And This Is Why I Love The Internet

      

What I Thought Would Happen and What Actually Did – Social Media

If you’ve been following along with my blog posts, you know that I’ve been working on making changes here there to improve my (very) small business – my Etsy shop, One In The Hand, where I sell sewn and knitted cup cozies. Since late 2010, I’ve gotten very involved in a certain corner of the handmade community on Twitter, I’ve gotten very involved in my local Etsy team and I’ve put together a plan for making my shop one that has sales year-round, not just in the busy shopping season before Christmas.

I’ve gone into this period of transformation thinking that certain things would produce certain results, and it didn’t happen. Other things happened. So today, I’m going to tell you about some of the things I thought would happen and what happened instead. And then I’m going to tell you about recalibrating my compass and the somewhat different direction I plan to travel.

Today’s post is going to focus on social media.

What I Thought Would Happen

Especially once I stumbled upon the handmade Twitter community, I thought that my connections and friendships would increase traffic to my shop, and thus increase sales. I thought that by posting more often on my Facebook shop page, and offering a variety of post-types, I would get a lot more interaction with the people who are “fans” of the page. With my blog, I thought that writing regular posts related to the handmade community, and partnering with other bloggers, I would gain blog followers and get a lot of exposure, which would lead to more sales.

What Actually Happened

Instead of all my tweeting relationships leading to more sales in my shop, it has led to relationships with other handmade business owners. I have gone through a few stages of feeling like I don’t fit in with these ladies . . . trying to gain their aproval . . . resigning myself to the fact that I am just not enough of a glittery unicorn for them to notice . . . and finally seeing the dust of my flurrious (yes, I said flurrious) tweeting settle to reveal a small number of meaningful relationships, both within and without the handmade community.

With Facebook, it took a while to kick in, but I am beginning to see a liiiiiiiiitle more intraction with my Facebook fans. Mostly, though, it’s still just my longtime real-life friends who are responding to my posts. Still – improvement is improvement! At the same time, Facebook finally made it much easier for me as a shop owner to interact with other handmade fan pages. I have definitely spent a lot more time commenting on other pages *as my shop* (rather than usng my personal profile) than I ever expected to do. Sometimes I’m able to interact on a daily basis, but I’ve at least maintained weekly interactions with other fan pages.

Bloggity, bloggity blog. Well, I’m kind of all over the place with this blog. And for now, that’s ok. My intention with my blogging was to provide another look at who I am as a person, not just as a person involved in handmade stuff. I think I have been pretty successful at that. I’ve shown my thoughts regarding what I want to do with my shop. I’ve talked about racism a little bit. I’ve highlighted some handmade artists I think are doing great things. I’ve shared things that make me laugh and that I hope will make my readers laugh. I’ve shared music, which I love (even more than I love anything handmade, shh, don’t tell). I’ve steadily gained some blog followers and recently, have received an increase in interaction with my readers – i.e. comments from them. I’ve been surprised to notice that readers are most responsive (by leaving comments) to my posts that show a lot of humor.

One thing I never, never expected, was to tap into the area of philanthropy as it relates to the handmade world. It has been really invigorating and inspiring to see so many people interested in philanthropy! It’s also been so exciting (and a little overwhelming) to brainstorm with my fellow handmade peeps, the ways we can collaborate with each other to make philanthropy accessible to others.

Changes I’ll Be Making

First – Twitter. I gotta tell you, Twitter has kind of taken over my life. You get such instant gratification from Twitter and you get in the habit of sharing every little thought . . . you get to the point that things begin to seem more and less interesting based on how tweetable they are. Or how drastically they will impact your ability to tweet. For example, I have taken a cab from the train station to my office, just so I could tweet for a few more minutes. Normally I walk, it takes me around 10 minutes to get from the station to my office. 10 minutes, folks. I spent $8-10 on a cab ride, more than once, because I wanted to tweet a little longer, and I knew I had a full work day which would keep me from sharing some super important thing, like . . . a link to my blog. Or a photo of someone rudely taking up too many spaces at the bike rack. Really, Ashley? Was it that important? No, it wasn’t. It was a waste of money and it was lazy and it shows a dependence on something that should not be that important to me.

Also? I tweet way too much while I’m at work. It’s one thing to take a 30-second break here and there, but there have been days when I review the day’s tweets, and realize that I didn’t just spend 30 seconds here and there. This is not only a waste of my employer’s resources, it’s also not worth it. What if I lost my job because of it? Or what if I was looking for another job and the potential employer found my Twitter profile (which I want to keep public) and decided I wouldn’t b responsible with my time with them? Could I really blame them? And you know what? All this tweeting hasn’t led to any sales!! The only sales I’ve gotten from tweeting – that I can tell – are from when I was giving all my proceeds to the Red Cross after the Japanese earthquake. Tweeting may be turning into income for some people, and more power to them. But it isn’t doing that for me and I have to cut way, way back. So. I am going to work on cutting back not only during my work day but overall . . . because for me, at least, one feeds the other. I already had to deal with my family thinking I was online too much, but if it were to impact my ability to provide for my family? OH HAIL NAW. I cannot let that happen.

I have to say that before I really admitted that the tweeting wasn’t leading to sales, I was so fearful of cutting back. But now I am pretty sure that excessive tweeting isn’t going to make my sales skyrocket. I would rather be more strategic and focus on keeping the small number of real friendships alive.

Facebook changes? Really not much right now. I still haven’t implemented all the things that I put on my goal list, so I’m just going to keep at the list. Facebook is a territory I still need to explore.

Blogging is also an area that I’m not going to change much, except that I’m still working toward the major changes I intend to make. I’m still working with my friend the graphic designer to come up with a cohesive brand for my shop/blog/Twitter/biz cards. I’m still working on coming up with regular, varied content that is (hopefully) interesting to different types of people. I suppose what I will be changing . . . is what blogsI follow. I am still working on culling who I follow on Twitter and in blogs. I am done following out of guilt and I am done following to win contests. I am done following without really inspecting someone’s content to see if it’s the sort of stuff I want to read regularly. And I am done leaving blogs I never read on my Google Reader list because I’m scared I’ll hurt feelings or miss a potential collaboration. If I don’t read your content EVER, I’m going to “unfollow” and hope you will still be nice to me when we “run into each other” online. I plan to be nice to you!

Tell me, friends – what are some of the things you thought would happen one way in regard to social media, that didn’t happen that way? Are you making any changes? Do you think your original hopes might still be realized?

Etsy Gameface Update: Facebook, Twitter and Blogging

I’ve been evaluating my Etsy shop (and all things related) for a while now, and have a list of improvements to make, pretty much all the time. Some I find time to work on, others I don’t. Some I decide I don’t want to implement after all and some I would like to put into action but just can’t figure out how or don’t have the money yet.

I wrote a short series of blog posts a couple months about overhauling my shop, and much of that I haven’t yet had the chance to do. Like every other aspect of life, sometimes things get in the way. Today I’m going to tell you about some of the things I’ve been able to work on.

I’ve begun posting a lot more on my Facebook fan page. I post something almost every day, Monday-Friday. I’ve also begun to comment on other fan pages with my fan page account rather than my personal account. When I first began posting more on Facebook, I felt discouraged because still, I got very little response from anyone on the things I’d post. I stuck with it, though, and people have been commenting more! I credit this to my thinking more about the sort of things my “fans” would like to read, and because I’ve been interacting more with other fan page owners on their pages.

I still would like to see more activity on my Facebook page, so I will continue to monitor what people respond to most often. I would like to do some more behind-the-scenes posts, including photos, as I’ve both seen a good response when I do things like this, and have also heard from social media afficionados that fans really enjoy this. My downfall? Poor preparation. To do behind-the-scenes, I need to do at least a *little bit* of planning, and honestly, most of my Facebook posting has been spur-of-the-moment stuff.

I’ve expanded who I interact with online, mainly via blogs and Twitter. The truth is that crafting and handmade is NOT my life and has never been my main interest, it is only ONE interest of mine. I’m also very interested in music, social justice issues (especially race and class stuff), history, faith/religion, and back-to-basics/natural lifestyles (especially the domestic arts and pregnancy/childbirth). The thing is, this little corner of my online world didn’t reflect those interests very much. If you knew the “rest” of my online world – my locked LiveJournal and Facebook, you’d have seen all this stuff in abundance. But this blog and my Twitter account had been underutilized until recent months, and then I decided to get more involved online for Etsy stuff, so I suppose it’s natural that I started off by surrounding myself with nothing but craft/handmade blogs and Twitter accounts. Anyway, the purpose of this blog and my Twitter account is not just to highlight what I’m doing in the handmade world, but to also invite customers, handmade peers and friends into the rest of my interests. I want people to know the whole me, or at least a little bit of every part of me.

Having said that, I didn’t write up a list and say, “Ok, Ashley, today you’re going to go find a blog or Twitter account that writes a lot about interracial marriage". Rather, when I’d come across something like that, I’d follow the trail it took me on, and maybe that trail would lead me to a collective blog, and from that collective blog, I’d end up following 3 blogs that write a lot about interracial families. The next week, my friend who’s studying to become a doula might point me toward a natural childbirth article, which caused me to follow the author in Twitter.

It’s said a lot in the handmade community (and most others, I’m sure) that you should really enjoy what you’re doing, or there isn’t a point. Well, I both want to share the stuff I’m doing in the handmade world with my friends and peers in my other interest areas, and I want to bring new topics of thought and discussion to my handmade peers and friends. Already I’ve been able to get involved in handmade philanthropy and have been exposed to so many great causes, and have been able to spread the word to others.

Ok, I think that’s enough for today! I’ve got more to write about – both what I’ve worked on so far and what I still want to do soon (hopefully). Stay tuned!

Have you thought about why and how you want to use an online presence for your shop? Do you mix personal with business online? Have you found it easy or a struggle to maintain or find the right balance?

Handmade Overhaul: The way things look!

Since opening my Etsy shop in 2009, I’ve seen a pattern of lots of sales in November and early December, and trickling sales the rest of the year. Most people associate my cup cozies with cold weather, but they can be very useful on cold drinks as well. They soak up condensation, keep your hands warm, and come on – CUTENESS lasts 365 days a year. Still – they just don’t sell that well during the rest of the year.

I would like for my shop to be more of a year-round business, so I’ve put together a plan of things I want to do to make this happen. Time will only tell if it’s successful! Fortunately, I am open to changing my mind in the middle of my plan and trying new approaches.

I’ve already written about introducing new products, improving my photography, expanding shop promotions and discounts and updating my shop banner.

Today, I’m going to write about updating the look and use of my blog, Twitter and business cards.

My blog needs a major overhaul. Look, content, organization. Phew!

· I have long pondered whether I wanted to continue with my current blog, or to come up with an Etsy-only focus, or to start a new blog entirely. One thing I knew was that if I wanted a blog to help promote my shop, something would need to change, because only a handful of people ever looked at my blog and even fewer commented.

· I finally decided to keep the same blog but to give it a new name, look and organization. I recognized that I am not going to be able to maintain an Etsy or Craft or Design ONLY blog – and honestly, I wouldn’t be happy running a blog that way. I’m not saying blogs with a singular focus aren’t my thing – I LOVE reading them – but I’m just no good at that sort of thing. I also want to use this blog to promote my shop and other people’s great stuff . . . but I want people to get to know ME, not just what I make or think is cute. So I’m keeping all my old entries and I encourage you to browse them when you’re looking for something to read. You’ll find a mix of things from social justice musings to what I planned to do on my stay-cation.

· I have ideas swirling around in my head, and have several lists and files on my computer of colors, images and “messages” I want to get across with the look and layout of my blog. I’m really not expecting to take the blog world by storm, people. But I’ve been studying blogs and what people seem to respond to. I’ve asked myself if I even LIKE those approaches, and how might I incorporate something like that, but in MY way? Sometimes what is really successful for someone else is just NOT MY THING. But even those things give me ideas.

· Right now I don’t have a deadline for the new look of my blog, but I want it to be “soon”. Honestly, what’s holding me back right now is time and money. If I was content to wait forever, I could work on things here and there, and in 9 months or so, come up with a badass blog look. I’d prefer to to turn things around much sooner than that, though, and I think I’m going to need some help. Which is where the money comes in. I probably need to find a graphic designer who can help translate the ideas I have into a blog header and overall a look that I’m happy with, but that costs money. I don’t have much of that laying around right now. So I’m kind of stuck, and taking time here and there to try to find the right font, whether or not I need to learn how to use Picnik, etc. It’s kind of overwhelming. Another reason I hesitate to work with a graphic designer is that I am just REALLY picky. I would hate to go back and forth and back and forth with someone, and still not be satisfied. I know there are people out there whose job it is to get to the bottom of what a customer wants and turn that into great banners, cards, buttons, etc – but man, I am just really picky! I also hate to tell someone I don’t like what they did, and if I already paid for their services, I might end up using something I’m really not happy with just so I won’t look like a jerk. So, yeah. Not sure what to do.

Twitter

· Twitter I’m actually not too worried about. Once I get the new blog look, my Twitter page will be based on it.

Business Cards

· The business cards will also follow the blog.

· I’ve been using Moo cards, but am going to look into other vendors to see if they offer the same for less, because Moo is kind of pricey. They’re great quality, though. I use the Mini Moos and people are always impressed with the cute little size and the image on the back.

· I need to have more cards on hand, and hand them out liberally!

· I should also include more cards in my order packages so customers can pass them out to people they know.

· I need to include some blank space on them so I have room to write in discount codes for returning customers.

· What other ways can I use my business cards?

Have any ideas to share for blogs, Twitter or business cards?

Keep an eye out for upcoming posts detailing my plans for:

~ Becoming more a part of certain communities like Twitter, the blogging world, my local handmade community and my local Etsy team ~

~ Using my Facebook more effectively for community building, brand building and promoting great shops, artists and deals to my “fans” ~

You can still enter the giveaway at the Wattlebird blog to win 4 of my cozies! Annie's hosting other giveaways this week, too - check them out!