Art Biz Blog

How to reply to tweets on Twitter

As I said in earlier posts, Twitter is a social medium. You want to be friendly and have conversations. So, you reply to tweets from other people. Twitter makes this very easy.

Let’s say you’re watching your @Replies very closely, as you should be. Someone mentions you in one of their tweets, so it shows up on your @Replies page (see more about this) and you want to respond. Let me give you a step-by-step example of the process.

In this example, @Loriwords (Lori Woodward Simons) mentioned in her tweet that she just joined my affiliate program. I know this because she mentioned me by my @name and it showed up on my @abstanfield page (see more about this). This is what it looks like there.

If I put my cursor over her tweet, I see a star and an arrow on the right.

The star is to make this a Favorite tweet and the arrow is to reply to what she wrote. When I click on that arrow and Twitter takes me to the update form and automatically enters @Loriwords at the beginning of my tweet. You can see, too, that it takes up 11 characters since it shows I have only 129 characters remaining for that tweet.

I type in my response and click on the update button and voila!

It appears on my page and on the @page of @Loriwords.

Make your replies even more helpful (to you and others)

Note in the example that I didn't just say "Thanks!" to Lori. If I had wanted to do that, I would have sent her a Direct Message (DM) because only she would know why I was sending her a thank-you tweet. Because my followers will also see what I wrote, they would have no idea why I was thanking Lori.

In my reply, I thanked Lori for joining my affiliate program. That could lead my followers to think "Gosh, I didn't know Alyson had an affiliate program. I should get in on this!" To help expedite the process of becoming one of my affiliates, I also added the link to the ArtBizCoach.com Affiliate Program page.

Whenever you reply to a tweet, be clear on what you're replying to so that others can join in the conversation. Either retweet (see #5 on that post) what they originally wrote or add words that explain what you're talking about.

***One last thing: You don't have to reply to tweets only when they mention you. Reply whenever you have something to add to the conversation.

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Related

Try Twitter (Art Marketing Action newsletter)

Decide on a Twitter username

Find your way around Twitter (Profile and Home)

What to Tweet

What to tweet

Every Twitter user starts out with a similar dilemma: What can I say in 140 characters or less that will be interesting to my followers and help me gain new followers?

Above all, aim for variety in your tweets. Here is a menu to start with, but there is plenty more to share with Twitterdom.

1. Funny Tweets
Everyone loves to smile and to laugh. Share a link to a funny video, repeat a funny quote, or reveal your own sense of humor. Even better if it is related to art.

2. Inspirational Tweets
Ditto everything I said under #1.

3. Helpful Resources
This is a biggie! The more you can help people, the more they will return the favor and help you build a following. Because Twitter is social, being helpful earns you extra credit and more friends. Recent tweets I’ve seen included coupon codes, sales on art supplies and marketing materials, and useful articles.

4. Questions and Opinions
Ask questions of your own because people love to give their opinions! Answer questions because you want to be part of the conversation. Share what might be a controversial opinion if you really want to stir things up.

Ask questions about resources (e.g. what type of camera to purchase), ask seemingly--but fun--irrelevant questions (I just asked if it was “biggie” or “biggy” as I was writing #3 above; most said "biggie"), and ask for guidance on a marketing decision.

5. Retweet (”RT” in Twitter lingo)
Retweeting is repeating what someone else wrote. Using the RT at the beginning of your tweet followed by the person’s @name gives them credit. It also shows up in their @Replies column so they can see how kind you were. It’s a courtesy and, again, helps you make friends on Twitter. Here are some recent RTs from me.

6. Quotes
As I said above under #1 and #2, you can share funny and inspirational quotes, but you can also share thought-provoking or profound quotes. Again, even better if they are art-related, such as a critic’s opinion. Be sure to give credit to your source!

I came across--again--this quote that I love and tweeted it yesterday. It's from Kimmelman's book The Accidental Masterpiece.

7. Leads and Opportunities
If you hear of a deadline for a show, a grant, or a residency, tweet it.

8. What You're Doing
In an earlier post, I said that we don't really care what you're currently doing, but I was wrong. In his TIME magazine cover story, Steven Johnson writes:

And yet as millions of devotees have discovered, Twitter turns out to have unsuspected depth. In part this is because hearing about what your friends had for breakfast is actually more interesting than it sounds. The technology writer Clive Thompson calls this "ambient awareness": by following these quick, abbreviated status reports from members of your extended social network, you get a strangely satisfying glimpse of their daily routines. We don't think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask.

Thanks @lisacall for bringing this to my attention in your comment.

9. Your Blog Posts or Website
Aha! We finally got to promoting your art. It’s not a mistake that it’s this far down the list. You must make friends before you can promote to them. You have to send all of the other tweets in order to “earn the right” to promote to your followers. If you were constantly promoting, you’d lose friends and followers quickly. A good rule of thumb is to promote 5-10% of the time.

Don’t just send a tweet that says “New blog post, click here: http://...” You have to entice people. Pique their curiosity so they want to click! There are thousands of new blog posts they could choose from. Why should they click on yours? What will they get as a result?

Ditto for sending tweets that say “Just posted a new work on Etsy, click here . . . “ Again, describe it. Make me curious! The more descriptive you are, the easier your tweet will be found in a search.

REMINDER: Don’t forget to use http:// in front of your URLs in your tweets. That’s the only way to make them clickable in Twitter.

I continue my Twitter tips. Leave a question in the comments and I’ll try to answer them in future posts.

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Related

Try Twitter (Art Marketing Action newsletter)

Decide on a Twitter username

Find your way around Twitter (Profile and Home)

Find your way around Twitter, part 2 (@Replies, Direct Messages, and Favorites)

Podcast: Try Twitter

New to Twitter? Wonder what "tweeting" is all about? Give Twitter a try and listen to the podcast to learn why Twitter offers the highest form of marketing.

[4:06]

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Related

Art Marketing Action newsletter (a written version of this podcast)

Cultivate Collectors for your art (online class begins July 8)

Decide on a Twitter username

Find your way around Twitter (Profile and Home)

Find your way around Twitter, part 2 (@Replies, Direct Messages, and Favorites)

→ Instructions for subscribing to the Art Marketing Action podcast on iTunes.

Find your way around Twitter, part 2: @Replies, Direct Messages, and Favorites

Here’s a little bit more about what you see when you are on your Twitter Home page. (Remember from my earlier post that this is the page that only you see when you sign in to Twitter.)

The following three links are in the right column of your Twitter Home. I think of them as separate inboxes that help with organizing tweets, but you can think of them as folders, pages, or just links.

1. @Replies

In short, whenever @YourName is used in a tweet anywhere, it will appear under @Replies on your Twitter Home. The picture here shows you what my @Replies page looked like recently. Just click on it to make it full size.

Whenever someone replies to something you have tweeted and keeps your Twitter name in the reply, it will show up on your @Replies page. Likewise, if someone has retweeted (more on that later) one of your tweets and kept your name in tact, it will show up here.

This is important. While you can’t possibly keep up with what everyone is tweeting, you do want to know when your name is being mentioned. Check this link frequently.

I wrote earlier about the @ symbol, which includes an example.

2. Direct Messages

a.k.a. DM

This is easy! These are private messages that only you can see. Whereas a regular tweet is seen by all of the Twitter user’s followers, only the named recipient can see a Direct Message.

You send a DM when your tweet applies only to that one person and the whole world doesn’t need to or shouldn’t see the message.

To send a Direct Message, just type DM @ThePersonsName at the beginning of your tweet. You can also send a DM by going into your Direct Messages. The box at the top will ask you who you want to send your DM to.

As far as I know, you can still send DMs only to people who are following you. Otherwise, don’t annoy others with emails asking them to follow you just so you can DM them.

3. Favorites

I think of these as bookmarks and I don’t really use them, although I see how they can be very useful.

Say someone tweeted something that was useful or that you might want to remember. Just put your cursor over their tweet. In the upper right of the update, you’ll see a star.

If you click on that star, it will add that tweet to your Favorites and then color the star yellow. You can return to your Favorites to find it again in the future.

That should keep you busy for the holiday weekend. What else do you need to know about using Twitter--if you haven’t let me know already?

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Related Posts

The right Twitter username for you
@ and # symbols
Find your way around Twitter, part 1: Profiles and Home

Find your way around Twitter, part 1: Profile and Home

In earlier posts about Twitter, I gave you guidelines for your Twitter username and told you about the @ and # symbols.

By popular demand, I’m going to share with you some additional basic information that will help you to better understand how Twitter works. This won’t be too helpful if you aren’t registered for your free Twitter account, so go ahead and do that now (using the username guidelines I provided earlier).

Quick Vocabulary
A tweet is a Twitter post (also called an update). It contains 140 or fewer characters (not words--characters) and has the Twitter user’s name (aka Tweeter) attached to it so you can see where it came from.

Your Twitter Page Profile
This is what the world sees when they look you up on Twitter. The URL is http://twitter.com/yourusername. So, my Twitter page profile is at http://twitter.com/abstanfield.

People see a stream of your tweets in the center, but the two most critical items on this page are

1. Your photograph
2. Your one-line (160 characters or less) bio

These are important because you must look like a real person (thus the reason for the photo) and you want to describe yourself in a way that encourages people to follow you.

Your photo and your one-line bio should be in place before you start following people. Why? Because when other Twitter users see that you are following them, they might like to follow you back. If you look real and like you have potential, they’ll probably return the favor. If there’s nothing on your Twitter page for them to see, they probably won’t waste their time.

You can update or add to your personal information profile NOT by clicking on Profile in the menu (oddly enough) but by clicking on Settings and then Account.

After you have done this, look at the bottom of that page. There is a box that says “Protect My Updates.” You want to make sure that box is not checked. Twitter is a social media site. If you don’t want people to read what you have to say, you probably shouldn’t be using Twitter. The only exception should be if you have a second or third Twitter account and use it for private messages between friends and family.

While you’re under Settings, you can add or update your photo by clicking on Picture.

Your Twitter Home

This is the page only YOU see. You get it by clicking on Home or by logging in to your account. By default, it shows the stream of tweets from all of the people you are following--with the most recent tweet at the top. In the upper right--under your name--this page also shows the number of people following you as well as the number of people you’re following and the number of updates you have sent. Click on any of those numbers and you will see the details.

There is also a large box at the top under the heading “What are you doing?” This is where you post your pithy, 140-character-or-less tweets. Just type them in and click on the “update” button. (Note: Sorry, but we don't really care what you're doing most of the time. More on what to tweet in a later post.)

Everyone who is following you will see  your tweets (if they’re looking at the right time, of course).

I’ll have lots more about using Twitter in upcoming posts, but please leave any questions you have in the Comments.

Updated 4:30 p.m. on 7/1 thanks to comment from @lisacall

Deep Thought Thursday: Technology: Friend or Foe?

As someone who teaches the benefits of using blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and more, I’m fully aware that the Internet is both friend and foe. Some people get it and really love it. Others are convinced that it’s a vast conspiracy against them.

Since I’m posting this on a blog, the results may be skewed, but I’d like to know what you think.

What are the benefits of technology?
What are the disadvantages?
Would you prefer returning to the good old days of pre-Internet?

Image ©Julie Gerleman, In the Shade

@#&*~!) What’s with these symbols on Twitter?

If you’re new to Twitter and trying to follow our book club reading of de Kooning: An American Master, these basic definitions might help.

The @ symbol
Use this in front of someone’s Twitter name when you’re giving them credit (retweeting something they originally wrote) or responding to something they tweeted. Twitter adds a hyperlink to the name following the @ symbol. You can click on the name to see more about that person and read their tweets.

For example, here is a tweet of mine from this morning:

@cara19 @vmartinart No, #dekooning sure isn't a "tub book"!
(I was responding to a couple of tweets between @cara19 and @vmartinart)

When you use the @ symbol in front of someone's Twitter name, this tweet appears in a column called "@Replies" on that person's Twitter page. They'll be able to see who has responded to their tweet, retweeted what they said, or joined in the conversation.

Which brings me to . . .

Image ©Kim Shields, San Jose Mission Courtyard

The # (hashtag) symbol
I’m going to simplify this definition as best I can. It's direct from the Alyson Dictionary (I made it up as this is how I understand it).

When you have a group on Twitter that is tweeting about the same thing, the leader of that group designates a specific word (or series of letters and numbers) to use on Twitter. The leader then tells everyone in the group to use this word--preceded by the hashtag--when discussing the subject on Twitter.

This streamlines the conversation. How? Because it makes it easily searchable. If everyone was using a different word or making up their own, the group members would have to conduct multiple searches and guess the possibilities.

Here’s the clincher: The word after the hashtag must be written exactly as described (although capitalization doesn’t seem to make a difference). No spaces!

I, as the leader of the de Kooning book club, designated that our hashtag is #dekooning. I did so in this blog post and in subsequent tweets.

You can go to Twitter Search and type in #dekooning and follow our conversation.

How to come up with the best Twitter name for you

Not on Twitter yet? Great! I’ll get you before you make a huge mistake. Okay, you can’t really make a huge mistake. I just want to give you some tips for coming up with your Twitter handle (or username). Then you can sign up (it's free!) and join us as we read de Kooning: An American Master in our summer Twitter book club for artists.

I got to thinking about this subject when I was helping a friend get on Twitter last week for the first time. As might be expected, the names she thought she wanted to use on Twitter had already been taken. So, we started from scratch. Here's how the process should go.

Your first choice should be your real name. If you use your real name for your art business (as I think you should), start with it. First name, last name. Add a middle initial if you need to. Always keep in mind: How do you want to be known and remembered?

Of course we can’t all be as lucky as @lisacall and have only 8 letters in our full name. That would be a dream! Why? Because Twitter is a microblog. It only allows you 140 characters per tweet. If you have to use someone’s Twitter handle within the tweet, it takes up those precious characters.

Shorter is better, but it should also make sense. I get frustrated on Twitter when I think I should know someone, but their Twitter handle doesn't give me a clue to their real name. It's not an egregious error, but I'd like to personalize my social networking as much as possible. Real names are easier to keep straight.

If versions of your real name are taken, don’t spend too long crying about it. Go with something else that’s memorable. Something about your art or perhaps your location. For instance, there is @emilyoftexas. Her Twitter handle doesn’t say “art,” but it is memorable and helps place her. Emily of Texas is also the name of her blog. Great branding, right! Here's another example: @annesart is the same name of Anne Leuck Feldhaus's website. Image at right ©Anne Leuck Feldhaus, Canine Folly

Specialize in portraits? Use the word “portraits” with your name.

See how this works?

One last note: It’s kind of nice to use the capital letters with your name (like @WilliamRMoore) so that people can tell where one word ends and the next one begins.

Wanna hear the story of my friend and how we decided on her Twitter name?

The friend that I was helping with Twitter was Kelly Krueger, who is an animal communicator and owns Articulate Animals.

We decided that @ArticulateAnimals was too long and could have belonged to any animal communicator.

@KellyCommunicates or @KellyArticulates were OKAY, but with those names she could have been a professional speaker. “What,” exactly does she articulate? We decided “animals” was more important than “articulates.”

We talked about KKAnimals, using her two initials, but it didn’t seem personal enough. Kelly’s line of work is very personal. People need to trust her with their beloved pets. She needed to have “Kelly” in her Twitter name.

Final result: @KellyAnimals

Podcast: Carve out time for online networking

ALL worthwhile marketing takes time, but don't let social media take over your life. Create a schedule and stick with it, while being grateful for tools that artists a generation ago didn't have.

[4:47]

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More on This Topic

Maintaining a Healthy Artist's Blog

online class begins April 22 and is limited to 30 people

Introduce Yourself Politely (when using social media)
Expand Your Online Marketing
Art Marketing Action newsletter (a written version of this podcast)

→Instructions for subscribing to the Art Marketing Action podcast on iTunes.

Twitter | Come to Estes Park if you just don’t get the whole Internet marketing scene

Confounded by Twitter and what all the fuss is about? Quinn McDonald (@QuinnCreative) has written a couple of nifty posts about how it all works.

The first is kind of an overview called Twitter: The Good, the Bad, and the OMG!

 Quinn identifies the bad thing about Twitter as this: “Twitter is the e-version of the cool kids’ cafeteria table when you were in the seventh grade. You will never be cool enough, but you can carve out a niche.”

Quinn’s second post is Navigating Twitter, in which she gives you suggested resources and people to follow.

And be sure to check out my previous plug for using Tweet Deck.

Need more? Come to Estes Park, Colorado!

Incentive #4 for coming to Estes Park in May: Social Media Know-How
We’ll not only be talking about how to use social media, but you will

• Be around other artists who are using Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn AND benefiting from these absolutely free platforms.
• Make social media part of your online marketing plan--a document everyone will leave the conference with.

May 2-3, 2009
Early registration ends April 1
Save by registering now (Sorry, it's all by real mail--you have to use a stamp and everything--not my doing!)
Read more about my Estes Park workshop