of Twitterers; everyone is on Twitter, parents, pets, companies, brands, bands, celebrities, venues, cities, God and…Music Bloggers.

Following friends (and strangers) aside, Twitter was totally the coolest because we could all follow famous people, right?  Read all those 140 bouts of wisdom and think to ourselves “Le sigh…I’m so much closer to (insert favorite celebrity here) now – HEY I CAN EVEN GO FIND HIM/HER, because now I know where he/she’s eating lunch.” And then the New York Times chimed in “sorry plebes, you might THINK you’re following your favorite celebrity – but it’s probably just some ghost tweeter.” Sad.

With all this twitricism (get Twitter - criticism…), the social media thinker I am per my job at bigMETHOD decided to evaluate a side of Twitter that is greatly related to the work I take part in every day – specifically how Twitter has affected the world of music blogging.

I spoke with Niklas from Discobelle the other day and he expressed that he knew his blog wasn’t as active on Twitter as it could be.  A couple days later, I noticed this post on Discobelle, calling for readers to follow them on Twitter. The post alone gained a solid 300 follows. Awesome for Discobelle -  they receive so much music that they’ve decided to use Twitter as a place to post some of the music they don’t post on the blog.  This not only encourages followers, but also invites feedback on this exclusive content.  Now Niklas can feel out the response and perhaps post it on the blog later (user inclusion, a democracy).
I also spoke with Den from Bangers and Trash, who provided a remarkable outline of the 5 ways that Twitter proves to be beneficial for a blogger.  Here are his 5 Rules for Bloggers (not necessarily just Music ones) who Tweet:

1) It is a medium for character establishment: As a venue dominated by random thoughts and banal updates it is very much like a blog’s subconscious;
2) It diversifies the objects used to brand a blog: Twitter allows for the discussion of topics that do not directly relate to the theme of a blog, but may be tangentially relevant (eg. music blogger twittering about fashion trends);
3) It is a way to develop your web of connections: A common interest is expressed when @replying with another twitterer and a relationship of brands is established. A blog can use this interaction to gain more readers by connecting with blogs of similar interest;
4) It is a source for news: Twitter is a microblogging platform, and, as such, it is full of vast amounts of information that can serve as a resource for blog posts;
5) It is a place for creativity: Blogs benefit from succinct blurbs, and twitter only allows for messages of 140 characters. Thus, Twitter is a good place to train yourself to write more succinct, clever, and creative posts.

Music bloggers are incredibly effective in their use of Twitter; but not just that – music bloggers use of Twitter is pivotal in continuing the evolution of the Music Industry that exists as a republic (like I said before) of the higher ups like labels, mainstream media and bloggers – into a democracy.  Whereas that republic included a web of a few thousand online portals of music information, Twitter allowed these sites to extend their space and create profiles that present them as easily accessible amongst each other as well as to their readers – creating a democracy of sorts, where anyone who wants to be included can participate.

From everything I’ve seen, Hannah from Sheena Beaston and Jeff from THE CULTURE OF ME stand out as bloggers who have the Twitter game on lockdown in terms of using it completely successfully for their blog.  At any given time, going to either bloggers’ Twitter profile will reveal a continual thread of blog updates and @ replies directed to readers, artists and other bloggers.  They hold no pretensions in participating in conversation (music related or not) and take the time to respond to everyone.

Jeff’s utilization of social media should be viewed as a blueprint for bloggers, artists, and brands alike.  His blog connected to his Twitter, so new blog posts are featured on Twitter. His Twitter connected to his Facebook, such that his Facebook Statuses are updated via Twitter. But, he updates it personally, so it’s not just a feed.  Also, he is constantly live tweeting from the events that he features on his blog – further immersing people in the overall culture/brand of his blog; and thus living up to and really fleshing out his site’s name: THE CULTURE OF ME. He says:

“Twitter’s helped bridge the gap between what we thought would be way hard to do (interact with artists) and interacting with everyone else. We’re not trying to be cooler than anyone or anything like that, and we couldn’t care less about the number of followers, etc. that we have, but if people see our links, read our stuff and holler back at us about it with their opinions (whether it’s blog comments or @’s on Twitter), we just like having gigantic conversations, even if it’s about a cute puppy video on YouTube. We like when people talk with us about our posts (especially in person) but it’s nice to just share everything we’re seeing/listening to with people that we hope feel the same way. Music bloggers on the whole need to remain as accessible as possible, even if it means replying to a thousand emails, IMs, DMs, @’s, Facebooks, whatever. We’re open to invites, suggestions, new stuff, whatever. Just keep the conversations going, is all.”

Hannah from Sheena Beaston, similarly has a remarkable handle on the space.  She posts weekly features where she tweets questions like “What’s your favorite song to sing in the shower to” and then compiles the answers from artists, other bloggers, and her readers/followers.  Thanks to Hannah, readers’ musical insights are quoted alongside those of artists and some of the most popular music bloggers. She gets that the music community’s progression relies on input from press, artist and fans – and there need not be a hierarchy, but instead a democratic community.  Hannah acknowledges,

“I’ve done a lot with Twitter, but what has this ol’ gal done for me? Let me break it down.The majority of my traffic comes through Hype Machine, naturally. Secondly, direct URL referrals (as in: someone simply typing in http://www.sheenabeaston.com into their browser). Third is a tie between Google redirects and elbo.ws hits.  Currently Facebook and Twitter are engaged in a battle for fourth place notoriety. I couldn’t state that fact but a mere month ago. Attribute it to the growing success of the application? Or maybe it’s just the schizophrenic obsession I have with letting everyone know 100% of the moves that Sheena Beaston is making.”

Niklas, Den, Jeff, and Hannah are the main editors/owners of their sites, so their personal Twitter account and site account are pretty much one in the same.  It’s also crucial to discuss how sites that are affiliated with large corporations then also fit into the mix.  Jessica Robertson is the News Editor for Spinner.com, which is the music site for AOL.  Jessica created the Spinner Twitter account at the beginning of 2009, so that news could be culled from Twitter to feed the content on Spinner.com.  She sees Twitter as a community for Spinner to step into alongside other music blogs – a place where they can all sharing their articles, interviews, performances and exclusives with one another.  Jessica explains:

“We want to further integrate our blog with the music community. Hopefully, in that process, we gather and promote some incredible content from our fellow music bloggers and publications, and that they do the same with our content.  Twitter, being the newest — or shall I say, increasingly popular — model for social networking, was a boat we didn’t want to miss. It’s my belief that with an actual editor sending updates to hundreds of followers, and prompting their opinions, questions and other whathaveyou’s, allows a level of accessibility that we didn’t necessarily have before. The curtain has been lifted like never before and readers seek a face, a name, a personality associated with whatever outlet we’re discussing. Spinner certainly isn’t exempt from this, and the full editorial team truly wants more reader engagement — even as far as interview questions for any of the forthcoming artist interviews we have coming up.”

In addition to SpinnerTweet, Jessica also holds her own personal Twitter account.  I follow both accounts, which is why I really wanted to speak with Jessica and understand how both these accounts were really functioning for her.  She said this:

“My personal Twitter account is tied to the Spinner account only in that I do call out who I work for. I’m of the mind that yes, it’s nice for a site’s individual bloggers, editors, etc. have personal accounts, to, again, allow more accessibility. It just so happens that many things I find personally interesting happen to involve music and news, which creates some overlap between the two accounts. However, if Spinner readers are interested in more than what I’m listening to or what interview I have coming up — things like, say, how many puppy teeth I found in the last week, which fell from my 6-month-old dachshunds mouth — then, well, here’s the chance.”

Spinner has always been a personal favorite of mine, and I’ve always loved what Jessica has to say about music.  So, it was extremely flattering when I saw that she retweeted my post on the rules of music blog PR.  Ironically,  to get in touch with her and thank her, I had to go through Twitter.  A DM expressing my interest in her personal use of Twitter and then SpinnerTweet led to us then exchanging emails gave birth to this post – which is in and of itself a perfect example of what we’re talking about: Twitter has allowed the music community to become a democracy of user input and networking.

The music community is just one of the thousands of communities inhabiting the twit-osphere.  And unlike some of the other communities that have been under attack as of late – due to ghost tweeting, spam, lameness what-have-you, the music community is one we should all look to as a role model of how to use Twitter to its utmost potential.

A couple weeks ago Hannah from Sheena Beaston and I were joking and said the World Wide Web (www)/ Internet was going to implode and turn into the Twwwinternet, and yeah we both should probably blush about that comment, but the point is crystal clear: Twitter works, if you know how to work it. It’s just a matter of personally establishing a place for yourself in a community and participating and adding to the progression of your community; Twitter cannot be used as a self-centered form of branding.