by Amelie Mueller

Created on: July 10, 2009

If your band is made up 13 year old would be hipsters with scene hair and that unmistakable emo abrasiveness, please stay away from Twitter. For the rest of us, the social media markets latest golden child, Twitter, is, hands down, the essential networking utility . Having gained the public admiration of multiple celebrities, Twitter has enjoyed attention from our mass news media resulting in record setting spikes of unique registered users. As a band, not participating in the phenom that is micro blogging is a failure on your behalf to embrace the technological revolution that is changing the way the music industry as a whole operates.

While sites like Facebook and MySpace have a certain role in most working musicians lives one major appeal of Twitter has to be its portability. To fully benefit from competing social media markets, one really needs to be at a computer with an active internet connection. For an artist, namely the performing and touring variety, this isn't always a feasible option. The countless, and mostly free, wireless apps available allow Twitter to pack full functionality right onto your cell phone and into your pocket.

Building up a fan base has never been easier, follow some bands that you like and have a similar sound to. Check out their followers, follow any of them you find interesting and think will enjoy your work. The most productive way to maintain a useful collection of followers is to avoid the outright selling of your sound. Repeated tweets declaring the greatness of your band and containing links to your iTunes page is going to come off as spam. Not only will you not keep your followers, chances are they aren't going to take any further interest in you or your music. Look at it this way, how many of those junk emails do you actually even open, much less make the effort to click the links they contain? Zero. No one likes a spammer. Instead, get to know your followers. Post tweets that allow them to get to know your band as people. It literally takes less than one minute to snap a picture with your camera phone and upload it to twitpic. Snap a couple while you're rehearsing or even playing with your cat. This sort of band-to-fan interaction creates a level of intimacy that has never been so easily achievable. Your fans will feel as though they are a part of something, personally involved in your work.

Asides from generating and expanding your fan base, Twitter is also an excellent avenue to build your professional network.

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