I know that a lot of musicians use a bot to get more followers on Twitter.  ‘Follow bots’ can be employed to randomly follow other users on Twitter.  Twitter etiquette dictates that a lot of users automatically ‘follow back’ people who start to follow them. So, getting a bot to randomly follow thousands of people on Twitter can in turn result in hundreds or thousands of people following you back.   Sounds like something you should be doing doesn’t it?  Definitely not.

Using bots can result in you getting more Twitter followers. Avoid the temptation to use them.

Yes you should be looking to grow an audience on social networks but you should never forsake quality for quantity.  Randomly following people on Twitter or Soundcloud in the hope they follow back just isn’t a long term strategy for success.  The likelihood of these new followers buying your music, coming to your gigs or buying your merch is probably slim to none and it all ends up as a bit of a circle jerk.

I’m always wary of Twitter accounts with a 1:1 ratio of followers/following as these numbers are generally derived from a ‘mass follow’ technique and no no way reflect a band’s true popularity.  It’s better to have a smaller, engaged fanbase than a larger follower count that doesn’t care one jot about what you’re doing.

Takeaway Tip: Focus on quality rather than quantity with your social network followers.

Further Reading:

Music’s future: Stronger artist/fan connections and less ‘stupid vanity statistics’

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

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