Twitter is a social media platform that allows users to express themselves by sending messages to their followers in 140 characters or less. Twitter for public use was launched in July 2006 and since then, they now have 145 million users, who tweet 1 billion messages per month! Twitter is an incredible social media phenomenon that artists can use to boost and rate their art business.
This article is for artists who want to expand their social media engagement with Twitter and are unsure how to use Twitter to their advantage. The following are Twitter recommendations for artists and what not to do on Twitter:
What to do on Twitter for artists
1. Make sure you fill out the profile section completely and make sure you have an active link to your company website.
2. Have a good photo of yourself or your logo. Do not use the default icon that Twitter will provide. Better yet, whatever graphics, logo or image you use for Facebook or for your website, you will use it for Twitter as part of your branding.
3. Use the search function (with keywords related to art) and follow influential people in the art business. Don’t be offended if they don’t follow you when you start, as you are not an influencer yet.
4. Make sure you are an active user by tweeting a minimum of 3 times a day (all at different times of the day) and tweeting no more than 10 posts a day. More then this and it becomes annoying for your followers.
5. Try to develop connections and relationships with people instead of advertising, promotions and spam. People will unfollow spammers all the time.
6. When you read an interesting post, share it with your followers with a retweet (similar to forwarding an email). When someone retweets one of your posts, send them a direct message and thank them for the retweet. They will remember you and follow you more closely thanks to your attention.
7. Start a free Social Oomph account as they have an auto reply feature that should be used to automatically thank a person when they go online and follow you. It is an opportunity to tell a little about yourself and your art without having to type it every time.
8. Purge your list of people you follow but don’t follow. Try to keep the ratio of your followers to the number of people you are following. The reason for this is that Twitter allows you to start having 2000 followers. If you had 100 followers and were following 2,000 people, Twitter will flag your account as someone who is shaking up your account and using the site to distribute spam. You can find out who is not following you if you don’t have the ability to send them direct messages.
9. Allow to customize the background page as a Twitter user to do so. This is a great opportunity not only to stand out on Twitter but also to be able to provide more information about yourself, your website and your art, which does not fit in your official profile section. Unfortunately, hot links are not allowed in this area.
10. Be upbeat, positive, and helpful to your followers. Remember, this is a tool used to develop relationships and contacts related to the art business. Share it and become a valuable part of this incredible interactive medium.
What artists should not do on Twitter
1. Don’t just send posts and announcements about the sale of your work to your followers. That is considered spam and will cause people to stop following you. Submit interesting posts related to the art world and people will look forward to your Tweets.
2. Don’t send negative or offensive Tweets. People will also stop following you because of this. Remember, this is called social media and you want to follow an upbeat and positive person. Be one!
3. Don’t use offensive words and phrases. It’s just not acceptable and remember it’s available for everyone to see (even if you delete / delete on your page, it’s still there on everyone else’s pages. Think twice before submitting.
4. Don’t go overboard with Tweets. If you send an excessive amount, it will be annoying for your followers and they will eventually unfollow you.
5. Don’t forget to give the original person credit for a retweet. Remember, it is social media and by giving credit, you are also helping to promote your business. Turning around is fair game and they will do the same for you.
6. Don’t ignore direct messages. Respond immediately; otherwise, it is similar to not recognizing and responding to someone’s email. Also, do not use the direct message feature to spam, sell, or solicit business.
7. Do not tweet personal information about yourself or others. This is a networking tool and you are trying to build relationships, not gossip. Don’t ruin your reputation by revealing personal information and details about yourself or someone else.
8. Don’t ask or beg your followers to retweet your posts. If by chance the post was an emergency, such as a kidnapping, natural disaster, or emergency, it would be appropriate to request that the post be retweeted.
9. Don’t Tweet that you just unfollowed someone. People don’t care about this information and Twitter is not for that purpose.
10. Don’t have rules that people must follow if they are going to follow you. People just won’t want to follow you. Try to fit in and be part of a crowd. Someone once wrote that to be effective on Twitter, you have to think of it as a cocktail. When you attend that party, you need to introduce yourself, meet that person, and then mingle with the other guests. In other words, be sociable and get to know everyone at the party as much as possible.
I’ve always thought of social media like Twitter as incredible tools that give you the opportunity to meet, interact, and meet people that you might not otherwise meet in any other situation. Think of Twitter as a regular networking event where you will meet new people and have to behave in the best way to make a good impression on someone who can promote your art business. Anything you do in person at a networking event, you do online on Twitter.
Twitter has a great help section they call Twitter Basics. It’s an easy read, but it answers most of your questions about how to maneuver and leverage Twitter to your advantage.