image credit: eeva

Justine from The Etsy Business Blog is joining us today, as Jaime and I have our hands full with our first BAKERY e-course (which is going swimmingly, by the way! If you missed the registration deadline, shoot us an email and we’ll fit you into the next class!). Anyway, Justine is a social networking goddess and I’m thrilled to share her foolproof Twitter/Facebook tips with you all. Ready? Here she goes!!!

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Running a business is only half the program when it comes to success. Social networking sites allow you to be everywhere your potential clients are and at no cost to you but time.

Here’s a basic how-to guide for Twitter and Facebook Pages, which are essential to use in order to promote yourself and drive new business in your direction…

TWITTER
Concept:
In 140 characters or less, answer the question “What are you doing?”

That may sound silly, but “tweeting” your website, business, special links and tidbits about what you are up to is a very effective way to drive traffic to your business. Etsy shop owners find that when they add a link to a new shop item, their views go from zero to twenty in less than a minute.

Set up time:
Signing up to Twitter – Under a minute
Filling out your profile – Under a minute

How to use:
Once you have your profile set up you will need to start following users. My recommendation is to follow people who follow a similar minded business. For instance, Etsy sellers should follow those who follow Etsy. If you run an entertainment business, follow anyone that follows verified celebrities.

Tips and tricks:

• You can bulk follow users with Twitter APIs such as Buzzon and TwitSeeker. These sites also give you the chance to put in keywords so you end up following only those who would be useful to you.
• Reply to tweets (using the reply arrow) in order to get users to remember you and your business.
• A new feature rolling out slowly is the “retweet” button (two arrows) which allows you to broadcast a tweet from another user. Again this builds relationships and gives you extra content to talk about.
• Do not constantly bombard your followers with links to your business. Yes that’s what this is all about but if you make it seem that way, people will get turned off. Talk about your morning coffee and grumpy toddler too!
• You cannot follow more than 2000 users unless you have that many users yourself. What you should do is when you have followed 2000 followers, wait a few days, then unfollow those who are not following you. It will purge a large number of ‘disloyal’ members and allow you to start following fresh people.
• Asking questions to your followers is a good way to get people talking back to you!
• You can drive traffic to your business on the go with mobile updates.

FACEBOOK
Concept:
Create a Facebook page and any site user can become a fan of your business and get updates from you about new products, services, promotions and events directly from you. (You have to be a Facebook member to create the page.)

Set up time:
Signing up to Facebook: About five minutes if you want to add a photo of yourself and fill out the basic information.
Creating and filling out your page: Anywhere from 2-10 minutes depending on how much content you’d like to add to your page.

How to Use:
Once you have your page set up you will need to Publish your page so it can be found in the Facebook search bar.

Tips and Tricks:

• Use the Suggest friend button on a weekly basis to increase your fan base. A lot of times people miss the first few notifications and are happy to oblige when they finally see it. The current fans will be blacked out so you will not have to spam them again.
• Post a link every day. As long as it’s relevant, people will be interested and remain a fan of your work,
• Take your page link and plaster it everywhere including your websites and other social networking avenues.
• Try installing a widget on your blog or website to visually entice new fans to your page.
• Host a giveaway where participants must become a fan of your page to be eligible to win.
• Offer exclusives to fans only with special codes in order to see if sales or new business opportunities came directly from facebook.
• Visit fan pages of similar businesses and become a fan, write a friendly wall message and include a link to your own fan page. Their fans will see it and be intrigued.
• Approach other fan page owners for cross-promotions helping you both gain new fans.