Pros And Cons Of Using Twitter

I use twitter. Does not help in selling my images...some folks even retweet my images but none buy any.
I also use Facebook and have over 1,000 "friends." None buy any of my images.

Of course, I don't buy anyone's images either.

It takes time to build followers on Twitter! You just joined.

Mike - check out the recent activity on my twitter feed https://twitter.com/Newwwman its a blend of posting of images for sale and current events..I am new with it but getting about 10 new followers a day (i also follow about 10 people per day)....I spend one hour per day posting content (new and unique - no -retweets of anyone elses work)...while i would much rather spend an hour doing something else..I think it is something at my stage that must be done to get some eyes/views...good luck!

Thanks for your feedback Robert, I am wondering whether the benefits will cover the time spent on promoting through Twitter.

Jessica, I started the Twitter account about 3 or 4 years ago but never used it until yesterday when I decided to pick it up again and see if it has any benefits or interest.

Newwwman, I have never been one for promoting my art as I was always so engrossed in the work and no time was spent on the remuneration side. Recently I decided things had to change so closed my 8 year gallery with FAA and started a new one afresh and am in the process of building from the ground floor up with social media links and a brand new website that I have been working on for the last month complete with all the analytics and stats capturing in place.

The benefits of social media promotion do appear to work for some, so obviously some have got their strategy or audience right.

I have been reading up on marketing in the last few days as was amazed at some of the statistics and hurdles you have to overcome to make it work, one site saying that in 2013 2.2 trillion searches went through google and out of those results 90% clicked on one of the first 3 results in the search page which is an astonishing statistic.

My marketing head is on now after many years and it wont be coming off until things start to move.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, off to have a look at Newwwmans Twitter Page.

If anyone has a page they want following chirp in here.

Mike...I am not certain there is any benefit to the hour a day I spend on social media. I can not attribute one sale connected to any of the hundreds of hours spent on it. But its a building process and you certainly will make no sales from social media if you do not use it. Good luck.

Thanks for the feedback, one thing we do not know directly is if none twitter users are alerted or directed to our artwork by twitter user so must be worth a try, plus lots of interesting facets to twitter also.

Thanks for the feedback, one thing we do not know directly is if none twitter users are alerted or directed to our artwork by twitter user so must be worth a try, plus lots of interesting facets to twitter also.

Thanks for the feedback, one thing we do not know directly is if none twitter users are alerted or directed to our artwork by twitter user so must be worth a try, plus lots of interesting facets to twitter also.

echo

pros - easy to gain followers, easy to do, google likes to see them
cons - limited character space, if its just text it becomes lost in a sea of text. if pictures, it becomes a gallery and few click on them.

twitter is a game and many play it like that. each one is a company wanting your business, some are real people, others are bots, and some just want friends and that's it. you have to try to sort it all out. make hashtags interesting and get people over to your site.

its easy to gain the followers, just follow them, they might follow back. facebook etc people are wary of new comers.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Echo Echo, not sure if that is a good omen, glitch or me forgetting I had already replied.

I must read up on Hashtags Mike, as I said earlier it is basically the first time I have used Twitter even though I started the account 3 or 4 years ago so lots to learn but some very interesting gallery pages on there with my brief look around.

I've met some great people there in my short time there. Been about 3 weeks on Twitter and have over 300 followers. Yup I am seeing a lot more traffic here from it.

That's good,I have about 14 followers in about 18 hours and hope the number keep rising and I am trying to keep within my associated art and design groupings at present.

Started to search for methodologies in twitter promotion, this one is about 5 years old so not sure how the methodology works now.

Some possibly older strategies of mix and match with social and sales tweets.

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/how-to-sell-on-twitter-without-pissing-off-your-followers/

there are stragegies? I dont think strategies really play much of a roll when in comes to selling a framed print or pillow or one-off greeting card

Possible benefits are that you might get new eyes on your work, but whether they're buyers' eyes depends on who's following you, who's retweeting you, and who's following them.

Possible cons are trying to read your feed from users you're following, realizing it's an endless stream of noise, and muting out the sports reports, the political commentary, the car reviews, the weather forecasts, the local news - and if you can do it so can they, so they might seem to be following you but really they've switched you off an age ago

It does generate a lot of bots though, if having non-views means something to you

True Mark - Which is why I do not read any posts of followers, never even go to the home page on twitter...

As with any social media, you have to participate. Simply spamming the site isn't going to pay off.

Or be Kim Kardashian in the nude, or Taylor Swift, have a verified account and a Wikipedia entry. That gets lots of views that does.


Also, be careful of the new followers. Unless you're sure of who they are, don't automatically follow them just because they followed you. Many just want to be followed and will unfollow you as soon as you press the follow button.

There was one dude, a musician (who I won't advertise) who was retweeting everything I posted. I thought 'Seems cool,' so I followed.him. Suddenly no more retweets, and when I checked, sure enough - unfollowed

I find that the posting of images for sale can be "spam like" but its not spamming..in the true sense..it is what social media is....but once I have a follower from my posting, I find that I engage quite a bit with many of them on private messages, viewing their sites, products, etc...

mark - go to http://www.unfollowspy.com/ and if anyone unfollows you, you can just unfollow right back..i find it an awesome tool..i like the one where it weeds out inactive users too..so you can unfollow people that dont use twitter much...

The primary benefit to Twitter is SEO, every tweet with a link garners a bunch of bot hits. Beyond that I can't see there's much benefit so I don't spend much time on it. I typically just tweet once or twice a day and pretty much leave it at that. I have actually met a few people and had actual discussions but I doubt any of my (3) sales have come from twitter, nearly all my followers are just other people/businesses trying to sell stuff too.

Thanks again for the tips, well so far it has been quite interesting with a number of followers some from FAA . I also enjoy viewing other peoples work along the way.

Mike,

Each parameter does a different service for you.

I have 18k followers. So as people preuse Twitter they are more likely to see my profile than say someone with 2k followers. Profiles are advertised to users. My net is cast wider in other words. I used an app to get to this stage. I then unfollowed profiles so that now I have under 4k that I follow. That was done to give me the fake Twitter popularity that everyone in sales really needs. I dropped from 21k followers down to 18.4k currently as people using automated apps unfollowed me.

The value of getting people en mas to see your profile is you are advertising all your wares without even tweeting. Yes at first you tweet your work, but then you can lay back most of the time and new people will come across your work.

Again now like a sailboat on the wind I want to have organic growth. That is hard to do with few followers to begin with.

G+ used to have shared circles where you could add hundreds of other people's followers at a time. Now you cant. You have to put out collections you hope everyone will want to follow when they do a search. Or you have to join communities/groups and hope the communities are active and you get followers. It sucks. There are no apps to get the process started. Or you can see collections as the app within the search and build all sorts of collections when time permits.

Twitter has ratios. They kick in around 2k followers. That is a game as well to over come that obstacle. I early on followed the best gurus who followed me back .Then the wannabee gurus followed me, but I did not follow back. They were clueless so I had more followers than I followed. You need to position yourself.

You are an engineer, think mechanical device or assembly line.

Dave

https://twitter.com/DavidBridburg

Dear artists,

Do not feel in anyway a need to follow me. Sorry I do not follow back. I do not RT. I do my own thing.

I wish each of you well in your sales.

Mike just showing you some of how I work it. Good luck,

Oh and Mike, if you RT a lot of other people's artwork you will never know if any non artists stayed around to see your work. Your work will get totlally lost in the shuffle. Some people here are very good at the RT game. But most other artists are only getting lost in that.

Dave

Mike,

Visuals are king on the internet. DK is backed up by all the studies on what he is saying.

Dave

Been posting on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Near as I know, none of the have resulted in any sales. Sales seem to come completely out of the blue, not sure just how they happen, especially since they're likely to be pictures that I'm not fond of. It seems like chaos in motion.

"Sales seem to come completely out of the blue, not sure just how they happen, especially since they're likely to be pictures that I'm not fond of."

Unfortunately we are all pretty much shooting in the dark here, we usually have no idea where the sales come from. Sometimes sellers think they see a correlation but it's just a guess, I couldn't see any in any of my sales.

Mike, I don't doubt you are getting more link clicks, but that doesn't mean you get more sales, just people curious enough to click on the link. If they already see the image they are not curious so they won't click on the link....unless they are possibly interested in buying. Without images I don't believe there's any correlation between link clicks and sales, it's just people satisfying their curiosity. BTW, I looked up that one FAA artist on twitter again, she attaches an image to every single tweet and she tweets in the neighborhood of 100 times/day, (no, it's not Sharon, this artist rarely participates in the discussions).

Mike,

off topic....you might want to do a Google search on your name. FAA is not coming up in the number one and two spots. Your PPA is nowhere to be found.

The PPA is not like the AW. The PPA is part of Pixels. The AW's stood somewhat separately from FAA.

Dave

I'm siding with Mike, no images of your work in your feed. You want them looking at your image in your shop. Twitter and all other social media is about getting potential customers landing at your store by whatever means necessary, your stores job is to retain them.

If a buyer sees your image in a twitter feed they will decide instantly whether to click it to go check it out and potentially buy it....chances are pretty slim though.

Now if a buyer is intrigued by a post and check out your store on the promise or mystery of your post they can then wander and may find something out of the many products you have.

The image route leaves nothing to the imagination, no curiosity, no mystery. You've given the cow away with the milk and there is no longer an incentive apart from the very small chance i see that image and want to buy it.

Social media is about building intrigue, lure them in.

Agree with Justine about luring them in.....and I do that with hashtags, changing the intro message from FAA to suit myself and re-tweeting an image when ever I come across it during my working on my activities site. I also find others re-tweet my images and I also do this for others when I feel inclined. I don't worry about being regimented or even organized about what I do with or through twitter because then it would become a burden to me......so I just let things happen, play things by ear and enjoy the journey, making it a labour of 'love' rather than a chore. Who knows how our artworks are going to be seen in the end, but I try not to take this too seriously because my efforts here on FAA are about getting my proverbial talents out from under the bushes and letting them be seen. When I make a sale I'm over the moon of course, but ultimately and in the end for me it's the journey that counts.

Meanwhile guys and gals......have enjoyed reading your comments and am still learning......might stop tweeting others artworks so much from now on! ☺

https://twitter.com/luminexal

i'll tell you this - i don't care about studies.

1. if everyone does it, you blend in.
2. if they see the image, they are not likely to click on it - have you? how many images have you clicked on to see it larger? wait, doesn't it show you a larger image anyway? why click the link then?
3. studies that are there usually feature actual products - not art. people looking for art are looking for keywords. it might work for those looking for a certain something, but you don't put all your products out. just look at a store window, they only show a few to entice people to see the rest.

4. - has it worked for either of you? i've been selling pretty well without the images. 9 out of 10 times when someone comes in and they say - i'm not selling anything - i usually look at their twitter stream, and what do i see? lots of pictures - no hashtags.


i can tell you from experience, just announcing i sold something, often leads to another sale. hard to say if it was facebook or twitter sometimes, but i have tracked some hits and have gotten sales from it.

tweeting a 100 things a day - i don't think is a good idea. and most likely is using a bot, and using the new rules about popularity or whatever i'm sure they will remove that ability like they have over the years for other things. i would never go that high because it can so easily be reported as spam.

@dave - it never will. as i said in the past, it won't matter what anyone does - the artist site (unless forced), will not be found in google. neither will pixels. maybe for the products they do, but that's it. because google doesn't like doppleganger sites and if we could at least make the sites look totally different - we will always be hidden here. i just hope google doesn't go way of bing and remove all the sites.

the site i advertise goes to other places and they come in through my efforts only. at the very least they can find some version of my site in google. as long as they buy something, i don't care where they come in from. i'd rather they come in from the mikesavad.com link instead, which does rank little higher than the others. the pixels version will take a lot longer anyway because its sandboxed in google (its too new).



pictures in the feed are good now and then. free samples of a product in a store might lead you into that store. some stores have little bowls of food everywhere. and it lets you look everywhere. same with twitter. a picture here and there to catch attention. once it becomes an art show, people will glance then leave. i've seen some people's feeds that had so many different artists stuff, i couldn't figure what they were selling.

personally i like leaving odd hashtags in there hoping they will find it. you could be a little more spammy in describing it. i'm still experimenting with words.

i often think there are actually too many pictures everywhere. while its true that an image will catch more attention, i do wonder if the studies were conducted using 1 image in a field of text. or 1 image in a field of other pictures.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Thanks Newwwman for the tip re http://www.unfollowspy.com/ .......will definitely be using that from now on!

Crowdfire does that as well.

Mike Savad you say you don't care about studies and yet your post...is...a study in itself. So, only your study, incomplete by your own terms admittedly, really matters. Many of us don't sell well and many not at all. We will try most anything to get sales even if we must go to some extremes flailing our arms around in a sea to get noticed.

"4. - has it worked for either of you?"

I haven't been doing this long enough and am not prolific enough to make a good case study for anything. I have seen others who are very successful doing it though. Your way isn't the only way Mike, it may not even be the best way, It definitely isn't the best way for me but I'm not in your category.

my own studies are my own studies - i control the data and i know what i'm studying. a study on the net usually doesn't explain what exactly they were studying they just give some raw data. and its usually pretty useless.

what gets you selling is a stream of high quality work, items you would have on your own wall, themes people like. if you don't have that (not saying you don't), then all the studies in the world won't help you.

i'm not saying my way is the best way. i can only tell you my view. i don't much care what others do. and just because you see someone fire a lot at one place doesn't mean that's how they get the sales.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

" just because you see someone fire a lot at one place doesn't mean that's how they get the sales. "

Why would they be doing that if it's not working? You do what you do because it's working for you right? I don't understand why you'd think another successful seller wouldn't think the same way.

Personally, I never click on a twitter post without an attached image. But that's just me.

I followed Newman's tip for unfollowers, Once I got the app and tried to "unfollow: I was directed to a site to pay for this "Premium feature"! I deleted it!

If images of your work don't matter, why post them here.
Instead just give a detailed description of your work and let the buyer be amazed when they get it home.
After all, it won't look quite the same because everyone does not use the same brand of monitor to view it and no one has the same viewing conditions at home, etc. Just like home audio won't sound the same in your home as in the showroom no matter how expensive the speakers.

I also never click and or like/retweet without a picture. Less likely to click thru with no image, never really trust what rabbit hole some will lead you down.

A picture is worth a thousand words and Twitter is so limited on words.

Following the store scenario, if all I see in a window is words telling me what they offer I would less likely go in. I am a visual person and make decisions based upon what I see, not what I cannot. Jmo.

The hashtags fall back quickly in twitter. Once posted there now are so many other people that hashtags bury other hashtags. The point of using hashtags is falling away. Has fallen away.

Personally my profile feed is a little museum or list of my work on twitter. People could stumble upon it three years from now or they could see it for the tenth time two years from now whatever, they will know if they want to see or deal with my art. From what I have seen posting my images gets more RTs and Favorites on my images than Mike gets on his plain links. And I can tell you from my stats I get plenty of link clicks.

The bottomline is sales, I have been at this will a full wagon for less than a year. I have been here for about a year and a half. Mike has been showing people his art for over ten years. People see something often enough some will buy.

@bonfire, I know you like the RT systems many artists engage in, heads up because Twitter is going into a popularity mode like FB for who gets their tweets atop people's feeds, auto RTing may become a thing of the past some months from now. It games the system in a way Twitter is bound to soon object to. Before you were not gaming the system. You were just using an automated app to spread the word. Different system now means you are gaming it.

The two solutions are to either allow auto RTing and not count it at all towards who is on top of the feeds, or to stop all apps that auto RT.

Dave

no one buries hash tags. because those are search tags and simply stay there for a long time.

don't assume anyone ever looks at your feed. i'm willing to bet not many look at the feed of another person. so anything you post, even your followers probably aren't looking at anyone elses, they might see you in their stream though.

i don't care about retweets - why? because a view - is not click. just because everyone is batting around the tweets like a game of volley ball, it doesn't mean anyone will score a point with it. i'd rather have one person see the link they are curious about, found by looking, then a weird glance because 10 people retweeted it.

i honestly think twitter will die out in the next two years. they are making it hard to use, long to load up, and its limiting. it was good for its time, but something else will take over. if people's tweets aren't being seen, and instead we see presidential candidates, movie star postings etc at the top - people will simply leave. fed up. it shouldn't be a popularity game, because its too easy to be worked.

for now i'll keep using it the way i have always used it, and it works fine for me. i'm not really tweeting for the right now, i'm posting for the later on. like tossing pennies into a well.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Dave I do not use an auto retweet, every like or retweet is done by my own fingers. I use buffer to tweet my own stuff only at designated times.

I would not trust some program to auto retweet things without me approving them. I spend an hour each day going through emails and selecting things to retweet.

Forgive me if I am repeating anything else that has been said here - I simply do not have the time to read all the other posts at this moment, though I am hoping I will get that chance later.

Some keys to effective twitter use that I have found in my experience or learned from others:

1. Focus your twitter on something - and that isn't necessarily your general artwork or photography. Is you work modern abstract? Follow interior designers that are in that genre. Follow magazines that feature that particular style of decor and retweet articles and images that are interesting to you. You will be educating yourself and narrowing down the field of potential buyers to the specific focus of your artwork.

1B EDITED: Follow other artists that specialize in modern art and learn from how they post, what hash tags they are using, who is following them (you might want to follow them as well)? I do NOT retweet other artists or competitors lines of products, I do retweet complimentary products that are not competive to me if they are worthy of a retweet to the particular audience I have cultivated.

2. Hashtags are basically keywords. For the above example you can research who to follow by putting #moderndecor #interiordesign #fineart #abstractart or similar search terms into your search field. If they turn up a good amount of interesting content write that hashtag down in a list you keep handy to help you tag your art more quickly and effectively. If you find an interesting image/article etc. look at the other hashtags the poster has used. You'll gain additional ideas quite easily.

3. If you have the budget or as soon as you get room in your budget, use an automatic drip feed service - especially that allows for photos. People really are visual and if they have to go to your link to see what you're posting, most never will. If you post the image 98% won't click on it but your click through rate will be much higher than without an image AND your retweet rate will be higher as well. You grow your circle of influence most readily by those who retweet you to their followers and on down the line.

4. DON'T only post your work. Retweet things of interest to those who will begin following you and ALWAYS hash tag accordingly. If you provide enough interesting content, people will organically follow. I don't follow everyone that follows me because I am interested in true, lasting, organic growth. I do follow anyone that is in my field or has interesting content and that naturally produces growth.

5. If you use a drip feed - take time throughout the day to retweet something that catches your eye. It only takes a minute or two here and there, but being a "live" person that people can respond to is important in the long run. Take time to sincerely compliment someone else's tweet, or comment on it in a way that shows you're honestly engaged.

6. I haven't done as much drip feed for FAA as the other PODs but every time I stop in to FAA I will find an image that would make sense for that time of year, etc. and write a catchy single line, post the link and add hash tags at the end. An example was from this winter during "snowmeggedon," TWEET: Is it summer yet?!!! (link) #snowmeggedon #nomoresnow #summerdreaming #beach #wallart. People get a kick out of funny #hashtags that don't really lead anywhere, and posting a sunny summer image in the dark, cold of winter will often motivate someone to go take a peek. This is the kind of creativity that pays off in the long run... twitter is not usually a fast growth platform but fits in with an overall social media presence.

7. Keep your twitter feed professional. If you are one of those people that likes to write angry tweets on political issues - get a second account for that or for your artwork. That doesn't mean you need to never have personality or your taste show through - just be very, very conscious about what you post and how that will impact the person that might be interested in following you but not be interested in rants or foul language etc.

I use socialoomph for automating my feeds. My twitter handle is @audreyjeanne. I don't mind if you study what I am doing an apply it for yourself. My main focus is wedding stationery at another POD I am active at so you'll see a lot of wedding invitation suites and related information. I would say I use twitter 30% for my Etsy store 50% for my Zazzle stores and 20% for FAA and/or other items.

It's hard work - I won't lie!!! But then isn't everything else in life that is important?
Audrey

#moderndecor #interiordesign #fineart #abstractart you will follow other artists who think these words will attract interior decorators.

posting work that isn't yours - sounds nice on paper, but is very confusing in practice, especially when you want to get your brand across. that would be like coke advertising pepsi in a good way.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Mike,

I agree with you there about RTs.

@audreyjean, You have fewer than 1000 followers, but close to 58k tweets. You are stirring up masses of bots for FAA even if only 12k of your Tweets are about FAA product.

I have 18k followers and 600 tweets. With the new ranking system at Twitter I am more likely to be atop people's feeds.

@bonfire, good for you doing it manually. You are outside the norm.

Dave

I agree with Mike on this one. I don't retweet other people's art. Yes, some artists do retweet me and that's nice and gets me some attention.....mostly from other artists. I may retweet something I think would be of interest to people that might be interested in my art but only rarely and never other art. Artists understand it when you do that but I think it confuses buyers/collectors. When people look at my twitter account I want them to see a portfolio of my art, not a bunch of random art by other people.

Another strategy I've seen is to pin a tweet of something you want to sell and tweet other content (nothing that is competitive with your own product) for days to draw people to look at your profile and see the pinned tweet. These people seem to be more interested in networking however. That strategy does work for some people but I don't see how to use it myself.

I will go back and edit my post to make it clear - I don't retweet other people's art. I retweet relevent information, trends and commentary that would be of interest to the buyer I am hoping to attract. I have narrowed the field of who those people are. I do follow a few high quality artists to see what they're up to, any articles they might post, who is following them etc.

I follow people who are resources for my growth, awareness of trends and visual stimulation for my creative process. Because I am strongly aimed toward home decor I follow some top level interior designers, design resources and magazines. I am killing two birds with one stone - my research time also leads to cultivating new followers interested in that style who may possibly be interested in my artwork, my wedding stationery, baby shower goods or other product lines I am promoting.

David Bridburg - I am making direct sales off of my twitter feed, in the hundreds of dollars a month range. Are you currently making money off of your Twitter feed? This is not an adversarial question by the way, please do not take offense. Actual results have driven my approach. Besides, pure volume in numbers can mean very little when Twitter or Google can and do change up their formula almost quarterly. I have built my feed on direct, traceable results and ROI of my time. When things drop off a make adjustments to the new circumstances - that's what all of us have to do to remain competitive.

Perhaps i should clarify my analogy....twitter isnt the store window. It is the flyer, the radio or tv commercial, it is marketing. Your website is the store window and it is where you display your wares. Twitter gets people to your store window

Audrey,

My avenues are not yours. Twitter needs to be a mass attraction thing for me eventually.

I have IDs that follow me. The ID magazines as well. But my art is a mix of leading edge and design work. This is less than a full year with a full catalog. So I am hunting for gallery representation and different avenues online. I am actually in a pondering mode figuring out what "directions" I want to go in.

Congrats are being more established. And on narrowing down what you are trying to achieve with Twitter, but it is too limited. JMO

Addition, Audrey looking at your tweeting number 58k tweets, you are at risk of only being seen as spam. People on Twitter shut down as easily as they start up to follow.

Dave