Using Twitter with Cafepress for profit

Today I read someone on Cafepress complaining about twitter being useless. They said it was nothing more than people following one another and spamming ads. In part, they are correct.

The truth is, though, If you are a cafepress shop keeper, joining twitter may help you make money.

Here are some tips for using twitter to make money on Cafepress.

1. Twitter is a micro-blog site. While there are some people who simply join and follow one another for spam purposes, this is completely ineffective. Think about it. John joins so he can spam Maria and Maria has joined to spam John. Neither cares about what the other is selling. They are there to sell the other.

If/when you join Twitter, do it with the intention of meeting like-minded people. These are the people who will be interested in what you have to say and, ultimately, what you have to sell. For example, if you create political shirts like I have at ( Cafepress.com/teawar or TeaWar), people who share your politics are more likely to buy from you than apolitical spam artists in Nigeria.

2. Think of Twitter like an interactive television. Not many people turn on the television looking for another Sham-wow infomercial. Your Twitter followers are an audience and you are one of their favorite shows. Just like a television, there are commercials. Many people will turn off a show if it is 10 minutes of content and 50 minutes of commercials. So, apply your self-promoting commercials sparingly, but apply them.

3. Build a following on twitter. There are many ways to build followings on Twitter. Some will get you every Tom, Dick, and Harry. If you have general, all-purpose designs on Cafepress, this may not be a bad market. If you are more specialized (like me), a smaller, targeted market will be better than a shotgun approach. The best ways to build a decent Twitter following are:

  a. Find and follow people of similar interests. Many of these people will follow you in return. Yes, they may be doing it out of courtesy, but they are the market segment you are targeting and they will see when you advertise. To find people, do a search for some of your keywords. Also, pay attention to stuff like #ff or #followFriday. On Fridays, many people post the names of other people with similar interests. You can then add them.

  b. Have a blog. If you do not have a website, you can get a free blog at wordpress.com, blogster.com and a host of other sites. If you use wordpress, there is a Twitter plug-in that allows all your blog posts to go to twitter as a title and link. This automatically updates twitter for you. Then, when you post on your blog about your newest shirts or latest sale, everyone following you will get the link. Make sure you use an engaging title, so people will click to see what you have there. For example, I might post a title like "New Anti-Obama t-shirts available." You can also place one or two designs in your blog posts. I do this at the bottom. I make them relevant to the post. So, if I have a 500-word post on Obama's socialist agendas, I will have a shirt with Obama dressed like a communist or holding a red flag at the end of the most. Here's an example

(Important note: blogs don't guarantee traffic. Your blog has to be useful and have information people want to read. I have a conservative blog at http://fierydog.com. If your cafepress shop is full of photogaphs you've taken, start a blog on photography, portraits, landscapes, etc. and commit to updating your blog once a day if possible...but at least once a week. The more frequently you update your blog, the more you can advertise...think about it. If you post once a week and advertise 4 times a month, you are running a 50-50 campaign of ads to showtime. Some people will get turned off. If you post 4 times a week and 5 ads a month, you are running roughly 75-25, which is much more acceptable.)

4. Make sure your twitter profile either links to your Cafepress shop or to your blog (which should have a prominent link to CP). Also, make sure your blog and CP pages have links to follow you on Twitter. Someone who has been to your Cafepress shop and likes it will follow you if they're on Twitter. Then, they'll see your ads and return.

5. Advertise, Advertise, Advertise. This is something I have just started doing, so I cannot give specifics on the effectiveness of sales, but I can say my cafepress site traffic has increased. At the foot of almost every blog post, I now have a single, related image that I sell. For example, if I blog about widgets, I include a clickable image (link) of a shirt or mug with a widget on it. So, even those who skip my specific ads in twitter, still see at least one ad when they click to read my blog post.

http://www.squidoo.com/successwithcafepress


Cafepress Alternatives


Cafepress Success 101