Using Twitter as an Avenue for Marketing your Handmade Items

Posted by Michele Gallagher on 3/14/10   |   Categorized as Etsy Tips,For Buyers,How To

Share |

If you want your shop to be visible in the vast sea of handmade products, you have to be vocal. My main selling venue is Etsy and from visiting the forums I see that a lot of people are content with re-listing their items to get seen. While this does help, re-listing alone will not get you the sales/visibility you need to become successful on Etsy (or any other handmade selling venue for that matter).

The main form of advertising I use is Twitter (you can follow me: craftychick101).

I currently have around 8,600 followers and when I list a new item and tweet the link, my views often jump to 30+ in a matter of minutes. I make it a point to follow other Etsy sellers as well as people in my target market and they often follow back. Staying active on Twitter (responding to other people’s tweets, asking questions about other sellers shops, re-tweeting links or cool items/shops I find as well as promoting my own shop) has gotten me most of my Etsy sales.

The more visible you are, the more people will get to know you as a designer and recognize the work you do as your own. One of my greatest successes was when I was featured on the front page of Etsy, Many of my followers noticed and tweeted to me to let me know. It felt great that they recognized my product and made the connection that the item belonged to me.

My Twitter following has also helped me get a lot of advertising on blogs relevant to my Etsy shop. By contacting blog owners and asking them to feature my shop/items on their blog in exchange for some tweets with their blog link, I have been able to get myself featured in several great blogs and have made some great connections for the future with these people. The blog owners are happy with the results as well as their views/blog followers often sky rocket after I tweet their link a few times.

These are only a few examples of how to stay visible. I wish making quality, unique products was enough, but since it’s not, you might as well have fun with it!

Tagged as: , , , , , ,
  • http://pepenewton.etsy.com Pepe Newton

    Thanks for the article, I have noticed views jump too when I tweet my etsy shop. I do, however, as a recipient of these same sort of tweets, tend to avoid people who tweet the product toooo much.

    I think there’s a fine line between advertising and spam. I try to keep my tweets interesting and not ONLY about my shop, wish others would do the same ;)

    But I do love how the twitter community gets together and creates links to people you would otherwise not reach.

  • http://www.ubervu.com/conversations/handmadespark.com/blog/using-twitter-as-an-avenue-for-marketing-your-handmade-items/ uberVU – social comments

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by HandmadeNews: Handmade Spark: Using Twitter as an Avenue for Marketing your Handmade Items http://ow.ly/16NJH8...

  • http://stichesintime.etsy.com Rachel Moffatt

    I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon a few months ago and while Tweeting my new listings drastically increases my views, I can conclusively link any sales to it. I have a few hundred followers, but I can’t shake the feeling that when I Tweet I am mostly talking to myself, lol. I don’t even think that all the views I get from Twitter are “real” views. Within seconds of posting a link I get numerous views which leads me to believe that its actually ‘bots crawling twitter that are following the link.

    I’ve seen a few sellers on the forums that swear by Twitter for making their sales but it just doesn’t seem to work for me.

  • http://www.etsy.com/shop/emilyorpin Emily Orpin

    I love Twitter (I’ve written a couple of posts about it on Handmade Spark too!) and whilst I agree it’s a great tool for exposure, I don’t think it’s necessarily going to lead to more sales.

    What I have found personally, and heard from many others, is that Twitter can lead to other things – I found this blog writing opportunity via Twitter, for example! A few of us also have a crazy but exciting idea of holding an art show, and our only connection is on Twitter. I’ve also used Twitter to get inspiration, ideas and direction on things I’m making – so many people are happy to share tips and links on crafting techniques.

    I think the two keys to Twitter are:
    1) Build your follower base so that it’s useful and interesting to you; take a proactive approach.
    2) Have fun – @ reply to people, interact, engage, share information.

    These things take up valuable time, so I also think if you’re not enjoying Twitter then you should stop putting your energy into it and find another way to market your business and make connections (there are so many options: Flickr, blogs, Facebook, craft fairs). It’s kind of obvious when someone is only on Twitter to market their business, and it’s unlikely that those kind of accounts will garner the interested, interactive followers that may lead to sales.

  • http://alternativecrafts.blogspot.com Eva

    I have an Etsy shop, and I guess that is why I first got started with Twitter; to promote.
    I soon started feeling like I was violating my followers by twittering about my shop, and I think the only reason for why I put up with other people twittering about their shops is that it justified *my* twittering about my shop..
    Anyway. I soon grew tired of endlessly promoting my shop on Twitter, even though it brought me views.
    I was starting to feel that it was rude to flood people’s timelines with what is essentially ads. And I started to experience it firsthand how annoying it is with people who *only* tweet about stuff they want you to buy.
    I’ve since read several places that a lot of people on Twitter dread Etsy sellers- and with good reason. And I’ve started deleting Twitter contacts that flood my timeline with ads for their shops.

    I’ve still discovered a lot of great shops through Twitter, though, so in a sense it works for promotion after all: If I find a person’s tweets interesting enough, or grow to like them over time, I will check out their profile and click on the link to their website.

    E :)

blog comments powered by Disqus