Getting Followers and Promoting on Twitter: Response to Cindy

Sara,
I’ve been hearing alot lately about twitter. I’ve just signed up for an account, but I’m completely lost. How do I get friends? How to I promote my shop? Please help.
Cindy


Cindy,

Welcome to Twitter! For new users, Twitter can be rather confusing at first. If you don’t know much about the micro-blogging site, I recommend you check out our Twitter 101 guide first.

Getting “Friends” and Followers on Twitter – If you’ve just started your Twitter account, chances are, you have no one following your tweets! What you’ll first need to do is follow some new people. You can use Twitter’s search (available on your left navigational bar on your Twitter home page) and people search to start finding people with similar interests to yours. For example, if you had a knitting shop, you could search for keywords like “knit”, “knitter”, or “knitting” to find people tweeting about those topics. You can also try finding people or companies you’re interested in with a lot of followers and follow some of those people. For example, if you sell on ArtFire, you might want to follow some of the people who follow ArtFire’s tweets.

Try following a few hundred (yes, hundred!) people and see where that gets you. Not everyone you follow will follow you back, but enough will check out your Twitter profile to gain you some followers. You can also try linking to your Twitter account from your MarketHub on ArtFire, or adding your Twitter username to a Handmade roster.

Promoting Once You’ve Got Friends and Followers—One of the fastest ways to lose followers on Twitter is to spam them with Direct Messages and @Replies about your studio. Instead, try to post the right blend of personal information and studio promotion. Share interesting finds online as well. Found a good crafty article? Share it with your followers. Found a new shop you think is really unique? Share it with your followers. Had an amusing experience on the way to work? Share it with you followers. Add a tweet in there about a special deal in your studio, or maybe a new piece you’ve just listed. It’s up to you to determine the right balance of personal information, fun links, and information about your business. You don’t want your Twitter account to be 100% promotional, although it doesn’t serve your studio to have it be 100% personal either.

I hope that helps you get started! Once you’re better acquainted with Twitter, you can check out our Social media guide to Mirco-Blogging to learn about tools and tricks to using the service. Happy twitting, and let me know if you have any other questions!

Sara
Sell Handmade Crafts Online
Got a question for me to answer on this blog? Email me: Sara@ArtFire.com.