Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Twittering or Not?

Since I'm sort of new to the online promotion and marketing of my etsy store, I thought I would review some of the things I come across as I journey along that road. It has been an eye opening experience so far. Today I'll post about Twitter.

Twitter is something I came across in an etsy thread. The author was raving that it was the only thing she could actually say she had gotten a sale from. I looked at it and it really seemed harmless. You make a short profile and poof you are twittering. Like magic people will "follow" you. Basically all that means is that when you make an entry on your home page it will appear on theirs. If you elect to "follow" them back, their entries will appear on your page. You end up with a page full of random and not so random comments on everything from merchandise to what to have for dinner. There is an @ function so you can reply to someone specific but it still appears on all your follows pages.

Entries are called updates and are limited to 140 characters. Most etsy sellers that I have run across use it to promote their merchandise posts, treasuries and blogs. Some are manic about it and definitely tire you out. Some are very sincere and don't overuse it. Then there is a group of "marketing gurus" that tirelessly post useless things that most of us as sellers have already thought of. There is your sprinkling of really scary people too.

Bottom Line - Twitter is a fun social networking thing that can get you clicks if that is what you are after. I haven't had any sales from it, but have met some really creative people and had fun online with it. It tends to suck up time. If you have limited time, for sales, put your time elsewhere: If you are looking for a fun diversion that might help defray stress, intro you to new sellers etc it is well worth it.

No comments:

Post a Comment