twitter tips for artists (copy from marketing art group)

So since I do this for customers and provide them with the same information ... I'm posting it here.

Alright, with twitter being really big for marketing right now there are a lot of things to do and not to do when you go for tweeting about your stuff, since twitter is following spammer and con trends that are rampant on twitter right now.

The most important of which is to find people. Now I personally like to use twitlocal, Nearby Tweets, and twitterholic Really this is because I can find local people so in the case of businesses, professionals or people who are looking for local contacts this is great. Also if you are targeting specific locations (say for gallery openings, art fairs, or high income areas ... good way to go) Also the main search in twitter is fantastic too ... just a little too random for my tastes.

Make sure when you are adding people not to go bat snot crazy with followers. Keep your added followers under 20-40 followers a day. One of the easiest ways to spot a spammer is when they have 1000+ followings but only 10-20 follow them back. Also, because of the server load ... accounts that are heavy on people they follow but very little following them back have a strong possibility of being suspended for spamming. so make sure you develop a relationship with those you follow, i'll discuss that later.

Next is your look of your twitter. Now you can supply a background + tweak the colors to be something original and interesting for people to visit and follow. Now this means a few things ... 1. most people still use a resolution of 800x600 or 1024x768 If you intend on putting any sort of information on the background ... it won't be seen by those with 800x600 resolution (twitter is optimized for that size) and those with 1024x768 will only have a small sliver of space on the left and right of the screen. so at most you have around a 200-220 pixel width of information. 2. The background is aligned to the top left so you'll only really be able to put content left of your twitter (since if you plan on framing your twitter on the left and right with content on the background ... larger resolutions will cover your right content with your posts.) 3. Try to be consistent with the color schemes and your background.

One thing to avoid (and this is to appear a little more professional.) is to avoid busy backgrounds. Things like op art, commercial photos or something you haven't created ... generally a bad idea. Stick with a single photo or your own artwork. (and make sure that you base your background on 1600x1200 if you intend on photos or make it blend into the background like i did on my twitter)

Your twits ... this one is the hardest describe but there is a great article on them here at mashables. I won't bore you with details, i'll let them do that.

Something to avoid, on average i get around 3-5 people following me a week that literally say stuff like the followingon every post:

"'Transformers,' 'Ice Age' Tied For Holiday Weekend Box Office Crown http://is.gd/1oSy"

Now this is really something to avoid, since most people "marketing" on twitter do this and these are rather impersonal and can mark you as a spammer and get you suspended. Try to vary your content, make things interesting enough for people to add to their twitter stream and make sure you don't try to send them to links in every post. You have a tag in your profile for "website" afterall ... so if you have a specific site you like to send people to the most (your etsy, your website, this site, your myspace, facebook, etc) then put it there and all you have to do is state that on your website you've done x y and z. Also, twitpics is a great service that links directly with your twitter and so for art updates it's a great place to post an image with a small advert.

Develop a relationship with people, it doesn't take much ... twitbacks are great for this, also sending replies to interesting posts are good as well. The idea is to people feel like your more involved with them personally. You also don't need to do this with everyone on there, just try to be fun with it.

Now this one is great, Tweet updates on your website. Now I'm not talking about the little flash badge ... i'm talking full on integration with your website. It's a simple process and is updated by a javascript. This means you can easily update your twitter and your website at the same time for fast updates.

thing to avoid. flash twitter apps. 90% of the time they are ugly, not viewer friendly and mainly made for people who want to add alot of garbage to their myspace pages along with glitter graphics and transperent content areas on busy backgrounds. Instead make a simple twitter bird (don't use others art try to be original on this since it helps) and make it a linked image. It's easily identifiable and takes them directly to a viewing friendly page.

Cross marketing and encouraging people to subscribe through incentives (especially for artists) is always better than adding a bunch of people and hoping they add you back. One way i've seen a business get followers is to hold a weekly give away to be picked up in person (generally a $2 comic) to a person subscribed to their twitter chosen randomly. I think they are at something like 2k followers in their local area now. The idea for marketing on twitter is to get people to stay involved with your twitter for updates on specials or sales, current developements, and important reminders without being too spam heavy. So find your market of followers, have good content, and develop a strong presence.

These are just some things to consider, I'll update this with more info if I think of it.

Mashable is a great site for social networking help. they have alot of ideas and tips on there that are great for all the biggies.

twittertips.org is a rather nice resource for twitter tips (and thus the name)

Tweetable Art: 10 Twitter Tips for Artists Had to link to this one because of the relevancy.