Twitter help for artists

@HCJProject I, like many artist us twitter to gather information and connect with a wider audience.
Twitter can be rather confusing at first and I've been wanting to write a blog post to help twitter newbies get the most out of twitter quickly when they join. I hope it helps!

First what twitter is not!
Some people see twitter as a type of human RSS stream for their content: this produces what I call "shouters".
Shouters don't listen, they don't converse, they just SHOUT!

The twitter stream image is from WRD, who are a national broadcaster in Germany. Being a large well recognised brand means they have a number of followers: unless you're a large brand, don't expect to gain a large following by "shouting" unless you're very funny or obscure.
There are two easy ways to see quickly if someone is a shouter on twitter.

1. Not following anyone! If the person isn't following anyone it means they aren't listening to anyone. Big celebrities on Twitter often have a very large difference between the numbers of people that follow them and the numbers of people they follow. Here there's just no-one listening.
2. No @replies no re-tweets (RT). This twitter stream is unusual in that there are non at all. If a stream is full of tweets which start with @++++ then that person is chatty, if there are a few RTs you know you'll get stuff which they deem interesting passed back at you, which is another great aspect of twitter.

 Here, unless you really want to "hear" the shouter you'd be better off subscribing to WDR's RSS feed as that's all you'll get. You can't ask them anything, you won't get anything re-tweeted, you can just "listen".
If you take a look at a non-shouter the stream looks very different.

So what is twitter for?
Twitter is for giving your content a wider audience: but it's also for giving your audience a means to converse with you. Add a human element which is what social media is all about.
Conversations on twitter are hard to follow at first because you follow them backwards.

This tweet is an @reply to TeamEtsyMetal. It might look like gobbledygook at first so here's how you break tweets down.

1. Who's it to? the @TeamEtsyMetal shows that it's "directed at TeamEtsyMetal. The tweet reads like a "reply" meaning I clicked the "reply" link to generate the tweet. If you are replying to someone remember to reply and not just message back @ them, as they may have forgotten what it was they said that you're replying to!
2. The time / date of the tweet.
3. The application used to tweet. There are lots of different applications: web is twitter.com, txt is SMS from a phone, but there are lots of applications which run either on your desktop, the web or smartphones. Find one that best suits you and the way you work. 
4. What the message was in response to! This only works if people do a real "reply" if someone just types a reply to the last tweet they see the tweet isn't tied to anything.

.... so basically following the "in reply to xxx" link lets people hook up tweets and "join the conversation".

People don't tend to have very lengthy conversations tweeted backwards and forwards but it is an easy (and open) way of communicating.
Here's  a conversation I had with TeamEtsyMetal recently. I did of course ask before posting this and would like to thank TeamEtsyMetal for letting me use this to show how conversations can take place.

I've included links as well as the screen shots, so you can explore how you can use the "in reply to ..." part to follow tweets "upstream".

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tweet #1

Tweet #2

I've was curious, so I just asked. Twitter is a different medium than email: you won't always get a reply!

Tweet #3

Tweet #4

Tweet #5

Tweet #6

Tweet #7

Tweet #8

When I showed my girlfriend this tweet she told me it sounded brash. I'd hope that I think didn't get a reply because I'd deviated too much off topic.

Tweet #9

I tried again ......
Here because I was making a second guess I also included the second person I was guessing [@ninadinof], and, as she may have picked this up referring to her I included a link to my first guess. If I hadn't it couldn't have made any sense to her as this is a tweet directed @TeamEzsyMetal but not a true "@reply".

Tweet #10

Tweet #11

So there you have it.
Twitter is a great tool once it "clicks". I hope that was helpful, now I really must go home.
If you have comments that would be cool: either here or on twitter: I'm all ears! (lots of them).