So of course you've heard about twitter by now. What IS twitter? http://www.twitter.com. It's a site for what's called "micro-blogging". You've got 140 characters to say whatever you want. You can follow other peoples' updates, and reply to their updates as well.
I tend to tweet whenever I list new interesting items, but mostly about my personal life, what's going on, fun/informative links, and most importantly, I reply to other tweets! This makes for a sense of community. I like community. :)
Here's the secret to being successful on twitter! TARGET who you're following. When you follow someone, they get an email saying you're following them, and they're likely to follow you back. This will put your updates in their timelines, and they'll read what you have to say whenever they log on.
Twitter has this nifty search tool (search.twitter.com). Think of a term that is relevant to your business, to find people who are talking about it. If you make candles, search for candles and follow the people who are talking about candles. These are people already interested in the products you make. You're just introducing yourself to them.
Use the site www.tweetbeep.com to set up a notification of new people talking about you or the kind of things you make. I have tweetbeeps set up for redpanda, chainmail, and chainmaille. That way whenever someone tweets about chainmail, I know who they are and I can follow them.
Follow people how are following companies relevant to you. Do you sell on etsy or artfire? Here is the link to their twitter accounts. http://twitter.com/etsy http://twitter.com/artfire By following the people that are following your selling sites, you are introducing yourself to people who are already familiar with your site. They just might not have known about your specific site on their main page yet.
Think of your target market, and who they would be following. Then go and follow all of them!
Note it's against twitter rules to just massively follow everyone. Follow in moderation, and follow relevant people whose tweets interest you.
After a while, if you want to clear out those who aren't following you back, you can use http://www.lessfriends.com to do so. I do this very rarely, and of course I don't unfollow many people. Just ones who haven't updated in a while.
In the left part of my twitter page, I have a small collage of my items with my web address. Anyone who looks at my page will instantly know what I make and where to find it. To upload your own image, go to settings, then design, then change background image.
I'd love to see you all on twitter!
<3 Jessica
http://www.twitter.com/redpandajewelry
