craftevolution

One of my New Year’s resolutions this year is to push my store and make it more profitable. To learn more about marketing methods, I’ve been lurking in the Etsy business forum where I followed several discussions about Twitter. Twitter is another social networking scheme. Once you’re set up, you can send out 140 character messages to anyone who is signed up on your Follower list. You in turn select other people to follow and you can read their messages. You receive these messages on the web via your Twitter account, and you can also get them as text messages on your phone. Each message is called a tweet. From a marketing perspective this is considered useful because you can let your followers know when you put new things in your shop, have giveaways, and so forth, and just generally spread the word.

I had signed up for Twitter last year, but didn’t really know what to do with it. So last week I started twittering for real. I followed a few people from Etsy, loaded up my address book and found a few more people I could follow, and then I added the NY Times to my twitter list. To become a professional Twitterer I activated my phone link.

Here is Day 1

Mommy
Yeah
It’s Twitter, can I read it?
Okay
It says:”Going to lunch.”
That’s nice.
Mommy, it’s Twitter again.
Mommy, it says the U.S. crashed into the river.
Mommy, how can the U.S. crash into the river?
Let me see that.
Mommy, your phone is ringing again, is it Twitter?

On Day 2 I sorted out some of the Twitterers who graciously informed me every hour of a new item they had in their store.
On Day 3 I changed the settings on my account to only tweet from 8 am to 8 pm.
On Day 4 I figured out how to use my phone to turn twitter on and off.

Today I feel fairly comfortable with my new “friend.” Once a day I will tweet about a tutorial I found on the web. A few times a week I’ll let people know that I’ve posted a new blog entry either here or as a guest blogger. And every once in a while I’ll announce a store promotion. Sometimes it just comes over me and I will have to share something profound like “Second Grade is hard;”  a sentiment caused by my daughter’s convoluted homework instructions.

In turn, I’ ve found some interesting twitterers to follow like Fave Crafts and plaincraft that introduce me to other crafters and new projects. So, if you choose to follow me on Twitter click here.

“What about Plurk,” you ask. Same idea, different interface, more dialog, no phone from what I can tell, but you can visit me here.