There are a lot of independent hip hop artists on Twitter that are wasting their time by using it ineffectively to promote and market themselves. Twitter is a great tool if used correctly, but it can be totally useless if not. Here are 5 Twitter marketing habits you should avoid.

1.  Sending me an @ reply with only a link to your music. If I don’t know you and you didn’t take the time to introduce yourself, I’m not going to waste my time clicking on your link.  It’s spam and it’s annoying.

2.  Letting 3rd party sites use your account so send out automated tweets. Twitter users sign up to some 3rd party sites that help them increase their number of followers.  These sites then send out tweets promoting their site through the user’s account.  Disable that shit!  It annoying when a dozen twitter users have the same promotional message being tweeted out. Don’t let companies spam through your account.

3. Don’t call my phone just because you see me on twitter. This is a personal peeve. Just because I’m on Twitter doesn’t mean that I’m available to chit chat. It never fails. I tweet… my phone rings. I always set up a time to conference and talk business with clients, but a lot of the time they call just to holla because they see me tweeting. Send me a DM or @reply if you’re just trying to say hello. If you have my number, text me. Persistence is great but don’t ruin your business relationship by being overly aggressive.

4.  The quality of your followers are always better than the quantity. Some users are obsessed with accumulating a large number of followers. Most of these followers are rarely interested in you or your business.  Having 10,000 followers is great if half of them are willing to spend a buck on your new single. Take your time to build real relationships and put out interesting messages.

5. Follow Fridays have been abused and rendered useless. Have you ever chewed on a sweet piece of gum that quickly lost it’s flavor? Well that’s follow Fridays right now. It was once a cool concept and very gratuitous, but it’s over.  No one cares about it but the people you put in them. It make them feel good because you thought about them. If you’re going to recommend that someone follow another user, tell them why and don’t lump them in with half a dozen others. The automated 3rd party sites helped to kill this one too.

If I’ve overlooked any others, please feel free to comment and add to the list and help make the Twitter world a better place.

follow me: www.twitter.com/indiehiphop

You may also like: