I love Twitter. From connecting with bands andupcoming talent to promoting events virally via a RT or 2, leaking songs on the platform, to just well, meeting people that I would never have the chance to network with.
If you were skeptical of the service and its purpose, you may want to read this.
A new NPD Group study finds that active Twitter users buy 77% more digital music downloads on average than non-users.
I found this information from Billboard.biz this afternoon and started thinking about some of the implications.Here is a list of some reasons that I think Twitter is becoming the go-to source to sell stuff and get in front of a crowd that buys stuff.
Early Adopters - Many of the key influential people on Twitter are early adopters. They were there well before Oprah and Ashton and were influential in driving the direction of Twitter from “I had bacon and eggs for breakfast” to
“yvynyl: Listen to Samara Lubelski. Her new record Future Slip is coming out next month on Ecstatic Peace! http://tumblr.com/xqy24q53y”
Apple heavy – Those that are regular tweeters are on the cutting edge of technology. They show their love for Apple products and buy new phone upgrades like its the second coming. This also means they are frequently in the iTunes store looking for updates and browsing at the apps, music and movies. More eyeballs = more opportunity to sell your stuff.
1 Click Sales – Those that receive a Tweet about a new musician, album, song are only 1 click away from going to the artist’s web site, Twitter page or sales page. Those that still read Spin need to read the article, go to the store and deal with a physical purchase. Not knocking Spin, but knocking out steps gives people less of an option to second guess a purchase.
The Buddy System – Retweets (or RT’s) are the recommendation engine of Twitter. If you can spread a few RT’s about your release you open up the flood gates for people to at least recognize your brand. If you have 1,000 followers and Tweet something, 1,000 people see it. If one of your followers who has 10,000 followers RT’s your Tweet, now it opens it up to 10,000 more people. Imagine if you get that train moving with 10-20-50-100 RT’s. This is where the fun starts.
Exponential Growth. Twitter is growing and growiing fast. It is also growing in a wide rane of demographics. Some suggest that its the older crowd that is adopting faster than the Gen-Y’s and teens. If that is the case, awesome! This older demographic is the one with all the money to buy your music. They are now at almost 20 million unique visitors a month. That Oprah mention didn’t hurt!
There is so much you can gain from becoming an active member on Twitter. It doesn’t take much effort and the tools to use the platform help you manage and stay on top of replies, messages, mentions and other searches.
Get started in the conversation. Don’t be oversalesy, this isn’t Myspace Bulletins and Comments Part 2 – its real conversations, between real people.
Oh, and feel free to follow me – @g_ro.
-Greg
