Follow Your Favorite Musicians on Twitter

I absolutely love the social networking service Twitter.  Not only can I connect with my fans and friends instantly, but its a great way to see what people are doing.  As a singer songwriter, I am especially interested in what other people in the industry are up to.

With more than 5 million Twitter users around the world, the community is the equivalent of a medium-sized North American city!  Fortunately, there are tools that can help you follow your favorite musicians on Twitter.  You might even discover new artists in the process.

Yesterday, I used TwitDir to determine how many in the music business are on Twitter.  Entering the term “musician” in the query box, I got over 5,000 users. This search was not exactly perfect, given that many of them are not in the music business.

Experiment with changing search terms to something like “female music,” (5 results), or “music business” (75 results).  Perhaps you should try a specific genre, like new age music (4 results) or ambient (313 results – I’m at the top!)

You can also search for specific names, like Enya (which results in 811 hits), or Brian Eno (only 8 hits, with the “real” Eno at the top of the list).

Beyond TwitDir, perhaps a more efficient way to find your favorite musicians on Twitter is with Celebstweet.com.  From the main page, go straight to its “Musicians” directory.

On CelebsTweet, you can view the most recent tweets of musicians (and people that classify themselves as such).   My favorite tool on the site, is to simply get a list of all musicians – from A to Z.  Or, should I say, from Aaron Neville to Zoe Keating (a cellist).  You may be surprised to find people like Erykah Badu and Yoko Ono!  You don’t even need to know their Twitter Handle – its provided on the site.

Once you find the musicians you’re looking for, the fun really begins!  Perhaps you’ll get early notice of upcoming concerts?  Links to new singles?  Or maybe you’ll just get to know the person behind the music.  That’s the beauty of Twitter!

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to see Uplifting Quotes About Music and Life, and I Love Humans Behind Twitter.