UKRay Report post 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Luke Hatley Report post 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
UKRay Report post 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BustedThumb Report post 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
UKRay Report post 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Luke Hatley Report post 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
UKRay Report post 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CitizenKate Report post 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bullwhips Report post 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bondurant Report post 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Penden Report post Posted May 21, 2010 It can depend on your customer base, but I gotta tell you that within a week of joining twitter and randomly following people who showed up in my relevant searches I've made two sales through twitter. At the same time I joined etsy to provide a professional looking storefront, and soon after I joined a forum type deal that I found out about through the twitter people I was meeting. I have a lot of views on etsy showing me that lots of people have followed my links and/or found me through the etsy search. It's good not to get TOO personal but at the same time people don't like to think that you are there "just" to sell your stuff. If your posts could just as easily be made by a robot then you are not going about it the right way. They like to see that you are a real person. So I do respond to people in a personal way, like if they say that they are having a bad day, I let them know that I hope they feel better - and I do hope that! But for most of what I post that is not a response to any one, it's about my work like in progress and final product pictures. And I don't just post the link for the sole purpose of expecting them to buy, I ask them for opinions and I really do want their opinions. It can really depend on what you are selling. If you are selling saddles I think twitter would not work so well. You could sure find lots of people who love horses but what about people who actually HAVE horses? You could have trouble finding people who are actually interested in buying your product rather than just looking at it and wishing they had a horse. (I fall into that later category myself LOL). In contrast the stuff I sell doesn't require that you already have special equipment, just that you have an interest in it. For selling saddles on the internet, you'd probably have to look at specialty forums where everyone owns a farm or something. Picture your typical customer/the customer you want to sell to. Now picture one or two different kinds of people who are internet-savvy... Do they match your customer base? If so, you might give twitter a shot. My crowd is generally younger or at least internet savvy and they love the celtic knotwork I do. Hope that helps! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bondurant Report post Posted May 22, 2010 Pendon, glad you got a couple sales, thats a good suprise. Whats your user name on Twitter, Im @ar549 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Penden Report post Posted May 24, 2010 Pendon, glad you got a couple sales, thats a good suprise. Whats your user name on Twitter, Im @ar549 The twitter account I've made sales from is nsfw / "adult". If you or anyone else wants it anyway, shoot me a PM Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
machinistchest Report post Posted May 25, 2010 I regestered on twitter but haven`t figured out how it works yet. A customer of mine has posted all his tool chest restorations which feature some of my products on Flicker. It`s a photo sharing site. He claims he`s getting 6-7 hundred veiws a day and nearly 100 thousand in a year on his photostream. We worked out a little skit where I was able to post a linkback to my website, so far I`v recieved 7 visits (2 weeks). Apparently the viewers arn`t reading the comments they`re just looking at the pic`s ...MC http://www.flickr.co...N08/4585375384/ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
UKRay Report post Posted May 31, 2010 It can depend on your customer base, but I gotta tell you that within a week of joining twitter and randomly following people who showed up in my relevant searches I've made two sales through twitter. At the same time I joined etsy to provide a professional looking storefront, and soon after I joined a forum type deal that I found out about through the twitter people I was meeting. I have a lot of views on etsy showing me that lots of people have followed my links and/or found me through the etsy search. It sounds like what you are saying is that Twitter can be useful but you need to make it part of an overall marketing effort rather than expecting it to work as a stand-alone? I would agree with this and go further to say that unless you are adding stuff pretty regularly you won't see much benefit from Twitter because your info will be lost in the mass of postings that show up on the average person's twitter page. Imagine a prospect who is following 100 people - how will they find your posting amongst that lot? You have to work hard to make sure your information is somewhere near the top each time they look. Is there any way of automating Twitter posts? Ray Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AmandaM Report post Posted May 31, 2010 Twitter is a great tool for some of the reasons mentioned above. It does take time (months) to build a following of current and more importantly, potential customers. I have a slightly different view of the horse people/ non owner example. Some of those folks eventually will have a horse and be in the market for your product. You have already done the groundwork and they will hopefully come to you first when ready to purchase. We call them Prospects rather than Customers. You need to look at that group a little differently and not dismiss just because they won't buy today. People are more apt to buy from someone they feel they have a connection with. Especially if it is expensive and/or custom. Build it into part of your overall plan and remember it's low cost aside from just 5 minutes a day to post. A great book on the whole subject of social media marketing is "The New Rules of Marketing and PR", by David Meerman Scott, which coves blogging, Twitter and other channels to help your audience find YOU, instead of the other way around. Smart, eh? A Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
