My Tweet today is:
Now that you have their ear, say something in it.
Twitter DYING for #consignment / resale shopkeepers? Fewer than 15% of my following have tweeted this week so far. Have YOU?
Seems like everyone started to Tweet and then didn’t follow through.
Is it because they didn’t see any boost in business? Or is it because there’s way too much to learn, and goodness knows, not enough days in the week?
And how much is too much? (I feel like strangling those shops who send 10 Tweets in a row. Doesn’t that rank as nagging or even spam?) Personally, I like once a day.
and how much is too little? If they’re cared enough to follow you, don’t they deserve a little something?
And what can you possibly SAY? (I mean, sending just the URL of a single, non-captioned fuzzy-focus Twitpic, is that going to get folks running in?) which goes along with the question what do you want your followers to DO?
Does a Tweet always have to be a blatant “come buy this” message? (I’d suggest no. What Tweets do best is build community and direct web traffic to your blog or site or Flickr album, where you have a chance to capture more than a few nano-seconds of viewers’ attention.)
And when you you find the time? (My secret: right after reading my morning email.)
At a loss for a message today? Send a neighborly suggestion:
- Some little something about goings-on in your town (especially good if they will need to buy something from you 😉 ),
- a benign opinion (I’d steer clear of political thoughts…stick to something like “Island Park is a great place to stroll in the evenings, cool Gulf breezes and cute dogs!”),
- or pick a single helpful tip from the 200+ in your copy of Tips for your Customers
Looking forward to hearing a Tweet or two from you!
More resources on how to Twitter for Fun and Profit: Take a look at my Favorites I have marked from Twitter.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
Here’s something about Twitter you may not be aware of…
— Over 60% of new “Twitter’s” will Tweet once or twice and never return to their account!
We did a detailed survey last month to both our consignor list and customer list and got over 1,700 responses. One of the questions we asked was “Do you have and USE a Twitter and/or Facebook account?” 18% said they have a Twitter account and 58% said they have a Facebook account. Those with Twitter accounts said they login to their account less than once a week and those with Facebook accounts login in 2-3 times a week.
We of course have our Twitter and Facebook accounts linked and we promote both sites on our website. Our logs indicate that we get many more Facebook clicks than Twitter clicks from our website.
So, our conclusion, Twitter is one of those things that we probably have to do but don’t plan on it bringing us much business and we don’t spend much time on it!
We’ll continue to focus on Facebook (450,000,000 accounts, come on….) which has already padi off well!
Exactly, Sally. You said it SO much better than I. Balance time spent with possible outcome. Better you should write those 2 or 3 hand-written thank-you notes to shoppers every day, a marketing tool with proven WOM benefits, than spend that 10 minutes trying to come up with a Tweet that will be forgotten within 15 seconds of being read…or that, more likely, will never even get SEEN yet alone READ.
Oh my gosh, how wild, I got an answer straight from Aunt Kate. I am so excited I can hardly stand it! Thank you for the advice, I understand much more than when I started my day today. I did tweet today, and I will try doing that everyday. Our name on Tweet is hefurniture, how do I get that work out? In my constant contact? I could not get the Home Enhanced name on Twitter, so we had to improvise.
Thank you so much for all you do and for caring about us.
I am so confused. Twitter was not driving business although I do have followers. I get the community building, but if all I am doing is putting ideas out, is that enough? Is it to build name recognition, or brand my shop? My Twitter does flow into my Facebook account so at least I get a two for one when I post.
There was an excellent email last week from you, Kate, that had a link to an expert that did not believe that Twitter was all that helpful for resale businesses. In fact the title was “Can Tweeting kill your consignment or resale shop?” The main thrust of the article was that Twitter is a time vampire. And I know personally I don’t need anything else sucking my time into a vortex of nothingness. Please help me sort this out.
To Tweet or not to Tweet that is the question?
Ruth, that is SO cool… the expert you were quoting from “Can Tweeting kill your consignment or resale shop?” in an “email”… that is, an EMAIL that delivers you straight TO MY BLOG was…ME!
Okay. So here’s how Twitter works. First, I went to Twitter. Tried to FIND your Tweets..I tried homeenhanced (no results) home enhanced (not you) and your full name (which I only know because you are a HowToConsign.com Sponsor and a friend.)
No dice. Aha! I got to your web site from HowToConsign, and you have a link on your web site to your Twitter account… you have 11 Tweets from February, 2 in March, zero in April. 18 followers. So, I am guessing that spending time updating 18 followers is not high on your to-do list.
And YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. There’s more productive things you could be doing than sending a Tweet (which by its nature is TIME-ORIENTED because it goes to the bottom of a Tweet client’s list of Tweets pretty fast) to 18 folks. 95% of these will never even see your message (that means than LESS THAN ONE PERSON will even remember it, yet alone act upon it.)
The only thing Twitter (or Facebook for that matter) does well FOR YOUR BUSINESS is to draw traffic to your web site or blog. Think of it this way: you are in a crowded, noisy party where you barely know a soul. You think it will be beneficial to shout over the band about what your shop has to sell?
Heck no. The MOST you can do is say something intriguing to that potential client and hand them your business card.
So:
* Twitter is for telling the listener/reader/viewer something interesting…that will get them into your business.
* Twitter is for providing contact info. Since the viewer is on Twitter, the contact info needs to be on the web.
* Twitter ALSO works if what you tweet is WOM-worthy. Something they will retweet. Which spreads the Twitter-name of your business to her friends, which theoretically spreads your name to friends of friends etc (don’t place your money on this though….)
But your message, in addition to be outstanding enough to motivate the recipient to send it onward (Let’s say a statement like “95% of women wear jeans they have paid WAY too much for”), has to be RE-TWEETABLE. Google that to LEARN that…
Bottom line: spend NO MORE than 2-3 minutes Tweeting a day…but spend 5 minutes PROMOTING potential clients to follow you. Nowadays, getting them to go to Twitter and click on “Follow Home Enhanced” is worth a few minutes a day…but not NEARLY as much as actually interacting with the folks in your shop, the readers of your blog, the viewers on your site, the folks on your shop wish list, the people on your snail-mail mailing list.
See HOW MANY MORE than 140 characters this message took to be meaningful? The messages you send your clients can’t be contained in 140 characters either. Though I have no doubt you can say things much more succinctly than I have 😉 !
Thanks for all the invaluable information Kate!!! There is a LOT of it which can be overwhelming at times; however every link I’ve clicked from your site is FILLED with even more great advice! I find myself paging through your links 30 minutes at a time (when I really should be doing other things!!). I’m a new mom with a job my heart isn’t into any longer and desire going into business for myself. I’d love to open a clothing consignment shop and find myself dreaming away when I get your daily blogs.
Thanks for your kind words Paige. My next (ha!) project is organizing the TG site so it makes more sense, and integrating the HowToConsign.com and this blog with it. But I also am SO drawn to getting TheResaleGuru.com up and running with resources that will stimulate people to not only ReSell RePlace and Rejoice, as HTC says…but also to ReCREATE.
It’s a wonderful wonderful world, isn’t it, where our dreams can breathe and grow and thrive. (Assuming of course, we keep focused, which is my problem…and I think you’ve caught me at it! 😉