Twitter = fail

[Poker99]

http://www.sandbox.fm/2010/05/25/is-twitter-a-fail-for-music/

 

 

Is Twitter a fail for music? Posted by Admin in Featured Articles, General News, Opinion on May 25th, 2010 | no responses Is Twitter so over right now? John Mayer thinks so. The US artist has been one of its highest profile users, with nearly 3.3 million followers, but he recently told a conference that “I think it’s pretty much done… as a form of communication, I think it’s over” Mayer’s comments bucked the widespread assumption within the music industry that Twitter is now an essential marketing and communications channel for artists. Yet there are other reasons for unease, including research indicating that Twitter may not have the direct relationship to music sales that many artists and labels were hoping for. On the surface, all is well. In April, Twitter announced its first official numbers. The service has more than 105 million registered users, and is still signing up 300,000 new people a day. 60% of those registered accounts are now outside the US, fuelled by strong recent growth in India and Spanish-speaking countries. Britney Spears will soon become the first music artist – and possibly the first anything – to reach the milestone of five million followers on Twitter. There are success stories lower down the industry food chain too, such as the million-plus followings for independent artists Zoe Keating and Noush Skaugen. Mayer counts as one of those success stories too, yet he’s ditched the service. His last tweet was on 27 April: a link to a post on his One Forty Plus Tumblr blog which expanded on his conference comments. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think it’s the healthiest thing in the world to read scads of mentions/@replies and effectively open the floodgate of other people’s approval/disapproval,” he wrote, contrasting Twitter with Tumblr: “The future of social networking if your image of the future features intelligent discourse”. His comments on replies and disapproval harked back to the reasons Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor deleted his Twitter account in July 2009, having complained about the abuse he was getting from non-fans on the service. Lily Allen also quit the service in October last year, telling one journalist “We’ve ended up in this world of unreal communications and I don’t want that. I want real life back.” It’s worth noting that both Reznor and Allen have since resumed tweeting, although for now Mayer is sticking to Tumblr. Artists decide whether to tweet or not, of course. But more worrying for music marketers is recent research digging into Twitter’s effectiveness and influence. Exhibit one: a study by the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany, published earlier this month. It found that influence on Twitter isn’t necessarily related to how many followers you have. A million followers doesn’t mean you have clout. Exhibit two: Figures revealed by music marketing firm Topspin at the recent 140 Character Conference. The company said that the average tweet from an artist with a link generates a visit rate of 4.8%, and then a conversion rate of 2.8% for actual sales. For every 100,000 followers an artist has, 134 will buy something due to reading a tweet. Steve Greenberg from S-Curve Records, who was on a panel at the conference, summed it up thus: “Twitter, in some ways, may be too casual a form of communication to lead to a purchase directly at that moment.” Exhibit three: a report from analytics firm StatCounter showing that Facebook accounts for 48% of social media traffic to websites, followed by StumbleUpon’s 25%. Twitter generates just 10%. The implication is that time spent maintaining a Facebook presence may be more effective than spending it on Twitter. There are reasons for optimism too, not least Twitter’s latest features. The company’s @anywhere initiative will make it easier for website owners to build Twitter into their sites, for example letting fans log in with their Twitter IDs, or follow an artist from a widget on their site or blog. @anywhere’s thunder may have been stolen by Facebook’s more-recently announced Open Graph, which has some similarities. But it still has plenty of potential for artists and labels. As on another level does Twitter’s long-anticipated advertising strategy, Promoted Tweets. It will let brands and marketers pay to have certain tweets promoted to a wider audience on Twitter’s network. As more labels use both @anywhere and Promoted Tweets, those that have success will likely find their way into the Twitter Media Hub, a new section of the Twitter website offering case studies of effective Twitter marketing. Twitter is now part of the music landscape, but only part of it. As former eMusic boss (and now VC) David Pakman recently blogged: “The music business today is blogs, Twitter tweets, Facebook links, the Hype Machine, TheSixtyOne, Rockwood Music Hall, Pandora and Foursquare.” The last word should be left to artists – and not just Mayer. Many don’t see Twitter as marketing, but just as a new way to communicate with their friends, with each other and with their fans. Topspin’s stats won’t have put them off, and neither will they worry about how influential they are, or how many followers they have. Zoe Keating put it best in a recent interview: “I don’t like to get wrapped up in the numbers and stuff. I like to be me and to do things naturally and organically. Ultimately, I’m not a marketer, I’m a musician.”

 

[Kramerguy]

I agree twitter is a passing phase that has no real applications in life. It works for those already famous, of course. It seems to cause as many problems for them as it does solutions. It also creates a dependent relationship from the fans where they will expect, and even NEED hourly updates from those they follow, or else they will go rabid and turn on them...

 

I have it, rarely use it anymore. When it was popular, we all used our cells to sms txt to twitter and respond to each other, it's kind of cool in that way, it's really just a fancy soapbox when you think about it.

[daddymack]

just another site on which to sell adspace...

[Etienne Rambert]

Facebook has a lot more potential for self-promotion than Twitter.

If you're clever on FB, you can actually amass thousands of followers

on FB by writing things or creating stupid little games.

[Kramerguy]

 

Facebook has a lot more potential for self-promotion than Twitter. If you're clever on FB, you can actually amass thousands of followers on FB by writing things or creating stupid little games.

 

 

To what end? Like myspace, what's the point of having 100,000 "friends" if none of them will ever come to a show or buy a CD?

 

And just like myspace, facebook has become the new "band spam" generator.. I've already started dropping "friends" / following bands that spam me relentlessly with gig / open mic / event messages and invites.

 

I guess If I'm already following you, I will SEE your next gig when you post it on YOUR OWN wall, right? So why spam me into hating you?

 

I know I'm going off on a tangent a bit, but bands sometimes do nothing but hurt themselves and all other bands by proxy, in their shameless and immoral attempts to harass people into noticing them.

[Dessalines]

It is the last new thing.

 

What will be the next new thing to be the last new thing, prior to the next new thing that will become obsolete, virutally overnight, without much new functionality? Oi......

[3shiftgtr]

Twitter, FB, and the rest are just time wasters...entertainment...just like HC foums...active communication as entertainment....

[RickGoetz]

I don't know - Twitter is one of the most powerful tools in terms of driving traffic. Twitter without a destination is pretty worthless but if you have regularly updated content and aren't just shamelessly plugging yourself all day I think it has value.

[zuzz]

People only care about what they tweet on twitter not what you tweet.

[Nijyo]

Twitter is very highly used in the web comics space.

 

The "biggies" in the industry use to to keep their followers/readers thinking about the comic, to announce new projects, and to make them as artists who, aside from periodic updates, would seem like faceless updating automatons.

 

It's a lot easier to sell to people who "like" you as a creator, vs you as a faceless, voiceless updating automaton.

 

I can't imagine the potential for a musician producing original works is much different.

[Kramerguy]

I came to an interesting realization the other day.

 

A long time ago, I turned off Twitters SMS notifications, because quite a few people just twitter dumb {censored} all day long. I don't care that you just washed your dog, and I don't care that your shoe-string broke, unless it made you fall down a flight of stairs and you got a video-link in the twitter message!

 

So..

What makes people want to "tweet"?

 

Attention.

 

I'm actually kind of glad I went through most of my life as average and ordinary as it gets. I was never adored, and never got much attention. Everyone craves it, but to me, it's like crack- the more you get, the more you NEED. Too many people NEED twitter (and fbook) because it says "hey look at me, pay attention to ME, ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME"

 

you get the point..

 

If yer already famous, it's a GREAT way to keep fans up to date. If you are into comics and other stuff, it's a great way to release quick info, although doesn't myspace and facebook do the same thing (and more)? I think twitter has a very limited lifespan. I see the same ME ME ME people on facebook posting the same crap all day long.

[Nijyo]

To be sure, most people's Tweets are rarely of any interest outside of a very small group of folks.

 

But it's a tool, nothing more. Getting worked up about the service and the people who use it does nothing but increase your heart rate unnecessarily.

[uab9253]

I agree that MySpace, Twitter and Facebook have gone over into the way self indulgent ME ME types. I found myself using my FB to constantly promote either my radio show, my new song, my new CD, tshirts for my radio show, YouTube videos blah blah. And I took a step back and realized I had turned into all sell/all the time, and didn't use FB for the main reason I started - to interact with old or distant friends and family. So I went on hiatus and now I mostly lurk and only post when I have something clever or meaningful to say. Which is maybe twice a week.

[daddymack]

I...only post when I have something clever or meaningful to say. Which is maybe twice a week.

Your radio show airs how often?

[uab9253]

Twice a week?

 

Actually just once every two weeks

[Doncorleone]

IMO

 

All of these social media sites are good and are helpful to musicians in certain ways, but THOSE MOTHER******* IDIOTS out there are gradually destroying it with their moronism(if such a word exists) spamming and abusing it.

[WashedOut]

I found twitter pretty useless as far as promoting music goes. I ended up just using networking sites like last fm and contacting well know blogs. Although i was willing to release my stuff for free.

[Tony_Tucker]

I think twitter is one of the best social networking site where in someone can promote their websites.. A social networking site next to facebook where they can get or drive more traffics to their sites..

[Poker99]

That was pretty useful. Thank you Tony!