Thursday, May 26, 2011

Using Twitter to Make Connections

Danielle of the amazing Etsy shop and blog merriweathercouncil and I met and established our friendship through the wonderful world of Twitter! How appropriate for the content of this post you'll soon find out! Her creations are so unique and creative and her blog is a definite must read. I was very happy when she agreed to write a guest post for my blog and I'm jumping for joy to get to share it with you today! Thank you Danielle!




So many people do not understand how or why Social Media will help their business.  And to those people I say, give it a try, you might be surprised!


Curated Content
Twitter allows you to curate your own stream of content. When you begin following people who are relevant, interesting, informative or influential in your field, you will gain information easily and with very little effort. You don’t have to go looking, it comes right to you.


Don’t follow people just because they follow you – follow them because you want to hear what they have to say. Bringing together your hand chosen favorites will really change the way you look at and use twitter.


Knowledgeable people in your field will be able to help/ sympathize and offer advice. I often post questions or ask for suggestions on things to Twitter and I am always amazed at the responses I get. I love having a place to go for a quick answer or thought! By being mindful of who I am following, I’ve found a number of different opportunities as well. New ebooks, new free courses, tons of great info – smart people share smart things. Follow people who share things that can benefit you or make you laugh! I’ve found out about Etsy events, applications for shows, and other opportunities through Twitter that I might not have known about otherwise.
I’ve asked my Tweeples about wholesaling, responding to awkward emails, and finding a specific style ring. I’ve learned more about selling work on Twitter than I did in four years of college.  


Making connections
Because Twitter is for everyone, not just business people, not just students, and not just people interested in one topic, you can connect with people based on multiple varied interests. I use my Twitter account mostly for business related purposes, but I do talk about non business related things as well, and often my biz related friends will jump in and chat with me about those topics as well. It’s very informal and it’s very effective. Now I’ve got things in common with people besides business. And now we are connected and learning things about each other, it’s just a new way of getting to know people.


Promotional Stuffz
I am not a big fan of tweeting every time you post something new to Etsy, but I am a big fan of tweeting things I find that are awesome, or tweeting works in progress. It’s such an easy and natural way of promoting yourself and others. People who like your work will be interested to see what your work space looks like or see something in the works… it builds relationships, it opens communication… it’s the best!
It’s also a good idea to link to your website or shop in your profile so that if someone stumbles across your Twitter and likes what you are talking about they can find your work!


Additionally, if you post a link to something of yours, whether it is a blog post or a photo of something you are working on, people might share or retweet it! And then all of their followers see it! It’s amazing how quickly things can spread on Twitter!


Free free free!!
It’s free! Can you believe it?! All this for free? Free valuable content from your favorite people delivered right to you? Free access to people who are willing and knowledgeable enough to help you?  So awesome.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great tips, Danielle! It took me awhile to really wrap my mind around Twitter (and the importance of @) but now that I've got it, I LOVE it!

craftedbylindy said...

Me too! It took me awhile to understand Twitter but I'm a big fan now especially after finding TweetDeck. Made all the difference for me!

Thank you so much for your comment!