Contributing Member UKRay Posted March 14, 2010 Contributing Member Report Posted March 14, 2010 I've been playing with this for months now and I can't make my mind up if it is a useful tool or a complete waste of my time. Who reads it and what is it good for? What do people want to read... I'm obviously missing something somewhere! http://twitter.com/barefootleather Ray Quote "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps" Ray Hatley www.barefootleather.co.uk
Ambassador Luke Hatley Posted March 14, 2010 Ambassador Report Posted March 14, 2010 I've been playing with this for months now and I can't make my mind up if it is a useful tool or a complete waste of my time. Who reads it and what is it good for? What do people want to read... I'm obviously missing something somewhere! http://twitter.com/barefootleather Ray WHAT YOU ARE MISSING IS...........NOT GETTING THE WORK DONE IN YOUR SHOP........... I AM. AND MORE ORDERS ARE COMMING IN ALL THE TIME... SOMETIMES I FEEL AS THO I"M PUNCHING A TIMECLOCK.....H E L P .... Quote Luke
Contributing Member UKRay Posted March 15, 2010 Author Contributing Member Report Posted March 15, 2010 WHAT YOU ARE MISSING IS...........NOT GETTING THE WORK DONE IN YOUR SHOP........... I AM. AND MORE ORDERS ARE COMMING IN ALL THE TIME... SOMETIMES I FEEL AS THO I"M PUNCHING A TIMECLOCK.....H E L P .... I have a feeling you are right, Luke. Social networking on Facebook is fine if you have enough time to do it and the inclination to do it well, but I'm afraid I still don't understand what benefits can be gained from Twitter... Does anyone know? Somehow I doubt it! Quote "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps" Ray Hatley www.barefootleather.co.uk
Members BustedThumb Posted March 23, 2010 Members Report Posted March 23, 2010 (edited) It's a new technology, so it's not really sure how useful it'll be in the long run and how to use it. Questions to ask yourself, who are you following, who's following you, and what are you posting. What's your online presence? Got a basic website, a kick ass online shop, or do you barely know what facebook is? Are you churning out production work where nothing ever changes, or are you doing 1 of a kind pieces every day? Tweeting links to your really nice custom pieces once or twice a week could have some customers drooling, and tweeting when you have a show or a big sale can get your production work off your shelves. Like anything, it's not what it intrinsically does, but what you make it do for you. I have a wide group of friends, clients, and random people following me, and I usually stick to tattoo shop stuff. I'll most often link to work I've done, drawings, pictures and random tattoo related things. I keep it half professional, half joking around, but never really personal - I"ll talk about the crazy older lady in the fur coat who barged in on a balmy hot day, sat down and insisted I tattoo her finger right then and there, but I don't need clients to know how I feel about Monday mornings, how wasted I was last night, or personal politics - I use facebook for that. Don't abuse it, keep it to 3-4 posts a week, but as long as you keep posting, keep things interesting, and cross link to your other online presences, you'll have people following you. Edited March 23, 2010 by BustedThumb Quote
Contributing Member UKRay Posted March 29, 2010 Author Contributing Member Report Posted March 29, 2010 It sounds like there may be some value in Twitter, but I'm keen to hear other people's experiences of it. Has anyone actually got any work because of it? Does anyone feel it brings in any serious interest? How many people think it is a complete waste of time - other than Luke! Ray Quote "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps" Ray Hatley www.barefootleather.co.uk
Ambassador Luke Hatley Posted March 29, 2010 Ambassador Report Posted March 29, 2010 It sounds like there may be some value in Twitter, but I'm keen to hear other people's experiences of it. Has anyone actually got any work because of it? Does anyone feel it brings in any serious interest? How many people think it is a complete waste of time - other than Luke! Ray Cousin you do know me very well...........gotta go .....back to the Shop. "dont need no stinking Twitter" Quote Luke
Contributing Member UKRay Posted April 3, 2010 Author Contributing Member Report Posted April 3, 2010 Cousin you do know me very well...........gotta go .....back to the Shop. "dont need no stinking Twitter" You don't need Twitter, cousin, you've got this whole forum to waste your time in! LOL However, I've just got a very nice job thanks to Twitter. Somebody who decided my tweets were worth following (did I say that right?) has just given me a nice order. I call that a result! I'm not sure I'll get any more business, but at least I feel my time wasn't wasted now. Ray Quote "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps" Ray Hatley www.barefootleather.co.uk
Members CitizenKate Posted April 4, 2010 Members Report Posted April 4, 2010 I've just started exploring around there, too, so I'll be interested in hearing what kind of experiences everyone has had so far. Kate Quote
Members bullwhips Posted April 9, 2010 Members Report Posted April 9, 2010 I use twitter and I get some good feedback about it. You can view my feed at http://twitter.com/bullwhips. I use twitter as a sort of "customer service" type thing. Since most of the orders I get are custom or made to order instead of in stock items, twitter works great for keeping people updated on the making of their whip. I don't think I've made any orders specifically from twitter, but hopefully down the road people getting semi-real time updates will give me better word of mouth advertising from previous customers. The feedback from people that have followed their whip being made on twitter is very positive! Also by frequently updating with what's going on in my workshop let's people know that I'm constantly working, and not someone that bangs out one whip a year. Louie http://bullwhips.org Quote http://bullwhips.org
Members Bondurant Posted May 21, 2010 Members Report Posted May 21, 2010 (edited) Twitter is important but not for everybody. If you have a website you should add a Twitter sidebar to it for collecting your Tweets. This gives static websites a quick way to update and present a few notes to your customers. In my case I use Twitter to cover things like the political crises in Thailand where I receive hundreds of tweets per hour from photographers who were on the ground in the heat of the action. For a leather worker its a completely different ball game but still a valid tool. I seriously doubt anyone will be getting a bunch of new leather customers from using Twitter but you could stay in touch with some of the people who follow you anyway. Some people will only receive a dozen tweets per day, others it's up into the thousands. I'm looking for information that happened in the last five minutes to break news stories. Plenty of people are casual users and read every single tweet. Example, "Hey, just finished a new saddle" then provide a link to images of the saddle. Even one Tweet per day will help your website SEO by providing links to it. Edited May 21, 2010 by Bondurant Quote
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