I recently came across a young female country artist, Polly Baker. I checked out her music, and her music videos, and it was good catchy stuff – nice. Then, as I am wont to do because I teach social media, I checked out her Twitter profile. Okay… She’s been on Twitter since March, 2012. Wait, wow – 49.3K followers?

I was immediately curious to see how many of Polly’s followers were fake. I ran her Twitter handle through the SocialBakers FakeFollowersCheck tool.

This is a free app promotion so, you can use to check anyone’s Twitter handle to see how many suspicious, “empty” or inactive followers someone has on Twitter. It’s a pretty reliable indicator of whether someone has bought Twitter followers (I wrote a post about How To Grow Your Twitter Following and explained why buying Twitter followers is a bad idea for musicians).

To my surprise, Polly’s Twitter followers were 97% good. That is an amazing number. 49.3K Twitter authentic followers? In just over two years. Impossible to do organically.

I have friends who have been on Twitter for 6 years or more, and they tell me it was much easier in the beginning to grow a following of tens of thousands in the early days. Now? Not so easy without buying followers, using automation tools, or hiring a social media agency with a college intern to sit and follow people for hours a day.

Now I was intrigued.

Curious to know how Polly got this large authentic Twitter following in such a relatively short time, I emailed her and asked her to share a bit about herself, her social media practices and perhaps also some of her Twitter secrets. She graciously agreed.

Here’s our interview:

Q1: Polly, I understand you are just releasing a new single. Congratulations! This is your second single, is that correct? Can you give me a little background on yourself musically? What brings you to where you are right now?

Thank you so much. Yes, “Leaving It Up To You” (also affectionately known as “LIUTY”) is my second single which I released on July 29th. I had such an incredible time recording this and worked with a different producer than on my first single release, “Good At Goodbyes”. My producer and I worked on this song for about 4 months off and on to make sure we really captured the sound we wanted, while still making it a dance-able track.

I have been singing since I was four years old, and playing piano since age five. My entire family (parents and two brothers) are musicians and singers, so we all would sing and play together on a daily basis. I always knew I wanted to have a career in the entertainment industry, however I originally thought I would be a Radio City Rockette. When I found out I wasn’t tall enough to audition, I started writing songs. I was 10.

I wrote down everything from ages 10 on. Various notebooks were filled with stories, phrases, song lyrics and lists of everything I wanted to accomplish. California was always “it” for me. My bags were practically packed from the time I was 13 and I planned to move out to Los Angeles as soon as I turned 18.

I finally got up the nerve to start performing my original songs outside of my house when I was about 16 years old. From there, I just started performing at as many events as possible and building up a reasonable live show fan base in the Northern Virginia area. I did move out to LA last year at age 19 (a year later than the goal, but I still made it!) and created a Facebook band page and Twitter page a couple weeks before “Good At Goodbyes” released. And then a few music videos, and lyric videos later, here I am.
Q2: You have a lot of Twitter followers! How did you come to gain such a large and genuine following on Twitter?

I treat Twitter like a job. For about six months, I worked three jobs, along with going to school full time, and trying to promote my music, record and play out shows. I would come back to my apartment from one job, or class, and sit down at my computer and not move until it was at least 3 AM in the morning. Then I’d go to sleep, wake up at 7:30 AM and start the routine all over again. From about December 2013 on, I’ve spent a minimum of 10 hours a day on Twitter. And it takes a while to see all of your efforts start paying off! I probably still spend about six to eight hours a day on Twitter now, because I love connecting with the people who have really helped me in promoting my songs. To this day, since maybe February or so, I’ve had one awesome Twitter follower tweet out my song every other day. He’s awesome. It’s people like that on Twitter who just rock.

[Tweet “I treat Twitter like a job”]

Q3: Tell me about your experience with social media and music. What other social media platforms besides Twitter do you find effective to promote your music? YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

I host my music videos and lyric videos on YouTube. I’ve found Google AdWords pretty effective in the further promotion of these videos through YouTube. I also use Facebook some, but don’t spend as much time promoting myself on Facebook, which is most likely why I have significantly less followers on Facebook rather through Twitter. Instagram is great too, I don’t really use that for promoting my website, more so just to keep fans updated of the day-to-day happenings in my life through pictures.

Q4: What advice would you give other musicians about using Twitter, specifically?

The thought that comes to my mind immediately is “stay on that grind”, and I’m literally quoting “Fancy” right now (I performed a country cover of this song at a recent show I had–lyrics still stuck in my head). You have to make time. No one has time to follow a thousand people a day, or respond to 60 messages every three hours, but you find the time somehow. I try to keep conversations going with the fans that tweet to me and direct message me for as long as I can because I love these wonderful people so much. I’ve even Facetimed and had some Skype sessions with a couple fans because I want them to know how grateful I am for their support. Go out of your way for the people who support you on Twitter, because you wouldn’t be anywhere without their likes, tweets, re-tweets and comments.

Q5: How important do you think it is to have large numbers of followers on social media for a musician?

I go back and forth on this one quite a bit. Obviously, people are impressed by a large social following, but I always feel it’s the interaction that counts. I know a lot of artists who have a large following (of real followers) but never interact with them, so their following suddenly becomes less impressive. I don’t try to focus on the number of followers I have, as much as I focus on the interaction I have with them. As I said above, responding to messages, tweeting at fans, skype sessions, sending CD’s and signed pictures out–that’s more of the stuff that matters to me. I’m not in this for fame and glory, although those things are nice. I just love how music can touch someone in a way you never knew possible. So, if all that comes out of my efforts is a fan telling me that my song really helped them through a break up or a tough season in their life, then I’ve done my job. And that’s what counts.

Q6: Do you manage your social media by yourself or do you have help?

I manage social media all by myself! It’s do-able, but it’s a lot. But I always want my social connection to fans to be from me. So, even if it means pulling an all-nighter just to chat with a fan after a recent break up with her boyfriend, I’m gonna do it. And I’m a night owl anyways, so it all works out.

[Tweet “I always want my social connection to fans to be from me. “]

Q7: Have you made any unexpected or special connections through social media, either in the industry, or with fans?

It’s been UNBELIEVABLE. I have to say, I’ve met several people through Twitter that I’m now friends with on Facebook, and text and call with on a regular basis. A perfect example is a girl who goes to Belmont University in Nashville who followed me (or I followed her) and she messaged me wanting to set up a co-writing session over Skype. I saw she went to Belmont and asked if she knew a couple of friends I had from high school that went to school there. That then launched into messaging over Twitter for days, then chatting on Facebook, and then super long phone calls and now I consider her to be a close friend of mine! And that’s just one example of some incredible people that I’ve met that I keep in touch with outside of Twitter.

Q8: Is there another artist who you really admire on social media who you look to as a role model?

Katy Perry is just insanely amazing. I mean, she has the most followers on Twitter. I’d probably be super star struck if I ever had the opportunity to meet her. Also, Perez Hilton…I walked by him on campus coming from class at UCLA a couple weeks ago. The Kid’s Choice Awards were filmed on campus and there were hundreds of kids lined up around the school, and I just saw him hanging out with some people over by the celebrity trailers and I had a minor heart attack and tripped over my feet walking in front of him. Oh, but yeah, moral of the story, he’s really cool. Oh and I love Taylor Swift–love her Instagram.

Q9: Do you have any final thoughts on nurturing a strong social media presence when you’re an indie musician?

Just make the time to pursue what you love because a lot of opportunities have a time limit on them. The people who make it in music are the ones who don’t sleep and work 4 odd jobs, all while taking three hours a day to practice for an open mic gig at the end of the week. Just keep at it because hard work does pay off.

[Tweet “The people who make it in music are the ones who don’t sleep.”]

Q10: Thanks so much, Polly. It’s been a pleasure. Where can we listen to your music and find you on social media?

My music is available for purchase on iTunes, Amazon and for listen on Spotify, Emeraz, Soundcloud and YouTube. You can follow my social media sites here!

https://twitter.com/PollyBakerMusic

https://facebook.com/PollyBakerMusic

https://instagram.com/PollyBakerMusic

https://pollybakermusic.com