Building Your Twitter Brand
Twitter is an essential social media platform for artists and music professionals. Your online brand is the first encounter with potential fans before they make the decision to follow you or engage with your content. Fans will ultimately be judging you based off of your image and your overall social media presence.
What do you tweet? Videos? Press coverage? Promotions? Merchandise? This fact alone is why your personal brand should take the lead when developing a social media strategy for your career. Your brand will determine everything about your online presence. It will also help you to develop new and improved strategies.
A solid brand is crucial when building your network and establishing rapport with other artists, labels and industry regulars. The ultimate goal is to have your brand resonate with your target audience, no matter it be fans, label executives or concert promoters. Twitter can help you achieve this objective.
If building your brand online is one of your goals, Twitter is the perfect platform to get started. Although, there is a lot of noise to sift through when it comes to social media. There is a wealth of creatives, artists and music professionals to connect with through the sharing of blog posts, websites, news, videos, photos and podcasts. Twitter can be highly effective for content creators who are looking to network, as well as build their brand.
Facebook undoubtedly has potential when creating value for artists. Twitter is the social media platform that connects us Worldwide.
The convenience at play is that there are millions of people using Twitter as a source for news, video consumption and as a marketing platform. So there is plenty of examples to take note of, as well connecting with artists and music professionals with similar mindsets.
Now lets deep dive into 20 facts that make Twitter a go-to platform for artists looking to build a brand.
Facts About Twitter
- Twitter has 145 million monetizable daily active users.
- 30 million (or 20%) of Twitter’s daily users are American.
- 92% of the U.S. population is familiar with Twitter (even if they don’t use it).
- 22% of adults in the U.S. use Twitter.
- 44% of U.S. 18- to 24-year-olds use Twitter.
- U.S.-based Twitter users are younger, have more education, and more income than the general U.S. population.
- The most active U.S. Twitter users have 20x as many followers, on average.
- 12% of Americans get their news from Twitter (71% of Americans on Twitter are using it to read news.).
- Twitter’s site referral traffic is up 6%, year-over-year (Instagram: 56%, Facebook: 29%, YouTube: 22%).
- Twitter users are more likely to like brands that are inclusive and transparent.
- Twitter ad engagement is up 23%.
- Twitter ads with video are 50% cheaper in cost-per-engagement.
- Twitter users spend 26% more time with ads than other social media users.
- Twitter users spend 24% more time with ads posted by ‘creators’.
- 25% of Twitter’s most prolific users use scheduling software.
- Tweets with hashtags gets 100% more engagement.
- People watch 2 billion videos on Twitter per day.
- Watching video is the #3 reason people use Twitter.
- Tweets with video get 10x the engagement.
- 93% of video views on Twitter happen on mobile.
How To Use Twitter
Tweets consist of photos, GIFs, videos and links. Although, if you’re just tweeting text, you’re restricted to 280 characters. Twitter use to be only 140 characters, which created a number of difficulties for people trying to prove a point. Twitter has continued to improve user experience by adding threads and most recently audio tweets.
Keeping your tweets short and concise present your message as less wordy. Keep in mind, people are reading other tweets so you don’t want to come off as disconnected or incoherent. Twitter also helps with becoming a better writer.
280 characters may not seem like a lot to work with, but over time it becomes second nature.
How To Make A Twitter Account from Desktop
Step 1: Go To Twitter.com & Sign Up For An Account
Next, you will be able to enter your display name under the section “Full Name”, unlike on Facebook, you’ll have the freedom to change your display name to whatever you want or what’s convenient. This could be the name of your mixtape, an album or new video.
Step 2: Put In Your Phone Number
If you ever lose access to your account, you will be able to use your phone as a form of authentication.
With that being said, you will want to use a phone number you actually have access to because in the next step. You will be sent a text message to verify the number.
Step 3: Choose A Password, And Make Sure It Is Secure
People are known to troll and depending on your status as an artists or music professional, you could be a target of an attack.
Step 4: Select Your Interests
This will aid you in the next step, Twitter will give you suggestions on who to follow or topics that may interests you.
You will also have the option to choose these interests later. If you look up at the top right hand corner, you will see “skip for now”.
Step 5: Once You Complete The Previous Step, Select The Gray Silhouette Next To The “Tweet” Button On The Top Right Of The Dashboard, And Choose “Settings & Privacy”
At the top of the dashboard, you will be able to pick a username. This is what people can look you up as by typing @ if they want to tweet you.
Preferably, you want to select a username that isn’t already being used and something that is easy to remember.
Step 6: Select An Avatar
You can make your avatar whatever you want, but the default picture is a silhouette (It can be you, an album cover, there’s a lot of opportunity for creativity.
Select the silhouette and go to “Profile” and then choose “Edit Profile” on the right side below the blue bar.
You can choose your header from this location too. Twitter has rules for avatar images, be sure to check those out just to make sure you’re not in violation.
Step 7: Write Your Bio
Your bio is where you’re going to put where you live, are located or it could simply be a quote or ‘Call-To’Action’
This is a short excerpt to inform your potential followers of what you’re about and to give them an idea about what they can expect you to tweet.
If you have a website or want to link another social media platform. This is the location to make it happen.
How to Make a Twitter Account on your Phone
Step 1: You Start By Entering Your Name, Phone Number And Email Address
Be sure to use an email address or phone number because during the next step you will have to verify them.
Step 2: You Will Be Asked To Enter The Verification Number That You Received By Email Or Text To Verify The Contact Information That You Entered During Step 1
Select a password that will be secure and strong, that is not too easy for someone else to guess.
Step 3: This Step Is An Optional One. You Will Have The Choice To Sync Your Contacts
If you don’t need to sync your contacts, just select “not now,” this will connect you with Twitter followers you may know.
Step 4: Select Your Interests
During this step, Twitter will suggest top profiles for you to follow.
Step 5: Based On Your Interests, Twitter Will Recommend A Few Accounts You Can Follow Right Away
Select a few that you may relate to, these accounts will be viewable on your Twitter feed right away.
Step 6: You Are Now Good To Go!
Select the blue button on the top right to begin your first tweet, the gray silhouette on the top left to update your profile picture and edit your settings.
If you’re interested in learning more or joining the conversation feel free to sign up for our monthly newsletter, join our Facebook group. You can also follow me on Twitter!
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