Twitter: A Shortcut for Up-and-coming Artists

By Sasa Maksimovic
Menlo Oak Staff

Twitter Headphones

As the music business continues its steady decline because of illegal downloads, a growing number of artists are using the Internet—specifically Twitter—to get their music out to audiences.

And believe it or not, Twitter is turning the musicians into winners.

Take Eddie Cain. He is a hip-hop artist and he made his own mixtape, paying for studio time, music beats, and just about everything, out of his own pocket.

Paying for advertising or marketing help was out of the question. Cain just didn’t have the money. So he took to Twitter to get his music heard.  

Soon, Eddie's followers were putting his album cover in their avatars. This helped to build interest in his music. Next, he used Twitter to start a countdown to his tape's release date. Finally, he tweeted a download link to his tape. 

By using Twitter, Cain built a buzz for his music.

Nobody really knew what, if any, use there was for the Twitter social networking site when it debuted in 2006. People said it was stupid because why would anyone want to read you tweeting “I’m eating lunch” every day?   People said Twitter was stupid because why would anyone want to read you tweeting “I’m eating lunch”? Who cares about that?

But the networking that is accomplished through Twitter is absolutely amazing. If you spend some time getting to know the right Twitter users in your field, and if you follow them and they follow you, your projects can go a long way.

 Artists, especially those who dream of making it in the show business, but don’t have the ear or the eyes that are needed to see their talent, were some the first Twitter users to see the networking possibilities. That’s why they are using Twitter to bring attention to their talents.

 “It is amazing what a social networking site can do for your dreams, I never thought this many people would lend me their ears, I’m truly honored," Cain said.

Cain added that through Twitter, he “built up a huge fan base for such a unknown artist.” By the time his marketing campaign ended, people were talking about his work like he was some sort of established worldwide artist.

By the time it was all said and done, Cain had more than 50,000 downloads for his mixtape. For someone that nobody has ever heard of before that was absolutely huge.

Cain said, he also got people from the music industry to hear his music. It opened many doors for him. He started getting offers from other artists to do songs and even got invited to do some shows.

And all of this happened because of it and it was all because of Twitter.

“If it wasn’t for this website I don’t know if my dream would have ever started to get on the road.”