Twitter 101 for Artists

A great friend for many years, brilliant attorney, and twitter whiz, Fred Abramson (http://twitter.com/fredabramson) sent me a well worded list of advice to a recent question that I had regarding twitter. I’ve had a twitter account for about a year now, (http://twitter.com/sprouseart) but it gas only been within the past few months that I’ve started to explore its essence and discover what a great tool it is on many levels. Especially for those in the arts where communication is key. I think his advice is spot on and I’m happy to share it here for those with an interest. . .

1. Don't waste you time focusing on your numbers with Twitter. You have to think of Twitter like any other form of networking. Figure out who your target buyer is and follow them on Twitter. 90% of the time, they will follow you back. If they fail to follow you within a week stop following them. Go to friend or follow (google it) to un-follow.
2. On Twitter, you should spend 50 percent of the time sending art links not related to you (like the Matisse review in today's NYT), 10 percent of your time on personal links (like your status updates on Facebook), another 10 percent promoting others (especially buyers) and the remainder of the time engaging other users (using @ and direct messages).
3. It is vital to meet your twitter followers in real life. Invite your target to your art openings or other activities of interest.
4. If you don't know who to target, I would suggest you should follow the followers of local art galleries, artists and museums. If you want national, the Met, Brooklyn Museum, Moma, etc are great places to begin. Look at the followers of art industry publications on Twitter. In New York, we also have TONY, New York Mag and the like.
5. And finally, I would suggest that you don't follow more than 50 people a day. You don't want to look like a spammer.

Fred, thanks for the great starter tips. P.S. - I also discovered that placing a hash mark # in front key words in your tweets, which also help build your base – you can read more about that here - http://kristinewirth.com/that-mysterious-sign-in-twitterwhat-does-it-mean