Hi Lynn,
I would definitely recommend uploading images to Twitter instead of just sharing your Etsy link.
Everything I've read (as well as personal experience) strongly suggests that people are more likely to engage with / retweet an image then a plain text tweet (even with a link).
Here's a good study about this:
http://blog.bufferapp.com/the-power-of-twitters-new-expanded-images-and-how-to-make-the-most-of-itTIPS:
- Twitter’s in-stream photo preview is 440 px wide by 220 px tall (a ratio of 2:1). If you upload a longer image, this will get cropped from the top and bottom (though it will display correctly if clicked).
If possible, try to upload images in which the width is more than or equal to twice the height (2:1 ratio) - this will look the best on Twitter.
If this is not possible, at least try to make sure that the focus of your image is in the center since this is the part that will be displayed.
- If the image you upload is too small, it won't appear expanded in your stream - viewers will have to click to see the image (which destroys the advantage of having an image).
Here are the dimensions you should stay within:
* Minimum to appear expanded 440 x 200 pixels.
* Maximum to appear expanded 1024 x 512 pixels.
- An image takes 26 characters away from the tweet (leaving 114 characters for your tweet). To optimize your tweet for more retweets, try to keep your message under 94 characters so others can add a short message when retweeting.
- Include the link to your product in the tweet along with the uploaded image so potential buyers can easily find your shop / product.
- If you feel the link is too long, use a url shortner like bitly.co to get a 'bite-sized' version of your link.
Hope this helps :)
Sahiba
P.S. - we recently had a similar discussion about Facebook posts in the team. 100% of team members who participated found that images uploaded on FB performed far better than links shared directly from Etsy:
https://www.etsy.com/teams/16272/social-media-marketing-for-etsy-a-z/discuss/13820537/
