Using Twitter to Market Your Items

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!

Taken from Handmade Spark at www.handmadespark.com