Crafty Twitter Tips

Twitter is one of the fastest growing and probably one of the most used social networking sites out there today. Although more of a micro blogging tool, it is quite possibly the fastest way to get your message out there to your followers.

For people who make and sell their items online, it is a great tool to let your fans and followers know what is going on for your business. Its a quick and easy way to let them know about promotions, new lines of stock and promoting others users too!

I use twitter whenever i am online and i find it is an extremely useful tool for my small craft business. I just wanted to share with you what I believe works and what doesn't in the world of Tweeting for crafters. There are no hard and fast rules, these are simply guidelines to help you get started!

1) Register a Twitter username that connects to your business. Use it only for your business, try to refrain from Tweeting anything personal. Your family and friends might be interested in what you had for dinner or what music you're listening to, but your customers won't! Setup a seperate personal account for things like that if you wish!

2) Do not Tweet the hard sell. Nobody likes this, unless of course you can make it sound exciting or make it relevant to whats happening today. For example, perhaps it is raining all over the country and you sell handmade umbrellas. Tweeting something light-hearted like:

Ugh, look at this weather! Don't leave home without a brolly! [link]

will more likely get someone to click on your link rather than just Tweeting a link on its own. Do not trick people into clicking on links which are nothing to do with what you Tweeted about either - they will stop following you and possibly even block you.

3) Remember, you only have 140 characters for a Tweet! Use URL shortening sites for links so you can get a nice Tweet in with your link. I personally like bit.ly because not only is it one shortest URL 'shortening' sites, it lets you know how many people have clicked that particular link. If other users have also shortened the same link, you'll get the same short URL, which is nice as you can see the total number of clicks of everyone who has used the URL!

4) When replying to Tweets, remember that anyone who follows the both of you will be able to read it too. So if you want a more private conversation use something more suitable like an Instant Messenger or email. If its just a quick private message use 'd' in front of their user name eg:

d TomatoTea [private-message-here]

will send me a private Tweet that no one else can see.

5) Where possible, Tweet about others. If you love someones work, let your followers know about it. They will be grateful that you aren't always Tweeting about yourself and that you are sharing cool and relevant links.

6) Retweeting is your friend. If someone you follow has Tweeted something interesting that you think your followers would like, Retweet it. The Retweet etiquette goes something along the lines of:

RT @username-who-tweeted-something-interesting [their-tweet]

However, don't over do it. if you are constantly Retweeting and not coming up with your own Tweets, people may think you are either a spam bot or that you're on commission! Retweet your own Tweets if you feel it is appropriate to - no one likes to read the same thing over and over!

7) There is no rule in the world of Twitter that says if someone follows you, you have to follow them back. This goes both ways, so don't follow a bus load of people in the hopes that they'll follow you back - most of the time they won't, and even if they do, they will probably ignore your tweets if they don't like the same things as you. If someone follows you and you see that they have interesting Tweets or have similar interests, then by all means reciprocate. You will find that there are Twitter users out there who will follow you just to get you to follow them back, and if you do they usually then stop following you. Twitter is not a popularity contest - you want your followers to be interested in what you are Tweeting, because they will most likely help you spread the word, more so if you help them. It's a two way street.

8) Expanding on the above, try not to follow too many people. Any more than 100 perhaps 200 and the important Tweets you are interested in will get buried. It might be worth setting up another account for following celebrities or anything not related to your business that you are interested in.

9) Fill out your profile and upload a picture. You only have 160 characters, so it doesn't need to be anything major. Something along the lines of:

I make fimo buttons!

is enough for people to be intrigued. If you have a website, blog, shop any URL that links to more information about you, then stick that in the relevant box too. And the picture doesn't need to be anything fancy, it can be of you or your logo - something relevant! Doing these things is more likely to get you followers than leaving it blank.

10) Finally, use Twitter tools such as TwitterFox or TweetDeck to enhance your Twitter experience! These keep you up to date with Tweets while you're online (and logged into them). They make it easy for you to Tweet, reply, Reweet, and Direct Message your followers/followees! There are plenty of other Twitter tools out there, so find one that suits you.

Well, I do hope this helps you with your crafty Twittering! Remember, this is simply a guide of what i have found works for me on Twitter. Find what works for you and you could be the next big thing!