How do you feel about Twitter? Pros? Cons?

[selrose]

Has twitter helped your business? I hear it's a great place for businesses to receive exposure, but I wanted to get some feedback first.

Thanks!
~A

[Former_Member]

Hey Anna,
I won't be of any help to you - but I was wondering the same thing. I'm on facebook, pinterest & instagram. My shop is vintage clothing, so I'm not sure if twitter would help- since there aren't any visuals.
Its just a limited amount of text, right?

[Former_Member]

What I like about Twitter as you do connect with people you might have not heard about before- other artists, small boutiques, unusual companies for instance.

Also I have found the names of some people in publishing, retail and the big magazines which may be of help further down the line.

Also it is nice to meet people from all over the world.

And a nice tweet complimenting your work can make your day.

I do think most people on twitter are businesses so therefore more there for self promotion. So I think if you look at as more of connecting/ networking tool than "instant sales" you will enjoy it.

I have been contacted by several people on there wanting to licence my work, join their market place, interview me etc and so on so a few opportunites have come about on there.

By the way you can add images of your work on there.

[lightboxing]

argh, twitter..

i just don't get it. like talking in a empty room, hoping someone'll wander in and listen.. i have friends who are so twitter-literate, but i don't think i'll ever get on with it.

[Former_Member]

I'm getting some traffic from Twitter but not a lot. But compared to FB, I'm getting more traffic on FB though :)

[Former_Member]

I am not a fan of twitter. I use it once in a while, but have never enjoyed it enough to use it effectively.
I do really like my FB business page. I feel that it is easier to be interactive with folks on FB. It's easier to follow a conversation on FB.

[Former_Member]

I enjoy twitter quite a bit personally. I've found that it's a great place to keep track of news and current events, and it's quite fun if you follow entertaining people. I really don't like to follow 'businesses'- especially if all they post is shameless self-promotion. I post my new listings to twitter, but I've only had one hit from there in the past year. (Some may have shown up as 'direct traffic' though, I'm not sure.) I get slightly more traffic from facebook, but the vast majority of my traffic comes from here on Etsy.

If you want to use twitter (or any social media) for promoting your business, the unwritten rule is to promote only 10% of the time. The other 90% of your posts should be content that will be interesting or provide some value to your audience so that they will want to keep following you.

[selrose]

Thanks everybody! I'm still on the fence...If Facebook doesn't start bringing in more business soon, I think I might try Twitter...Anyone know of any other good promotional websites?