I hate to be a crumudgeon, but how many hours in a day are there to spend on this crap? {Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, ad nauseum}
The time would be better spent doing a million other things,{like say.. LIVING!} or at the least practicing the craft. I'm as diligent a self promoter as their IS, but at some point it becomes OVERKILL!
I can't imagine why someone would be interested in what I'm doing at ALL TIMES, or vice-versa!
Just to throw in my 2cents...
Bob,
You make great points! One should not spend all day on these things. I put in a couple of hours a day on the net doing promo and the rest of the time is devoted to life, writing, recording etc.
If you want to spread the word about your music, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, a personal web site etc., are all great tools to get it out there and have others do likewise. It's like Radio used to be in the old days except we have the power to deliver the signal and we get to bypass the gatekeepers (YAY)!
I have gotten a lot of great traction from Twitter. I use it in conjunction with Blip.fm to Blip/Tweet out my music and I also use the Twitter search and Twilerts to alert me about people who Tweet about artists I am similar to. When I gather this info, I @ them with a link to my music or a particular song and introduce them to my music this way. I get great response and the more people Re-Tweet my Blips or Tweet about me, the more people are introduced to what I create. Of course, if they like the music, I send them to my official site for more! You do have to promo your own site... all these gidgets, gadgets and sites come and go. But it's great to use them while they are hot!
One really cool thing that came out of Twitter for me was a shout out by the legendary Teena Marie last week. She and I connected on Twitter, she DMed (Direct Messaged) me telling me that she would check out my music... some people in her promo team checked it out also and told her about me also and she mentioned me on a radio show this week. It was a really nice shoutout.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHuNZNzkkS8I also had a message from Grammy winning artist Chrisette Michele about one of my songs (It's A Beautiful Day) and she told me she'd like to meet up with me sometime... heard from some people in Alicia Keys camp also.
All very nice things that do add up if you act on them.
Anyway, that's just been my own experience with the Tweeple (Twitter language for people... ha ha, yes dear friends... there is a Twitter language!)
Have a great week!
Nat