Is social media profile really necessary for a music act?

[johnnybigood]

It really depends on your objective as a musician, many people talked about what they use and don't, my personal experience is that I've pent all these years as a hobbyist not caring about the social side, only here and there connect to some people. Opportunity knocked at my door to launch a digital single, but I didn't really have a crowd to do anything about it. I'm glad the label got happy with the numbers, but at some point, having listeners is part of the whole thing.

[SODDI]

WWHPD?

(What would Harry Partch do?)

[mutantdog]

I quite like Twitter. In comparison to Facebook it is far more anonymous in that your account can be you as a person or you as an artist, there is no obligation to use your real name so you can essentially portray yourself however you want. It seems that a lot of artists favour Twitter too, i guess that's the whole followers thing where you don't have to accept a friendship for someone to see what you post.

I've also in the past got more Soundcloud hits by randomly following people on Twitter that follow artists I like than through any kind of Soundcloud activity (posting to groups etc). Yeah, its a bit spammy but some of these people still follow me and respond to my tweets so i guess they must find me interesting.

I think the most important thing is finding the balance between being yourself and portraying yourself in the way you want to be portrayed. If the only thing you do is promote your latest track/release/gig and nothing else then don't be surprised if every tweet gets ignored.

[debra1rlo]

I quite like Twitter. In comparison to Facebook it is far more anonymous in that your account can be you as a person or you as an artist, there is no obligation to use your real name so you can essentially portray yourself however you want.

FYI, this is not entirely accurate. If you create an Artist/Band page, yes you can use the name of the artist/band. But on personal profiles, they have been suspending accounts where they "suspect" you are not using your real name. This happened to me and several friends & artsist I know, even though FB says they have changed the policy. A lot of it has been due to other FB users reporting people they disagree with (or for their "perceived lifestyle" )

[rpm]

If the only thing you do is promote your latest track/release/gig and nothing else then don't be surprised if every tweet gets ignored.

I'm not sure what else I would do on twitter. I don't want to share my thoughts on issues I care about (I already do that in my personal accounts). I don't want to entertain people with my own humor or viral videos or other artist's stuff. It's just my music I want to share. When I look at your twitter, it's mostly your new EP. There are like 15 pictures of the same cover. With all due respect, I don't see how the rest of your tweets would contribute to your music career or relations with fans.

I'm not trying to criticize you, just responding from my own perspective. To each their own. I totally get that if you only tweet the latest soundcloud track, it might not be interesting enough for many people. But then, I'm not really gonna try to keep anyone's attention in any other way. If they take the time to listen to my music, I'm grateful. If not, too bad.

[mutantdog]

Admittedly, my Twitter use has been mostly self promotion lately. I am guilty of that much. I get bored of the whole social network thing very easily, myself. Out of all them, Twitter annoys me the least.