Twitter help

Hi all
I just wanted to get some advice on twitter. I have never used it but was thinking of joining. Just wondering if it’s a good place to promote and if it’s easy to use.
Thanks for your help

I’m on Twitter, but I’m by no means and expert.

You follow people who interest you and they follow you back if they want. Their followers will often follow you too. There’s no “quid-pro-quo” so you don’t have to follow somebody back if they follow you and I would advise not to if you don’t like their profile because you wouldn’t want their followers following you if you catch my drift.

Anyone can comment on your Twitter posts and also it’s totally open so almost anybody can see them. This has good and bad points. The main bad thing is that there is so much material on Twitter that you really need to use a # because nobody will see your post otherwise. I use #britcraft #folksy #folksyhour and #newonfolksy and also if a # is trending and is relevant to you then use it. Personally I have never been trolled. I think you either have to be a celebrity or have expressed a controversial view to be trolled.

My success there has been quite limited. I’ve managed to attract a lot more followers than I have on FB, when I promote there I always get at least a few views but I have had no sales resulting from that promotion. All my sales have come via FB.

Hope this helps,

Love Sam x

Twitter is great once you get the hang of it! We’ll be writing a blog post soon about Twitter for Beginners, so look out for that.

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Oh looking forward to that Camilla @folksycontent - I’ve had a twitter account for years but have never got to grips with it although others swear by it.

Thank you everyone. I might take a look into twitter then.
I really dislike fb but don’t really know why.
Think I’ll have to really look into things better.

I love twitter. 4 months ago I had never used it before but its so worthwhile! And best of all its free!

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I love twitter and I would definitely recommend it, it’s free!

My advice in terms of promoting is…don’t think of promoting as just posting pictures of your work as that rarely works (the golden rule with all social media is 80/20. 80% of your posts/tweets should be chatty/interacting with others, only post 20% should be salesy/posting pictures of your work)

Think of promoting as getting your business out there, by interacting with others, retweeting other peoples tweets (be careful that you just don’t RT other peoples work though) comment on TV programs that interest you and are ‘on brand’ with your business (i.e. if you are a sewist, comment on the great british sewing bee) tweet that you’ve just bought a great business book etc. Try and make your posts/tweets as engaging as possible, nobody wants to be ‘sold’ to all the time.

My ultimate top tip for twitter is to set up ‘lists’, this helps to filter your twitter feed so that you don’t just see a whole load of tweets from everyone who you follow. You can create ‘lists’ really easily and name them specifically for you, for example, you could have ‘designer/makers’, ‘folksy sellers’, ‘local businesses’ etc. Then whenever you follow someone, add them to your ‘list’. You can then click on the list to see all the tweets from people in just that list.

I’d also be careful about using too many hashtags on twitter. It doesn’t read well and it can look spammy. So if you want to use a hashtag, just use 1.

Join in with #folksyhour every Tuesday 8-9pm, this is a great way to find people to follow…but don’t post pictures of your work, #folkyshour is about networking, chatting and sharing tips

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I really enjoy using Twitter now I’ve got used to it. It can be fairly fast paced, but fun. I would recommend making up some lists once you get going. I have a private one where I list all the accounts with content I think my followers may like. It’s also nice because your tweets are shown to all your followers … you have to be fairly active though or you tweets get lost in the Twittersphere! I’d recommend not doing too much blatant self promotion or you’ll be considered spammy.
Hope that helps!
Ali

Hi Ali. I don’t think the twitter link from your folksy shop is working. Just thought I’d let you know x

Thank you so much for letting me know - you’re a star!

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if you type in craft there’s a lot of pages from craft organisations that come up, some do showcases on a Weds night and also a Sunday night, for example handmade nation and U.K. Handmade.
if you link a tweet of yours to them then very often they will re-post it! They have lots of followers so think how many people will see your work!
Worth a try x