Have you heard the news? Twitter has changed.

Basically because it’s gotten big enough to attract a lot of different subcultures, and powerful enough that mainstream media listen to Twitter, people are using Twitter in a different way now.

People are AFRAID to say shit on Twitter because even though it feels all light chit chat, someone will screenshot you and you will get called out for your light chit chat (because you offended them).

And now this from The Atlantic:

‘we’ treats conversational contributions as fixed print-like identity claims,”

BUT

Twitter is, as my research continues to show, a path to voice…still a powerful and as yet unsurpassed platform for raising issues and calling out uncomfortable truths, as shown in itsamplification of the #Ferguson protests to media visibility (in a wayFacebook absolutely failed to do thanks to the aforementioned algorithmic filters).

ALSO

At the same time, Twitter is also a free soapbox for all kinds of shitty and hateful statements that minimize or reinforce marginalization, as any woman or person of colour who’s dared to speak openly about the raw deal of power relations in society will likely attest. And calls for civility will do nothing except reinforce a respectability politics of victim-blaming within networks.

AND

The media intensifies Tactical Twitter by watching Twitter as a social network more closely than it does other sites—what happens there gets turned into news stories in a way that doesn’t happen in other places.

CONSIDER

Vine, Pinterest, and Instagram don’t traffic in words, which can be reduced to identity-based magnum opi, but in images, which are a little harder to smoosh. Visual conversations have stayed chatty, in other words.

HMMM

Twitter’s volatility is inherent to Twitter’s use of the written word so much as it’s how Twitter relates to the written word.”

OOOOHHH

I am careful about what I say and some of that is good because frankly the world does not need to hear me pronounce on every single thing I don’t know much about.”  – More @TheAtlanitc

But for artists who have limited time what do you do?

Use Instagram. It’s growth rate has been spectacular, it’s more prominently integrated into the biggest social network (Facebook), it’s easy to do.

Move your Twitter strategy over to your Instagram strategy. For some bands that is a bit of a pain.  You need someone to have an official account and that requires multiple logins which is annoying. But consider creating a band hashtag. Something uniqe, maybe event specific. Get the whole band to join in and watch fans jump in as well.

The type of communication has changed, but the principals remain. Use them and watch your fan base grow. Long live shots!