I've spent tons of time reading through various threads, blogs & websites all dedicated to using Twitter as a marketing strategy for promoting an Etsy shop. I then combined this with my year of experience on Twitter to bring you this guide. Enjoy!
Twitter is a website that falls under a category called “Micro-Blogging”. It is like regular blogging, but your message length is limited to 140 characters long. It’s great for those of us who can’t sit down devote time to regular blogging. It can only take a few minutes a day to turn your twitter into a great marketing tool.
Before we get into getting followers, and figuring out what to do with them, let’s talk about your Twitter background. You want your background to show off your products, and be eye-catching at the same time. If someone happens to click on your twitter link, they might not have time to read through all your tweets to figure out who you are or what you are selling. If they like what they see as soon as they load the page from seeing your background, you can bet that they will read through your tweets trying to find out where to buy your items. Don’t forget that you will also want to change your avatar. To change either of these, you click on the settings tab at the top, and then click on picture for your avatar, or design for your background. You can see an example of my background here: http://twitter.com/switchplates
On Twitter, you have people that follow you. These are the people who are interested in what you are tweeting about. In every other Twitter guide I have seen, major emphasis is placed on having a lot of followers. The truth is though, you don’t need a lot of followers, what you need is quality followers. Twitter has become a website that is used and abused now by what is called “spam-bots”. Take a look at Etsy’s Twitter and you will see that even though they have close to a million followers, the majority of followers are fake accounts. Many guides have suggested in the past, to follow people who follow Etsy, however, if you do this, about 70% or so of the people you follow will be spam-bots, people who won’t buy your product, and won’t read your tweets. Spam-bots are easily recognizable. These are accounts that have never changed their newbie avatar, account names that make no sense, and accounts who have never even twitted.
So how do I find quality followers? Look for people who are actively talking about crafting, Etsy, or whatever it is that you are trying to sell. Yes this takes longer, but this is how you end up with quality followers. The easiest way to do that is to search the #etsy hashtag. When you search for #etsy in Twitter’s search, you are getting real time results of people who are actively talking about Etsy. This is a huge part of your target market because these are people who are familiar with what Etsy is, and how Etsy works. You will also want to search for other things that are related to your craft.
Every day, I follow about 20-30 people who are actively tweeting about Etsy. I have built up a following now of over 2,500 REAL people, who are actively following me, and talking to me on a daily basis. Remember to have an eye catching background; this is often when I find new awesome shops I like!
So now you have all your followers, all that’s left is to spam your links and watch the money roll in…right? WRONG.
People will un-follow you in an instant if all you do is spam item links. You want to talk about yourself, your craft, whatever it is that is going on in your world. Yes, you can talk about your store, and link items, but don’t do it obnoxiously. I limit myself to linking 2 of my items a day at the most. I try to link when I’ve listed something new, and I try to link something that is about to expire. Some days I don’t even link any items at all, I just talk about myself.
When you do link your items, don’t just say something like “Newly re-listed: Link”. That doesn’t make me want to click at all, that doesn’t make anyone want to click. Say something like “This would look great in a little boys room: Link” or “Dog lovers, you will love this: link”. You want to say something that invites people into looking at your item. You can also use the #etsy hashtag in your tweet if you want people who are not following you to see what you post.
Another thing you need to do is check on who is tweeting about you. On the right hand side screen you will see an @ sign followed by your Twitter name. If you click that, you will see all the people who have talked about you or talked to you. It’s a good idea to keep up communication with these people as they are loyal readers to your tweets! You can either reply back the person, or tweet a reply using the @username tag in your tweet. It’s also a good idea to check your Direct Messages box to see if people have sent you messages.
So what else can you do on Twitter? I think my most favorite thing about Twitter is running contests! Currently I am running a contest, where the 3,000th person to follow me on Twitter gets a free switch plate from my shop. I post this about once every other day or so: The 3,000th person to follow @switchplates wins a free switch plate from http://rathina.etsy.com - Please RT!! #etsy
Misc Stuff
If you are talking to Etsy you will want to use the @etsy tag, for example “Hey @etsy, how are you doing today?” If you are talking about Etsy, you will want to use the #etsy tag, for example “I am having a sale in my #etsy shop today.”
To follow more than 2,000 people, you will have to wait till you have 2,000 followers.
Here are some helpful Twitter links"