Day 5 What happened?

[PillowThrowDecor]

Today is Twitter show and Tell... What went on in your world of twitter?

[Callidora]

I've been on Twitter for a year, but I don't get it.  I have automatically linked my Facebook, Netflix, and blogs to add updates to Twitter for me, but I don't get on personally and do anything there.  I downloaded the TweetDeck today, so I'm going to try to learn how to use Twitter properly from you wonderful marketing gurus  

What does the #icraft do? Where do I put it?  At the beginning of a message, at the end?  Should I get rid of the people I'm following who are constantly advertising weird web services and products.  It's like they are real people, just robodialers.  Or it is better to have higher numbers?

[Sirocco]

Well, it looks like we are going to be working with Twitter again. We worked with Twitter at the last Boot Camp and I was completely mystified by it. I still am. In a way I am happy that I will get to try to tackle it again but I am also dreading it. I can go to Twitter home and see the posts from those that I am following but the post make no sense. Just a lot of symbols! Here is a post from Linda:

GalleriaLinda  
RT @SackReligious: RT @andreasjewelry Promo peeps 4artists 2 #FF @handmadehighway @HandmadeNewsorg @IndieCEO @indiespotting @JustForFunHMN26 minutes ago from HootSuite

What do the symbols RT, @, #FF mean? What is HootSuit? What exactly does this post say? It is meaningless to me.

I recently added three new items to my Icraft store and suddenly I found those items being tweeted on Twitter by Icraft. How did that happen?

I installed TweetDeck and now I am getting pop-ups every so often that stay just long enough be a nuisance but not long enough to read. I turned it off!

Paul C
http://siroccostradingpost.blogspot.com/

[Callidora]

Paul, I feel your pain.  I'm hoping to learn why this pest of social network is worthwhile.

[storybeader]

can't wait till after work to study this     {:-Deb

PS  Paul looks foreign to me too  :lol:

[PillowThrowDecor]

I am going to try and answer your questions here Callidora...

It took me awhile to "get it" too. I just could not understand why people tweeted useless its.

Reading all the tweets on twitter is like... walking into a bar and hearing all kinds of conversations from every table.  Chatter everywhere.  You just cruise along, sort of like table  hopping and just listen (read) for a second or two to see if there is anything interesting that they are talking about.  If not you just keep moving around this bar/lounge and keep listening for something funny, interesting, informative. Everyone once in awhile you will be able to add to the conversation with something brilliant and comment with a "tweet".  

For the longest time I just listened and listened and followed everybody that looks interesting. I went into "different bars", you know ... where the crafty people hang out, then where the social media hang out, then where all the designers hang out and I follow everybody that looks interesting.  That's my problem because I follow some really really fascinating people... I get so totally sucked into the screen when they come online.

The people that you like... you try and help them by "retweeting" RT what they just said so you can help spread the word... as hopefully they will RT what you say.  Very powerful. I may tweet one of my new pillows and get 5 views and in Tweetdeck I can see if one of my followers RT my message and sometimes my views will jump to 20 or 30 because they RT and a friend of theirs RT. Awesome.

We are all icraft buddies (followers) of each other hopefully.  If you are not following us get on it. So... if you mark you tweets with #icraft (anywhere in your 140 characters, at the front or the end it doesn't matter) I can find your tweets by searching with #icraft even if your tweets have disappeared from my "twitterfeed".  Your twitterfeed may hold up to 100 messages and then they disappear in space somewhere but are recorded in the bowels of Twitter somehow.  Using this # thingy called a hashtag  lets me search certain conversations that I missed earlier in the day in stead of just hanging out for hours staring at the screen waiting for someone to say something interesting.

Get rid of (unfollow) the pimps and trashy tarts.  I block everyone trying to sell me the "I earned $500 or got 500 followers" routine. I do not autofollow everyone ... there are lots of BOTS and people with 55,000 followers that are not going to "have a relationship" with me. Dump 'em. Yes... you want to build followers but build with some reasonable quality.

Sorry I am so long and so simplified with rather weird analogies but this is how it was explained to me because I didn't get it either.

The result for me is that I have lots of friends and buddies from around the world that we can say a quick hi every few days and we help each other get our messages out around the world, literally!... you just never know out there who will bump into a pillow that they like or know someone else that may like it.... Hence you build your following to get help with ReTweets.  It is so simple to RT with Tweetdeck!  And I can see at a glance in the "mentions" column if anyone is talking about me. Or in the "Direct Message" column if someone is speaking to me directly. I hate those auto DM's that are just pimping their own crappy stuff / interests.  Remember you need to earn relationships before you can count on your buddies to get your own selling or personal message out. Start by RT'ing some others. I love RT'ing the intelligent techies.. they are fascinating to me as well as the decor/designers.

When you send a message that you want retweeted don't make it too long... leave space of about 18 to 20 characters so there is room for the next person to RT and have their name on the tweet too.  Practice and you will get the hang of it remarkable quickly!

Phewwww... sorry I am so long winded here.

I've been on Twitter for a year, but I don't get it.  

What does the #icraft do? Where do I put it?  At the beginning of a message, at the end?

 Should I get rid of the people I'm following who are constantly advertising weird web services and products.  It's like they are NOT real people, just robodialers.  
Or it is better to have higher numbers?

[Callidora]

That is the best explanation I've had yet!  Going to go try to sort it all out

[PillowThrowDecor]

I will be back shortly to explain... you WILL CONQUER AND LEAD THE WORLD WITH TWITTER WHEN WE ARE FINISHED!  

Ok... I am back... and I can "come back" to this bost by hitting the "edit" button on this post.  Love that button

Oops I deleted too much of your quote...

Well, it looks like we are going to be working with Twitter again. We worked with Twitter at the last Boot Camp and I was completely mystified by it. I still am. In a way I am happy that I will get to try to tackle it again but I am also dreading it.

[PillowThrowDecor]

In GalleriaLinda's post below there are a lot of symbols. She is tweeting a "list" of good people to follow.  

Firstly the RT means that she is "retweeting" something that someone else wrote.  right after the RT we see @SackReligious.  the @ thingy is how Twitter addresses us... it turns "Sackreligious" from a word to a Twitter address by making it @Sackreligious.  Then we see another RT with "@andreasjewelry " right behind it. So this means that Linda retweeted @sackreligious who retweeted @andreasjewelry... three people have sent or resent this message.  This is an example of Twitter at its best.  If each of these people has, say 2000 followers, that means this message has circulated to at least 6000 people.  It maybe that 3 or 4 of their followers found this interesting and  RT it too 6 hours later because they saw their name in it in Tweetdeck and they send it out to another crowd of people.  If your name is on that list, your name has been passed around the world even before you got your first cup of coffee this morning!!! Cool huh???

Why do we make these lists??? Because we all want to know good people to follow and be followed by good people... we get sort of like cliques in the "bar atmosphere"... this is good. So you will often see "good tweeps to follow" ... click on each of these peoples names/addresses and check them out by reading their bio, follow them if you like, and if you like them all, retweet the message.  Sometimes the message gets to long and the Tweetdeck message line goes red.  that means you have to start deleting something in that line.  Sometimes I very carefully edit and use "Twitter speak"... "for you" becomes 4 U.  thank you for the Retweet becomes. Thx 4 RT... thus saving you 10 or 15 precious characters.  You learn to be succinct!!! Sometimes you may have to cut the last address or two until your red in the text line disappears and the test reappears.  If there is a link in the message carefully preserve the link and cut something else.  For us sellers links are important.  No point about bragging about your new bag if there is no pic to look at.  

Twitter conversations need to go zoom zoom. Tweetdeck will take a long link that you have copied from your address bar and shorten it into something that looks like hyrogliphics.  Don't try and figure that one out it doesn't matter.  The cool thing about shortening your links in Tweetdeck is that the shortening software that Twitter uses automatically  keeps statistics on how many times your link has been clicked on.  I love peeking at how many times my link has been peeped at.    When I promote an item several times I like to use the same shortened address so that the statistical count of views GROWSSSSS.  Makes me feel very popular

Starting Thursday evening you will see a lot of these lists of names with #FF... that means Follow Friday which is the day that everyone saves for promoting other people as well as their selves as worthy people to follow.  Some people just blindly retweet #FF messages.  By the way the hashtag means that you can search using #FF and find a gazillion messages containing FF lists.  It is not advisable to blindly retweet anything.  Always check it out because you may be retweeting about badgirls, naughty boys and disgusting videos and useless get rich quick con artists.

Below ever tweet in very fine faint letters you will see something like sent via or by the web... which means it was sent in Twitter, or from Tweetdeck (that's the application or program that I am encouraging you to use), or Hootsuite (another application or program  that is another tool that works with twitter that is really cool), or sent by "XYZ' which tells us the name of the program or API (application) that it was sent from.  why this is sometimes important is that there are some programs that are able to spit out a tweet every hour or whatever interval you set it at.  This is sometimes a good thing if used in moderation.  Linda has some of our Bootcamp tweets on auto pilot because she doesn't have time to run to her computer every hour, change hats, tweet, change hat, go back to work. This way she can set auto pilot for certain messages and still has the freedom to jump in at any hour and send a human message without upsetting her auto messages.  We will be learning these too eventually.

Programs that auto send messages must be used very carefully.  When I see that I am trying to have a twitter realationship with a robot I dump em.... and I can usually tell if the mesage is being sent on auto pilot, from their cel phone or by human delivery like Tweetdeck.  Tweetdeck doesn't have any super human qualities... Using it is like putting on a pair of sunglasses on a bright day... all of a sudden you can see through all the Twitter flash more clearly and in a more organized fashion... its a "control panel" really.

Your new items were tweeted for you by icraft.  Isn't that cool!!!  Icraft has all of our new listings set up on a robotics type system. Although @icraft has many followers those followers already understand that it is an auto feed and they are not often going to be able to hang out and chat back and forth with @icraft. That's ok...

Also icraft has ALL OF OUR BOOTCAMP POSTS ON AN AUTOFEED!  If you have wondered why I have rather silly or overstated subject lines it is because I know it is going to get circulated on Twitter.  So I like using attention getting subject lines to draw readers in.  You would be amazed at how many Twitter followers come and peek at our ongoings here in Bootcamp.  I am sure they are dying with envy wanting to be part of our  crowd.  Real people like to read about real people and that is what we are all here... think of all of us Bootcampers around a big dining room table having thanksgiving turkey every day and all those peepers out there with their faces pressed up against the window drooling wishfully

So from here on in... always put a little "splash" and "colour" in your subject lines and you too will stand out as a fascinating person and strangers will follow you too.   Sort of... grin grin

Tweetdeck popups at first were annoying and I turned them off except I kinda liked it to know that someone was tweeting me and if I was on line at that moment I would interrupt what I was doing and went and tweeted with them a bit. These 10 or 15 second chitchats can get very addictive so keep a strong hold... LOL.  My compromise was to turn the sound off on them so at least it didn't distract me from across the room.

In my real job of many years I had no time for people that had nothing better to do than pick fluff from their bellybutton or other people that spend their whole lives chasing sticks and balls... aka.. golf, baseball, tennis and other useless activities... LOL... I am sure I am hitting a nerve here. My business/ life moved at warp speed and I haven't changed much in my retirement.  So... I unfollow the navel pickers, sports fanatics and the other people that  are offereing debt reduction, fat reduction, etc. You do not need followers that don't make you look good BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE ME WILL SNOOP THROUGH YOUR FOLLOWERS TO SEE WHO YOU "HANG OUT " WITH BEFORE I follow.  The old addage... "birds of a feather flock together" is very true on Twitter.  If you want to have a really personal navel picking experience on twitter set up a different account name and don't do any business on it.  Hey... none of you know that I might have a secret life aka "Juicy Lucy" on twitter... LOLOLOLOL... NOT!!!

Again sorry for being long winded but this is the best way I can explain because I am new to twitter too and have zero technical jargon.

Hope this helps... If not just ask again and maybe I can have GalleriaLinda take a run at it or one of our other VERY SMART BOOTCAMP ELVES.

Cheers

Christine

.... but the post make no sense. Just a lot of symbols! Here is a post from Linda:

GalleriaLinda  
RT @SackReligious: RT @andreasjewelry Promo peeps 4artists 2 #FF @handmadehighway @HandmadeNewsorg @IndieCEO @indiespotting @JustForFunHMN26 minutes ago from HootSuite

What do the symbols RT, @, #FF mean? What is HootSuit? What exactly does this post say? It is meaningless to me.

I recently added three new items to my Icraft store and suddenly I found those items being tweeted on Twitter by Icraft. How did that happen?

I installed TweetDeck and now I am getting pop-ups every so often that stay just long enough be a nuisance but not long enough to read. I turned it off!

Paul C
http://siroccostradingpost.blogspot.com/

[storybeader]

I love the analogy to the bar.  OK, I'll try.
What about the people you get on your email, who say they are following you   :?   Should you automatically follow them?  I thought people followed me to get their numbers higher.  Now I see what large numbers are all about.       {:-Deb

[PillowThrowDecor]

Follow only people you find interesting.  Unfollow or BLOCK people that are annoying or look dangerous to your reputation.  there are lots of quick buck bad guys out there right now... Also beware of people that have these auto DM's (Direct message).

Personally hate it when someone says something like this... "oh thank you for following me. Lets be friends and sign up on my facebook fanpage, and stop by at my store at xyz and get 15 % off cause ur my best buddy now and can you pretty please RT all my Tweets so I can rich and famous, yadda yadda... dump 'em.

I find that I DO NOT GET A LOT OF MY NEW FOLLOWER EMAIL ALERTS.  Somehow all the schmucks get in under the radar.  How do they do that???

I go to my twitter Home Page and manually click on my followers and check to see who is following me and decide whether or not I want to follow back.. some of course I am already following.  Sadly I have not received notification on some super people following but didn't get a notification and then they unfollowed me (I get notifications on this also with a special program that I will share with you shortly).

I feel really badly sometimes when I loose a good follower that I didn't even know about so Every day check manually!!!  I often go and send a personal tweet when I start following them and make a point of getting human with them so that they know I am a good "Tweep".

Cheers
Christine

[storybeader]

3. Make sure you put your icraft site as a link in your profile, where you are from, and what you are interested in. Practice sending one or a few tweets.

OK, I see my profile, but where should I put icraft  :?:
In my profile?  As you can tell, I'm new at this...
Back to work, bbl

[PillowThrowDecor]

I have 2 store addesses in mine... go have a look at mine it will make more sense  http://twitter.com/pillowthrowdeco... incase my profile didn't automatically show up  click on that tab on my name.

Cheers

Christine

3. Make sure you put your icraft site as a link in your profile, where you are from, and what you are interested in. Practice sending one or a few tweets.

OK, I see my profile, but where should I put icraft  :?:
In my profile?  As you can tell, I'm new at this...
Back to work, bbl

[PillowThrowDecor]

I goofed.. I have relocated this post here... sorry if I messed up the order of things.

Go read my bio at http://www.twitter.com/pillowthrowdeco. jealously count each space in ur bio!!!

Hashtags like #icraft, #bootcamp, #handmade, #jewelry, #pillows, #decor, #interior design are to be put in your TWEETS not your bio.

These are a lot of the hashtags that I use to search... or to be found.

I know a lot of Twitter peeps love to search decor ideas using #decor in their twitter searches.... some searching applications will search on the word decor just fine too. But generally a hashtag is a most deffinate way of finding or being found... the problem is remembering, and having the space to put the hashtagged word in.

Go and read your twitter feed and you will start seeing some messages with these kinds of hashtagged words.

Cheers

Chrisitne

[Sirocco]

Christine, Thank you for the explanation. It is all beginning to make some sense. I know it takes some time to write all those meticulous answers and I sincerely appreciate your taking the time.

Now one more question. How do I retweet? I assume that from the Twitter home page I would I would just copy and paste someone’s tweet and resend. Do I add the RT? I have not figured out how to retweet from Tweetdeck.

And, I just now saw your pillow on Snowbell Jewelry. I am beginning to see how this Twitter could work!

Paul C
http://siroccostradingpost.blogspot.com/

[PillowThrowDecor]

Retweeting in Twitter is a pain in the BUTT!

Retweeting in Tweetdeck is piece of cake.

Find a message you want to retweet....
Put your mouse over the person's avatar...
Four little boxes/options appear...
Reply, Retweet, Direct Message or Other options appear

In the bottom left corner or these 4 boxes is the Retweet button. Click it
Voila... message is copied and addressed in the message bar at the bottom.  Sometimes it is in RED whioch means that the message is too long.  Highlight the red message with your mouse and pick out a spot that can be edited.  If you look closely in the bottom right part of the red message you can sometimes see through the opacity how many letters you are over ...

say...  -8 .... means that you have MINUS 8 characters left... or 8 letters too many. Start abreaviating where U can 2 get more LUV in the line  

Twitter speak... is like talking " pig latin" when we were 8 years old

Christine

[Callidora]

How do I stop automatically following people?  I set this up a long time (since I didn't understand Twitter) and now I don't know how to undo it.  I have a lot of crappy, spammy people I'm following!

[PillowThrowDecor]

U need to find the program that you set it up in.  Tweetlater? or Tweetspinner?

Cheers
Christine

[Sirocco]

Hey, I just retweeted something from Tweetdeck. This could turn out to be something after  all. I did notice that sometimes I got an error message when trying to retweet. I assume that is traffic overload or something. The message was not too long.
Paul C
http://siroccostradingpost.blogspot.com/

[storybeader]

<Go read my bio at http://www.twitter.com/pillowthrowdeco. jealously count each space in ur bio!!! >

At last I found you!     I took off the period at the end the sentence... it's always the obvious things!  Now I can look at your profile... :roll:

All the writing shortcuts are fun  :lol:   Still learning how to read them.  Need to go and check who I'm following... a discerning tweeter...  bbl

Wow - TweetDeck is spaceage looking     Do you recommend any of the columns over another   :?:   Love the "Mentions"  Nifty-keen  :lol:

[Thyme2dream]

I absolutely cannot say enough good things about twitter- its AMAZING for free advertising and getting the word out!! I have lost count of the number of people who tell me they have found me through Twitter and but I know my business volume has more than doubled since I began using it!

It is a bit overwhelming at first, but Christine is giving everyone great tips and believe me its worth it :-)

A couple of things I emphasize:

Think Keywords when you are posting.  Not in a spammy way or keyword overload like you see in an Ebay listing title (shudder, Im so glad I dont ebay anymore!!), but think about how you word things.  The thing is, a LOT of people use twitter search to find people they are interested in and your tweets are more likely to get picked up by totally random strangers if you make sure to include relevent words in your tweet. For instance, instead of a tweet that just says "sale in my iCraft shop"  include a keyword about your product  "Jewelry sale in my iCraft shop" or in my case Fairy Elven Jewelry  sale in my iCraft shop" :-)  Because my jewelry appeals to a very specific demographic, its important for me to include words that will help attract them- let them know its not your run of the mill jewelry- its MAGICK jewelry, lol

I have over 2000 followers, and the majority of them I did NOT follow first..they found me because I was tweeting things in their interest area

 a couple other random rules of thumb:

Don't ever just post a link- always try to give a pithy attention getting bitit of a description(like Christine with her subject titles).  

On the other hand, dont go the other way and just sound like an advert all the time- be yourself, be personable and let your personality shine through in your tweets :-)

Dont tweet a million times per minute (I used to be guilty of this sometimes and my beloved children were the ones who pointed out it was obnoxious when it filled up their whole update page, lol)

My personal opinion- if you are tweeting your business its best to leave religion and politics out of it for the most part.  I have VERY strong views on these things and it was hard for me to do that, but I think its probably safer in the long run (Especially since I have really weird views for a fairytale loving hippy chick, lol).  

My favorite tool on twitter:

TWITTERFEED!!!

Here is a basic article on how to set it up:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4836251_twitterfeed-maximize-use-of-twitterfeed.html

I use twitterfeed to keep things going when I dont have time to twitter..it sets up to take RSS feeds and post them to twitter occasionally. I have my blog and some of my shops set up through twitterfeed

A couple things I recommend:  
Dont over do it- it will take up to the 5 most recent posts, but I found if I am relisting or listing a lot at once that gets annoying and seems more like spam!  I have it set to ony the 2 most recent, that seems to be plenty.

If you plan to have lots of feeds going in to it, stagger them by selecting different time intervals when you get to that option (IE one at 30 minutes, one at 2 hours, etc).  That isnt usually a problem for my personal account, but I run one for one of my etsy teams and have every member's blog going in, so I needed to do that with those.

Lastly, here is a blog with a series of twitter strategy posts...the author is a photographer so comes at it with an artist's perspective.  The only caveat I would add with him is that he doesnt leave his politics out of his business twitter page (see my opinion about that above:), and I dont agree with all of his strategies, but over all a good reference blog for marketing artwork in general:

http://www.theartistscenter.com/2009/02/real-time-twitter-strategy/


AND> can we have a list somewhere of everyone's twitter accounts so I can follow them??

Im www.twitter.com/thyme2dream  

Cheers,
Karla

[storybeader]

how did he get my email?   :lol:

Thanks for all the advice and links, Karla  
I'll have to go surfing  

I'm worn out!  I did get on and tweet some, and deleted some people who I mistakenly added.  I got my TweetDeck established.  

What the lists all about   :?:   I wouldn't mind making a few lists...  

[Sirocco]

This was a fun and productive day learning about Twitter even though I was not able to be on line much today. I got my bio and icraft store in my Twitter profile, I have learned about Tweetdeck, and retweeted a couple of times. I am happy. Thank you Christine and Karla for the explanations.

Callidora sent me a direct message suggesting I use TrueTwit. What does that do?

I will be out of town for the next few days and without an Internet connection. So this will be my last post until Monday.

Paul C
http://siroccostradingpost.blogspot.com/

[Zs Knees]

I know this subject has come up in the past and I don't want to belabor it, but part of the reason I have trouble with Twitter is because I feel like I'm spamming.

I struggle with this especially because when I'm not in bootcamp I pretty much only tweet about social justice issues, charities, interesting news, etc. So to then start spraying my little following with 10-20 advertisements a day...

So, maybe the problem is mixing the two worlds in one Twitter account??? Or maybe it's that in my mind, there is a place for sales and advertising, and it should be where people have put themselves in the path of it.

I don't know, is there something I'm missing here? Does anyone have similar issues that they've reconciled somehow?

[PillowThrowDecor]

So sorry about the period thing. :oops:

Glad you are getting the hang of it.  It get very easy very quickly.

I usually have just 3 columns and keep the "spare" space if I am doing a special search.

I order them with General tweets, Direct messages and Mentions and no 4th column so I can double click on an avatar and read up about someone in that 4th column.

Good for you!

Cheers

Christine

<Go read my bio at http://www.twitter.com/pillowthrowdeco. jealously count each space in ur bio!!! >

At last I found you!     I took off the period at the end the sentence... it's always the obvious things!  Now I can look at your profile... :roll:

All the writing shortcuts are fun  :lol:   Still learning how to read them.  Need to go and check who I'm following... a discerning tweeter...  bbl

Wow - TweetDeck is spaceage looking     Do you recommend any of the columns over another   :?:   Love the "Mentions"  Nifty-keen  :lol:

[PillowThrowDecor]

Thanks ever so much for all of those great suggestions Karla and all!!

Reasonable concerns Z's!

Remember that most of the people that we are following are fellow artisans and people interested in handcrafted items. I find it helps to have a broad interest of things to tweet too.  I love the techie stuff.

What is really important for the first while is to spend a lot of time listening / reading to other people on twitter. Engage with them... chit chat (not about what and where you have lunch).

You have to do things in balance. If say, half of your followers are non artisans then make sure that only half of your tweets have to do with handmade and the other half things relevant to your followers. Do what you feel comfortable but you are right, don't load them up with 20 or 30 selling messages in a day. Retweet other peoples messages... they'll love you. When someone follows you check them out and their site or store and engage them in conversation about what they do.  People are generally very friendly on Twitter. If someone doesn't like what you are saying they will unfollow you or block you.  Don't take it personally... they just aren't interested in your information and want to spend their time elsewhere.  that's ok.

Maybe for the first while do more reading than tweeting, start with retweeting and then jump in evenuatlly with a stronger voice about you and your product.

Hope that helps!

Cheers
Christine

... I have trouble with Twitter is because I feel like I'm spamming.

I struggle with this especially because when I'm not in bootcamp I pretty much only tweet about social justice issues, charities, interesting news, etc. So to then start spraying my little following with 10-20 advertisements a day...

So, maybe the problem is mixing the two worlds in one Twitter account??? Or maybe it's that in my mind, there is a place for sales and advertising, and it should be where people have put themselves in the path of it.

I don't know, is there something I'm missing here? Does anyone have similar issues that they've reconciled somehow?

[storybeader]

yea - I got the quote box to work!  

Maybe for the first while do more reading than tweeting, start with retweeting and then jump in evenuatlly with a stronger voice about you and your product.

anyway, that (above) makes a lot of sense.  I've been having the same concerns.  Thanks!  {:-Deb

[Weezi]

I have been trying different things on my tweet deck today. Couldn't do too much as as I wanted as the store was really busy( thank goodness!)
Will try more tomorrow....

I enjoying the learning the lingo etc. and actually "getting" how this can work
Thanx for all the helpful hints!

[GalleriaLinda]

.. I have trouble with Twitter is because I feel like I'm spamming.

I struggle with this especially because when I'm not in bootcamp I pretty much only tweet about social justice issues, charities, interesting news, etc. So to then start spraying my little following with 10-20 advertisements a day...

So, maybe the problem is mixing the two worlds in one Twitter account??? Or maybe it's that in my mind, there is a place for sales and advertising, and it should be where people have put themselves in the path of it.

I don't know, is there something I'm missing here? Does anyone have similar issues that they've reconciled somehow?

I'm so excited to see so much interest in twitter - good questions and concerns. Just wanted to jump in here with some suggestions. ZsKnees is right that promoting her shop to her current followers may not go over because they followed her for other reasons.

While I think a promo tweet here and there to her current followers can be interesting to them, they are not there for that.

I have three twitter accounts and is why I love http://www.hootsuite.com that makes it so easy to see all three at once, easily RT with any one of them or all of them at once, has it's own link shrinker AND you can set up tweets to post on a timed schedule!

I have my GalleriaLinda shop account, my IndieCEO artists/crafters biz/marketing blog account, and my Linda Harrell marketing consultant/real estate day job account.

Each draws different followers. While the GalleriaLinda and IndieCEO accounts draw from the same pool of handmade communities, people follow each for a different reason. I try to post more marketing/biz things from IndieCEO and more jewelry interest posts to GalleriaLinda. There is nothing wrong with several accounts and actually can be a sound business move if you have different interests or even different shops.

A couple of tips I have discovered:

~RT (retweet) other's tweets, especially their blog posts or new listings and you have a friend that will RT yours too.
~Participate in #ff (follow friday) retweeting and make your own #ff list of suggested followers. I try to #ff iCraft tweeters of those I know of.
~Engage in a short conversation with a follower by commenting on a new listing or someone's comment about their day. It makes you personal and a friend.

The way to RT is to [make any comment first], [then the "RT" goes next], [the @name of the person you are retweeting], [then the copied message]. Of course watching your character number. Such as:

Awesome pillow!-love it! RT @pillowthrowdeco worth following to see "Geek-almost-talks-personality-pillow"

http://bit.ly/Fy2M5

It is nice to condense an RT if you need to because of the added RT or your message. You do not have to make a comment to RT.[/list]
Hashtags

For FollowFriday (#ff) you can list names in any way you want as long as the #ff is somewhere in the tweet.

To to

http://www.tweetchat.com and put in your #whatevertopic, such as #ff (these are called hashtags) and you will see the real time postings of everyone hashtagging that topic.

I also use #handmade a lot for my listings posts - so handmaders will see it.[/list]
Well, here I have written a novel. LOL! Sorry! There is no such thing as "25 words or less" in my vocabulary!

[Winged Heart Studio]

Wow! Lots of great advice about Twitter! I think one of the problems with understanding how to use Twitter is that some people use the web page at twitter.com, while others use TweetDeck or some other device. I really like TweetDeck myself because it is simple to retweet and it autocompletes addresses.

How do you get clout on Twitter? RTs others, FFs, and being retweeted will up your clout factor.
http://www.twitalyzer.com/twitalyzer/glossary/definition.asp?t=Clout

Follow @mashable for great Twitter advice!

Apologies if these have been mentioned.....I've tried to read every word!f

If all you do is tweet what you just listed. I will stop following you out of boredom. If you talk about yourself, where you live, say funny things or share good quotes or relevant links, then mention that you listed something, I might check it out and even retweet you. And that is the big goal of Twitter....to be retweeted!

I follow people who live in my town, crafty types who I admire, my fave authors, magazines and companies I like, some movie stars like @kirstiealley, who is a hilarious tweet, btw. I have been replied to by Kirstie, Clive Barker, Kathy Ireland, Wyclef, Neil Gaiman, plus many of my craft heroines!  Where else but Twitter could that have happened! It's fun and sometimes, exciting! I think that my most valuable career contacts have been made on Twitter too. So there ya go!

Good luck with Twitter! It is invaluable! Tweet me at wendytgibson.