Filling the Twitter-shaped hole in your marketing plan
As Twitter wildly and publicly unravels before our eyes, it’s time to ask… Is there still a space for Twitter in your marketing plan? Should we invest our marketing energies into a platform that is running itself into the ground? How do we manage brand safety on a platform which has prioritised short term revenue over ethics? And more specifically for musical artists, is there still a purpose to the platform?
Twitter has served its time as a very valuable social platform for musicians over the past 16 years. When celebrities started to pop up on platform, it was the first time fans could have a two-way dialogue with their favourite stars. Lady Gaga was a pioneer here, growing her army of Little Monsters on the platform by freely engaging with her fans. I still remember being beyond chuffed when I asked British author Neil Gaiman how to pronounce his name and he actually replied. Other platforms have since tapped into this vibe, but each in its own way and increasingly on steroids. A simple one-word reply back from an author doesn’t hold a candle to your favourite influencer answering your comment in real time during an Instagram Live.
I realise that not every artist has Lady Gaga’s star power to attract millions of followers, all keenly waiting for a reply. And not all fans actually care about direct interactions with their favourite creators. So without further ado, here are my recommendations on what to replace Twitter with, depending on what you use the platform for.
Two-way dialogue with fans:
Set up a Discord server or Facebook Group. Be sure to be fairly active and hop on to directly chat to members. You need to be realistic here and think about whether you have fans dedicated enough to join this. Nothing is more cringe than an empty Group or server.
Set up a Substack, and use the Discussion Threads feature to start a text-based discussions. Perfume Genius is frankly a genius at this. Same question as above though - think about whether people will reply. Potentially test the waters first with the regular Substack sends and see if your emails get engagement before running with this.
If you’re lucky enough to have an existing subreddit for your musical project, start replying to random threads as yourself. Potentially mention it on social media, or do it on the down low and see if any hardcore fans realise it is indeed you.
Do Duets on TikTok, replying back to fan content like covers or reviews. This Gordon Ramsey TikTok is a perfect example.
Set up Zoom sessions where people can chat to you directly. (Influencer Gala Darling does this well for her paid members.)
Set up a Twitch account if you are comfy on camera, and can set aside at least 2 hours a week to be on camera. Bonus points if you can chat shit for hours, play video games, cook and/or have always thought you’d be great on Gogglebox.
Start using Instagram Live and make sure you’re interacting with your audience in the comments.
(Would recommend having a plan of attack of what to do when trolls turn up unexpectedly via live video channels though.)
Building communities:
Again - set up a Discord server or Facebook Group. Work with some ultra fans to maintain it and start it off with some seed regular recurring activity to get the audiences going. Don’t be afraid to open it up to random topics. For instance, Phoebe Bridgers’ aptly named ‘Server In The Alps ✨’ server has a book club channel.
Informational updates about performances, merch and releases:
Get your audiences to sign up to your EDM (Substack or otherwise) and make it clear that you will be sending out some promotional updates from time to time. Added bonus of owning your audience data outside of the walled gardens of social media platforms, especially evident if you’ve invested hours over the past decade growing your Twitter numbers to now find it’s been for nothing.
If you use Twitter to promote show dates, set yourself up on Songkick or BandsInTown. Make sure it’s feeding into Spotify’s concert feature.
Maintain your artist website properly, making sure that you update your upcoming shows there too. Or be lazy, and embed the aforementioned Songkick or BandsInTown here so you only have to update one thing once.
Get better at promoting shows via social media on TikTok, Snapchat or Instagram. Integrate them as a proper content pillar but make them work for each platform. Sharing a poster of dates and linking to the Audience Republic sign up make work for Twitter, but it won’t for TikTok so get creative.
Use the Instagram countdown stickers to count down until merch drops and shows go on sale.
Hire Bolster to run your digital advertising for shows. (Cheeky plug, couldn’t help it.)
Shower thoughts:
Substack is great here, and again Perfume Genius wins here too. Random granola reviews and sexy Supernatural fanfic definitely counts as a shower thought.
Instagram Stories and TikTok could also fill the need for random life updates. However changing medium from text to videoes can be very daunting. Start off with text only updates using the Create feature of Stories to ease yourself in.
A note for readers
I’m writing this on Sunday November 13. Elon Musk completed his $44B buyout of Twitter two weeks ago on October 28. He fired 50% of the platform’s staff. He controversially introduced the $8/month fee for blue tick verification, trying to disguise the cash grab as empowering its users… Pranksters obviously thought $8 was a fair price for causing mayhem, so a fake George W. Bush tweeted about killing Iraqis. A fake pharmaceutical company account pretended Insulin was free, causing the very real company’s stock to fall by 4.37% in real life. Twitter tried to fix the problem by adding an ‘official’ badge to certain profiles (I mean, wasn’t that the point of the blue tick in the first place) before pausing it a few hours ago. Hell… I miss Jack Dorsey.
Side note - you won’t find my original Tweet to Neil Gaiman anywhere because I deleted my Twitter account after reading ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’ by Jon Ronson. Highly recommended read for anyone who is on social media.
