I’m amazed sometimes at the number of people who are now part of the Everything Etsy Community. We’ve got over 60,000 wonderful people involved in the various social media outlets.
The first place I really started to enjoy social media was on Twitter. I now have over 17,000 Twitter followers and Twitter is still one of my favorite social media sites.
I’d like to share a little bit about why I use Twitter and a few Twitter tips for Etsy sellers I’ve learned along the way. I’d also love to hear what your experience on Twitter has been like.
Twitter is a valuable tool for your Etsy business!
Like other social media platforms, Twitter really does hold great potential to help you reach out, meet new people, and promote your wonderful work!
Twitter Introduces Real People
As the Everything Etsy Twitter account has grown, I’ve met more and more sweet and creative Etsy lovers. What starts off as a simple retweet can turn into a conversation and a new contact. This is really no different than good old-fashioned networking, it just happens much faster and I can stay in my PJs! Yay!
6 Tweeting Tips to Grow Your Followers
- Be yourself and don’t be afraid to chime in when someone mentions something you know about. You can respond to anyone…don’t be shy!
- Follow people with the same interests or folks that tweet information you find helpful. I use columns in Hootsuite to help me keep up with the keywords or hashtags { examples: #EverythingEtsy #etsy #handmade} that I find helpful. It makes it all so much easier!
- Promote yourself….but not too much! I try to promote myself every 10 tweets or so. One of the biggest mistakes of Etsy sellers is to only tweet about their items over and over. Sorry, but that’s not going to attract new followers!
- Schedule out your tweets so you don’t spend all day checking Twitter. If you schedule tweets you can check in a few times a day for a couple minutes and retweet great tweets from your friends, respond to a few tweets, and get right back to the rest of your busy life. 🙂 I use Hootsuite for my tweets.
- Share helpful information and links to great blog posts or photos. People love to share when they find something useful, so tweet to be retweeted!
- Be patient and you’ll get the hang of it! I felt super strange the first week of using Twitter. I actually quit for a few months and then tried again. Don’t take it personally if someone doesn’t respond to something you say. Everyone is busy and doing the best they can. Just keep tweeting and retweeting!
Just Keep Building
Something I’ve learned with all of this, (blogs, Twitter, etc.) is that it takes patience sometimes. You may not see huge results right away, but you have to keep going. Just keep on meeting people and finding new friends to follow and talk to. If you’re serious about your Etsy business, social media can be a great help to you. Keep at it, you’ll see!
Do you have an awesome Twitter tips to share? We’d love to hear it in the comments!
If you would like to stay in touch with me on Twitter, follow me @EverythingEtsy! See you there!
~Kim
I tweet every time I list a new item in my Etsy shop. Is it overkill or is it something I should do? And also is it okay to retweet an item?
Great question! I do think you can tweet when you list new items in your shop, but you do want to tweet about 9 or so other tweets in between each of them. Don’t worry about tweeting too much as long as each one isn’t all about you and your shop. 🙂
You can also try mixing it up a bit by tweeting your most popular item, something that just sold, the perfect item for Spring…you get the idea.
Tweet, tweet, tweet!
~Kim
I try to say why I like this item or who else might like it, rather than use the item description that is set up in Etsy. Does that make sense? 🙂
It does! I think it’s a great idea to change up the words when you tweet a listing. I follow you on twitter and you do a great job! 🙂
~Kim
I have been on Etsy almost since it started and have only recently really tried to make it a business. Before it was more of a hobby for me to share my handmade items. Now I have all kinds of things. I do use twitter and sometimes forget to use it for more then just posting my items. So I need to try to post more then about my items. I also love pin interest for showing my items and helping other shops on etsy as well. Thanks for the great tips.
Very nicely done! I would add that you might give Buffer a try when you’re scheduling tweets. I use it to manage content for several Twitter accounts and it’s a dream. 🙂
WHY does every article on how helpful twitter can be – leave out the instructions on how to use it?