Sometime around the holidays I thought I would give Twitter a whirl because I heard it was great for generating sales. Twitter is a free "micro blog" that gives you 140 characters to answer the question, "What are you doing?" People post anything from "yawn" to links to interesting news stories, blogs and Youtube clips. Etsy people (including myself) are discovering its value in promoting their shops, blogs and items. I've found some great shops and follow people I would never have gotten to know otherwise. After just two weeks, I learned one big "don't" along with a few "do's" for Etsy people:
When I first joined, I followed people from Etsy and quickly realized the biggest "don't" of Twitter: Don't incessantly promote! At best it is boring, and at worst it is irritating. After a few days of wading through promo posts to try to find other, more interesting tweets, and finding none, I no longer hesitate to unfollow people.
Here are a few do's: Do answer questions. Do engage people. Do offer content, not just products or self-promotion. Tell them "great job" if they are excited about an accomplishment, to have fun if they are going to dinner. If you know the answer to a question, post it. Thank them for posting a helpful or interesting link. Post helpful or interesting links yourself.
In just two short weeks, I've had people tell me they like my jewelry because they visited my profile. If someone is interested, they will do just that, visit your profile. How do I know this? Because I do it! People want to get to know you. Going a little farther, I would recommend putting links to your blog, Flickr, Facebook, etc. along with a touch of personal information in your profile on Etsy. They will read it and check out links (again, I know this because I do it).
As for Twitter, I do promote my items, but try to keep it occasional, not more than 2 or 3 at a time. I'm still very new, but I am curious to see if Twitter will help generate sales. I'll let you know if it does!
(You can follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/CLKcreative)
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3 comments:
As a relative newcomer to Twitter, I thank you for providing this information. They should put this on the front page of Twitter.
Great post! these are exactly the same lines that I use to get people to sign up on Twitter! Good job once again!
I made a post very similar to this a while back. It's good you have learned these things early on!
Also since you're my newest follower, you've been tagged to list 6 random things about yourself. http://blondheart.blogspot.com/2009/01/six-random-things.html
Kelly
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