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Are we really saying anything? Or are we just showing off...as the twitterstream races by?

on Sunday, 20 November 2011. Posted in Social Media / Marketing / Networking

This evening, in the twittersphere, I was cruising down the timeline, looking for something interesting to comment on, and I noticed something very peculiar: no one was talking! Sure, there were tons and tons of tweets floating by, but page after page, there were links to items on Artfire, Etsy, and Zibbet. What's wrong with this, you might ask? Nothing at all. I've friended many other handmade artists on twitter, and it seems reasonable that a helpful feature would be the ability to list handmade items created by the artisans. But still, amongst all of the "Extra Extra, Read all about it" links, I could not find one post that was meant to be responded to.  So, I sent out this message:

We all want to share our items. Can be useful, but it can make the timeline a bit redundant. How do YOU engage other #handmade artists?
 
After posting, I sat back, pleased with myself for being so clever. I rocked my chair a bit, and twiddled by thumbs over the keyboard, waiting for a twitter friend or two to respond in jest. I pictured us laughing at ourselves over a few back and forths, making fun about how the twitter stream of handmade stuff is just floating by while we forget to actually connect...
 
Nope. Wrong. It's been a few minutes, and still noone has answered. So, I jumped over to this blog to chat about it to myself instead.
 
What do you think? Do we crafters sometimes tend to get so wrapped up in our creations and marketing them that we forget to be social on social networks? Does the fact that my question went unanswered speak more about my own deficit in fostering my twitter relationships? In the end, how do we benefit from it? Are we just looking for link-backs? Or do we want to actually develop artistic and business relationships here?
 
As I write this, I've clicked refresh a few times to see whether or not anyone responded to my twitter. I kinda hope they do. But if so, I'm gonna have to practice what I preach and respond to them before posting another link to my own web design services... (Ooops...)