Selling and Buying Music on Twitter
Posted in Music, Twitter on June 25th, 2009 by admin – 2 CommentsRecently the Hollywood Reporter and TechCruch reported that a NPD Group study found that active Twitter users buy 77% more digital music downloads on average than non-users.
NPD entertainment analyst Russ Crupnick comments: “Based on their music-purchasing history, active Twitter users are simply worth more to record labels and music retailers than those who are not using Twitter.”
What is also interesting is that a third of all Twitter users bought a CD in the prior three months, and 34% reported buying music digitally (compared to 23% and 16% for overall Web users). So not only do they buy digital music, they buy the physical stuff as well! This could not be better news for artists and labels, most of whom are already pushing music on the social micro-blogging site. In fact you will find a long list of music labels (via TwitterLeage – be careful since it’s a bit spammy) and artists on Twitter hopefully doing just that!
Here are some ways music artists and labels are trying to sell and promote music as well as grow their fan base using Twitter:
- Giving Away Music for Free
The way this works is a music artists gives away music in exchange for exposure and buzz (tweets). The correct way to do this is to use an Twitter application (similar to those developed by Metablocks) that does the tweeting on the user’s behalf (thus ensuring they ‘follow through’) and then allows them to download the track. Probably won’t work for everyone but just a thought! - Sell Music via iTunes or Amazon
This is approach is simple. Once your music is on iTunes or Amazon, get the URL, use an URL shorter (ideally one like bit.ly that allows you to track clicks) and tweet it to all your fans! Both the label and the artist then encourage fans to re-tweet (RT) the new release link. Ideaden’s Dale Manning recently shared a great post on how well this can work (if you have the fan base) titled: The power of Twitter to sell music. Topspin ate their words and will tell the same thing! - Use a Twitter Payment System to Sell your Own Music
No label? Not on iTunes? No Problem! There are handful of Twitter payment services gearing up to allow artists to sell their own music including services like Twitpay.me, RT2Buy and others! Although I cannot vouch for any of these, the concept sounds great! - Encourage Fans to “Share” your Songs on Twitter
Its not as bad as it sounds. There are a number of free services that allow fans and artists to share songs with their fan base. The goal is simple – get people to listen to your music and hopefully they will buy it! Remember, numbers suggest that Twitter is a “consumer platform” – meaning most people are there to listen, not to tweet (the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets) so provide fans with “tools” that will help them tweet or focus on the prolific 10% who will RT just about anything. - Promote Contests and Competitions
I see @emimusic and others using Twitter to push giveaways and competitions! Check out their tweets to learn how a music label can use Twitter for this sort of thing! Nothing is perfect so understand the pros and cons of this approach, but in general I think it works well. - Be Creative – Sell Other Stuff!
It seems there are many more ways for artists to make money using Twitter. I found this link courtesy of Adrian Fusiarski about an Indie musician who make $19K using twitter. He used the service to auction items, well last minute tickets, get donations and who knows what else! Even labels are engaged in artist to fan sales of all sorts! If what Topspin says about the kind of money that can be extracted from hardcore fans is true, this maybe the artist’s (and labels’s) holy grail!
If you are a music fan looking to buy music or find great artists here is how Twitter can help:
- Follow your Favorite Artist (and their Labels)
As I mentioned before, your favorite music artist is probably already on Twitter – follow them and their record label. Many times artist and music labels send links to fan-only specials, discounts and other competitions. Artists also promote other artists whose music you may very well like! - Use a Twitter Music Search Service or Addon
There are a couple of Twitter music search services you can check out including Twisten.fm and Musebin.ws, and addons (such as #musicmonday) you can use to find new music.
Just some quick notes on the topic. Twitter has become even bigger in the past last couple of weeks (Time Magazine, #Iranelection, i.e.) so expect to see more and more artists and labels making better use of the platform. I think the key to success on Twitter will be 1) getting on Twitter and engaging fans regularly, 2) building a large fan base as quickly as possible, and 3) leveraging Twitter directly and through third party application to drive digital sales and increased fan growth!
