(This post is a follow-up to The Trap of Twitpic.)
What’s the point of adding a graphic to your Twitters?
If it’s to intrigue, entice, and encourage folks to visit your consignment or resale shop, I suggest you post that picture on your web site or blog rather than on Twitpic.
Sending your audience to Twitpic to see a photo is like directing them down Highway 1 past a billboard rather than opening your resale or consignment shop door and welcoming them into your business. Sure, they’ll see what you intended them to see in your allotted 140 characters. But that’s all they’ll see. One graphic, no message, and no tempting reasons to get into your shop where so many wonders await their pleasure.
If it’s important enough to take a picture, download it, put it somewhere the public can enjoy and then to call people’s attention to your photograph’s subject: isn’t it important enough to go on your web site or in your blog?
Which would you rather have with a potential customer or supplier: a nice conversation or a single sentence? Which would be more advantageous to your business?
Come on in, set awhile. Can I get you a virtual glass of lemonade? Here’s some tips and hints you might find enjoyable. Oh, and BTW, did I ever show you a photo of our shop, and let me give you a map of where we are, and sure, here’s our hours and what we carry.
What, you say, your Twitter friends know all that or 
aren’t interested or are too busy? So, then they ignore your site and just look at the picture. Big deal. Happens to the best of us. But at least you’ve shown them where all those things are. Instead of tossing them coldly out onto the pavement after your Twitter message intrigued them enough to click on your link.
That’s why I suggest that putting your visual aids in your Twitters on your place on the web, rather than at Twitpic. Simple suggestion, simple to implement, and so much more useful to your bottom line.
When your Twitter buddies are directed to web space carefully tended by you, they won’t be in danger of getting run down by all that other traffic on the information highway beyond your “billboard.”
Another point to ponder: traffic to your site or blog can improve your search engine standing so when people Google, say, how to consign, why, there you are.
Sharers react to Twittering.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
[…] some-such, though I don’t suggest you use that. (See why, if you enjoy diversions. And more why Twitpic is a waste of your efforts to grab customers’ […]
Welcome Judy! Nice to hear from you. You probably SHOULD go where your heart leads you. Why not copy and paste your message over on our Discussion Board for resale shopkeepers, Sharing? (Read the FAQs there first before you participate) I’m sure you’ll get lots of valuable input.
(Oh, and PS: Hope you have some helpers with strong legs…don’t forget how hard retail is physically!)
Hi, I have been wondering if I would be too old to start a consignment shop again. I guess what I really want is someone who would encourage me to go for it. I am 68 years old and in 2000 I had a consignment shop that I just loved but unfortunately my husband became ill and I had to close to take care of him. He passed in 2003 and I am on social security but would like to supplement my income with something else. I do know how to run one and the work involved but don’t know with the economy if it will work. What is the biggest problems most shops are having? I would like to open in a small city that has very little downtown stores and just has a local thrift shop run by a church. Our area needs clothing stores as there is just a WalMart and a Fashion Bug plus the thrift store. I would like some input from other consignment stores….. Thanks