Sarah McQuaid Twittering - Part 1

Posted By: Sarah McQuaid 25/03/2009 11:07:56

I've been Twittering daily for the past week or so, and I still don't understand why. I'm told that these days no musician can afford not to Twitter, so I'm Twittering away and waiting for the magic to happen. In the short time that I've been Twittering I've acquired a number of "followers" on various continents who apparently want to know what I'm up to from day to day, but their motivation for this is utterly beyond me.

The people who are telling me I need to Twitter include Derek Sivers (http://sivers.org), founder of CD Baby and Hostbaby -- both of which have been extremely useful for my musical career, so when he says something I'm inclined to listen. Other Twitter advocates include Andrew Dubber (http://andrewdubber.com -- Degree Leader in Music Industries at Birmingham City University and author of the invariably interesting and well written blog http://newmusicstrategies.com) and US-based publicist Ariel Hyatt (http://www.arielpublicity.com), who's enthusiastically endorsed by Sivers (he and Ariel co-presented a series of YouTube educational videos aimed at musicians) and has been a featured speaker at major music conferences like SXSW.

In one of the numerous articles she makes available free of charge online, Ariel lists "13 Websites you SHOULD be on" if you're a musician. I'm afraid I'm not on all of them, but I did let myself be persuaded to sign up to the above-mentioned Twitter, as well as Facebook, iLike and ReverbNation. I'm also on a few sites not listed in Ariel's Lucky 13; these include MySpace, Last.FM, YouTube and of course CD Baby. And then there's my own sarahmcquaid.com website -- how quaintly old-fashioned that seems!

In the new online world, so say Messrs Sivers, Dubber, Hyatt and many more of their ilk, artists can build up a loyal, committed fan base by engaging in direct, one-to-one communication with said fans via these various online portals. Indeed, it's been heartening to receive message after message of support, admiration and affection -- some from people I talk to every day, some from people I've met at gigs both in the UK and abroad, loads from people I've never met and probably never will. All three categories include people who've bought my albums, so it does seem important for me to keep on their good side by communicating regularly with them.

But it's also important for me to pick up my guitar and play it every now and then.

These days, I seem to spend my life on the computer, even though I'm fortunate enough to have lots of help with the things that used to take up my computer time. Ironically, having last year written a long article for the Musicians' Union "Grass Roots" newsletter about the impossibility of getting any agent to do as good a job on your booking as you can do for yourself, I now do none of my own booking; instead, I have agents -- four of them, no less, in four different countries (Ireland, the UK, Holland and Germany). I have distributors for my albums, I have an excellent PR person, and I even have a generous fan in Bristol who looks after my MySpace page for me, asking for no further reward than the promise that I'll buy him a beer the next time I'm gigging in his neck of the woods. I'm lucky to have all this and I'm grateful.

Despite all that help, I can't keep up. Right at the moment, there are 518 emails in my inbox awaiting action of some sort on my part (oops, while I was typing that sentence the number went up to 526). Over on MySpace, Adrian has already sent out cheery one-line answers on my behalf to most of the messages and comments, but there are a fair number that still require more personal replies. I've got new fans on ReverbNation that need to be acknowledged, new listeners on Last.FM, people who've Liked me on iLike, and I daren't even glance at Facebook if this article is going to get finished and sent off this morning.

Read part 2...

Sarah McQuaid

http://www.sarahmcquaid.com
http://www.myspace.com/sarahmcquaid
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarah-McQuaid/49836834015
http://www.ilike.com/artist/Sarah+McQuaid
http://www.reverbnation.com/sarahmcquaid
http://www.last.fm/music/Sarah+McQuaid
http://www.youtube.com/sarahmcquaid
http://cdbaby.com/all/sarahmcquaid
http://www.itunes.com/sarahmcquaid

and introducing Mama:
http://www.mamamusic.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/mamamusicmyspace
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mama/56545261482
http://www.reverbnation.com/mamamusic
http://cdbaby.com/all/mamamusic
http://www.itunes.com/mamamusic

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