Yes indeed, it's finally time. The Twitter Ring is officially starting. Excited? Here is a rundown of your role as a participant.
Each Sunday, a new topic will be posted with the information for the 7 HAF Members that will be featured in that weeks Tweets. Each topic will be clearly marked by date.
Over the course of that week, everyone who signed up to participate in the Twitter Ring is responsible for sending out 1 Tweet for each of the 7 HAF'ers on that week's list.
The original concept was 7 Featured Artists, 7 days in a week, 1 Tweet per day. Quick, easy, done! Right?
NO! Well, maybe.
If that method works best for you, go for it. We're all on different schedules. Some of us have a specific portion of each day that we spend at our computers. Others may be Tweeting from a Library or a Cafe. All of us have vacations, craft shows, and other events that might prevent us from being able to make a mandatory "Daily Tweet".
Maybe Wednesday is your free day, and you want to promote all 7 people on Wednesday. Or maybe you only have free time during the weekend and split the 7 Tweets between Saturday and Sunday. Or you may be a 1 Tweet a day kinda person.
I know, I know, I'm beating it to death.
This should be easy, fun, and stress-free for everyone involved. As long as you send out 1 promotional Tweet for each of that week's 7 featured HAF'ers, you're fulfilling your role as a good citizen of HAF'ville. All good citizens get rewarded with their very own week as a featured artist.
Featured artists will also be expected to promote the other 6 members who are featured that week, post #7 should be promoting either the HAF Forum or the HAF Shop.
Keep an eye on sales, views, and analytics for your featured week to see how much buzz we're creating. If anyone notices huge numbers or anything else of interest, please message me so I can dig in and figure out what worked.
I will be keeping an eye on things to make sure everyone is making an honest effort. Don't worry, I'm way too busy to micromanage everyone's Tweets. Just do your best and if you happen to miss a day, you can always promote the member you missed with an extra Tweet the next week.
As long as we're spreading the word about the HAF Community and our amazingly talented members to a wider audience, we're running a successful promotion.
If you haven't already followed everyone on the Twitter Ring Participant List in the previous topic and checked out my Twitter Tutorial, please do so.
As for the content of your Tweets, be original, be creative. Take a look at the shop, blog, or page you're promoting and tell your followers something unique, or special that will get them to click that link and see what's so exciting on the other end.
Simply Tweeting a name and a link that you've copied and pasted with no added details or effort on your part is not fair to the other artists in the group.
Retweeting someone else's Tweet is something we should avoid for the simple reason that we want everyone's diverse viewpoint on each artist.
We don't want to flood Twitter with 40 of the exact same Tweet and be ignored, or worse, give the impression that HAF'ers aren't the amazingly creative, incredibly hardworking group of individuals that give their time, talent, and spirit every day to make HAF the PREMIER online community for all things handmade.
Finally, the #1 Most Important "Rule": The hashtag #HAF must be included somewhere in each Tweet for the Twitter Ring. It's the only way Andrew and I can keep tabs on things to make sure the promotion is going smoothly.
Please PM me with any questions or concerns that you have and I will be happy to help.
Many Thanks For Your Time And Commitment,
-Emma