What's the deal with Twitter!?

My first encounter with Twitter (www.twitter.com) was during the devastating 2007 October wildfires that were ravaging San Diego County. I wasn't able to get to work since Interstate 5 was closed and I was super worried about the safety of our home. The fire was a little over 5 miles away, but in some cases 5 miles was only a couple of minutes notice. KPBS had a fabulous Twitter feed of the fire and its location in Fallbrook, so I was glued to my computer screen waiting for something to happen.

I was reintroduced to Twitter about a year later after hearing some success stories on the Etsy Forums, and decided to give it a shot. I figured I should start following people who might like my envelopes and would likely buy them... so I started following 2000 of Etsy's followers (https://twitter.com/Etsy/followers). They follow Etsy... they must be keen on the site and how it works!

Inquisitive as ever, now that I've entered the world of social networking in a medium other than Myspacing it up or incessant poking my friends on Facebook, I started looking for tools that would make my Twitter experience more favorable. I found the site FriendOrFollow (www.friendorfollow.com) useful because every few days it is necessary to un-follow the people who didn't follow me back after I followed them. This way I have more room to follow more people who might love my envelopes.

I don't want to sound like a complete jerk for following people just so they'll look at my stuff... I mean, its totally cool, but at the same time, I've met some awesome people through Twitter and am always able to get instantaneous feedback about anything from what I'm going to eat for lunch to how much the Chargers are going to kill it next season=)

According to my Google Analytics, since January 11 when Etsy allowed us to place the tracking codes in our shops, I have had almost 4000 views in my shop and 64% of which were directly attributed to Twitter.com which is a pretty hefty percentage in my book! In addition to the views, I've been featured in 7 blogs and have made a couple Front Page treasuries... probably because of Twitter.