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.

Sharing Personal Information Online: Response to Anonymous

There is a great deal of hype everywhere that giving our private information on Twitter/Facebook is very risky. I think this should be covered because as for me, I am very guarded who I join/what I say/and my profiles are empty. I only give information related to my shop, not my personal information like birthdates, anything personal. My local news stations have had some terrible horror stories and are warning people to exercise care in using these social networks? Do you have any advice?




Anonymous


Anonymous,

As a business owner, it is your own choice how much information you share. While sharing too much can be damaging, so can sharing too little. If you’re going to do business online, you’ll have to share some information. You have to share enough information for people to believe you are a real person who wouldn’t scam them. It can help draw customers (especially in the handmade market) to brand your business as being personal and share  your name (for credibility) and your story (to allow the customer to connect with you). However, where you draw the line after that is up to you and your own comfort level.

A lot of users choose to create a Facebook Fan Page for their studio to market themselves on Facebook, and keep their personal Facebook account set to private. This way they can allow people to fan their business page on Facebook but save their personal account for connecting with friends and family. Many people do the same thing with Twitter as well.

I hope that answered a few of your questions. This can be hard topic to properly address, but if you’re really concerned about your private information, I’d recommend reading over the Terms of Service and privacy Policy of any site you join, social media related or otherwise, to determine if they are able to share your information.

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

Response to Pam: Duplicate Content, Facebook, and Twitter

I love being able to import items from my Etsy shop to my ArtFire shop, but do I have to be worried about duplicate content and being penalized in Google searches?


I have a personal Facebook page and also my Fan page, although not all of my friends are also fans. What is the proper protocol for posting business related items...post to the fan page then post a link to the first post from my personal page? I don't want to "spam" my friends, but they might be interested in my art, also.


I also have a Twitter account. What should I be Tweeting? How often?


Pam Geisel
For Quilts Sake
www.forquiltssake.com
www.forquiltssake.artfire.com


Pam,

Wow, those are a lot of good questions! I’ll try my best to answer them all in turn.

Question 1: Duplicate Content
While the listing pages for ArtFire and Etsy are very different, there is still the possibility of running into trouble with duplicate content. However, this can easily taken care of by using making a few changes to your imported item’s title and description. You don’t have to redo the listing, just make a few small changes. Making these changes can also be a helpful way to test which title or description works best for your listing so far as SEO (search engine optimization) goes. ArtFire has a guide for after you import you can check out to find more ways to tweak your listings.

Question 2: Facebook
This is really a personal preference, and really depends on your fans and friends. Some people will post every update they have for their fan page onto their personal profile, while others will keep their fan page and personal profile completely separate. You could try only posting important news to both your fan page and personal profile (for example, if you normally post every time you list a new item, only post it to your fan page, while for big sales and events, post to both accounts). You could also try just “liking” your fan page posts from your profile, as this will also show up on your friend’s news feeds without showing the full post. But again, it’s up to you to determine the right amount of promotion with your Facebook account. There really is no proper protocol, so it’s up to you to determine what works best!


Question 3: Twitter
I could probably devote any entire novel this to question, but I’ll try to keep it brief. With your Twitter account, you want to create the right balance of fun, personal updates, as well as business updates. I go over this in greater detail on my Twitter 101 Guide. You’ll want to try and incorporate Twitter into your daily promotional practices to get the best results from it. Start with about 3-10 tweets spaced out over a period of time throughout the day. To a new user this might sound like a lot, but you’ll be surprised how easy it can be once you’re used to it!

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

Sara
Sell Handmade Crafts Online