Social Media- We Can't Marry it and We Can't Kill it

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Where I came  up with that title.....  social media, we need it, and it can be frustrating. As independent designers we have to market ourselves.  On top of creating our product, designing it, making it, making hangtags, building websites, photographing, posting on etsy, selling in markets, the list goes on... we need to advertise it and build our community.  People are not only interested in our product but how is it made, who makes it and where does it come from.

This past Monday I went to a seminar at the Etsy offices being given by Rekha Krishnamurthi.

Rekha is an EtsyNY Team member and designs and makes products for her line called DivineNY.  Her craft is screen printing and block printing, and she specializes in housewares.

Find this runner in Rekha's Etsy shop.

Find this runner in Rekha's Etsy shop.

Rekha spoke about brand building thru social media.  Her main theme is to allocate 2 hours a week for social media.  The way I feel about social media is that it can be fun, overwhelming and powerful.  I struggle with it and then when I talk to others I find I know more than I think.  So I guess you can categorize me as somewhere in the middle.

I do feel that any company or personality needs to be on social media today.  People want to know what you are about. So how do we achieve it successfully.

A few points:

  1. approach how to develop your goals, objectives and strategy
  2. timing- when is your audience online? do you sell to America or Europe, young hipsters or a more corporate crowd who is probably online during lunch or on their way home from work
  3. what platform do you want to use? facebook, twitter, instagram, tumblr, google plus, pinterest
  4. what do you talk about? talk about what you are working on, what is inspirational to you, other artists you follow
  5. should you buy those ads on facebook? what's the budget to spend? Try $5.00 and see if it works.

So many platforms right?!  I am on all of them.  My tumblr went away and instagram I just started but I try to stay strong with my blog, facebook, twitter and pinterest.  And it can be frustrating building a following.  Sometimes I feel like I am spreading myself too thin or noone reads my posts.   My team consists of me, my 3 cats and now my 5 month old daughter....What to do!

Oliver, one of my cats, at wor

Oliver, one of my cats, at wor

Pinterest does double duty.  While I am finding inspiration other people also see the inspiration I am posting.

Rekha even said it took a few years for her to get a following.  So don't give up.  What are your frustrations? Do you have tips that seem to work for your brand?

Post your facebook, twitter or pinterest link here and I will follow!

Have a crafty week!

Tracey Toole

  • https://www.etsy.com/shop/traceytoole
  • http://traceytoole.blogspot.com/
  • https://www.facebook.com/TraceyTooleDesigns?ref=hl
  • https://twitter.com/traceytoole

How to Monitor Your Shop Online

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Looking to monitor your shop online? Here are some great tools that will let you know how your presence is doing on the web...and most of them are free!

Thank you, Pete Codella (@Codella on Twitter), VP of marketing and PR for Alexander's, a Utah-based full-service traditional and digital marketing communications firm, for these suggestions.

MONITOR YOUR BRAND

SocialMention

  • Track and measure what people are saying about your company.
  • Monitor Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, Google and many more.

Google Alerts

  • Receive email alerts about your brand, topics of interest and more.

SEO

HubSpot's Marketing Grader

  • Measure your marketing activities.
  • Find out how your website ranks.
  • Find out how competing websites rank.

TRACK YOUR TWEETS

Topsy

  • Get realtime insights from Twitter conversations.
  • Search links, tweets, photos, videos, what's trending and more.

Twello

  • Find users in a specific locations based on their Twitter bios.

FACEBOOK

Involver (paid plans available, too)

  • Add branded applications to your Facebook fan page.
  • Has additional paid and free apps for other channels.

ShortStack (paid plans available, too)

  • Design Facebook Apps and contests.

PINTEREST

Pingraphy

  • Schedule pins on Pinterest.
  • Analyze metrics.
  • Upload pins in bulk.

PinPuff

  • Calculate the measure of your popularity on Pinterest and value of each pin.

VIDEO

Grovo (paid plans available, too)

  • Online video training site that teaches you social media tricks and tips through quick videos.
  • A great way to strengthen your team's understanding of social media.

See you next time!

Mary Ann / MaryAnnFarley

Social Media Traffic 101

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Ana Hoffman at TrafficGenerationCafe.com is one of the most knowledgeable people I've come across on the web when it comes to promoting yourself through social media, and all of the info on her site is free!

Here's just one article that I've found incredibly helpful...

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Social media has been called a lot of things:

  • the best thing since sliced bread;
  • productivity killer;
  • the next marketing wonder.

Truthfully, it doesn’t really matter what YOU think about social media. If your audience and your competitors are there, you don’t really have much of a choice, do you? Social media is to your website as breathing is to living. Period.

A few quick tips before we dive into the mysteries of driving traffic from social media:

Start with one platform

Social media is the great example of Pareto principal  at work (roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes). My best advice is not to spread yourself too thin.

  • Find the one social media platform that YOUR target audience seems to favor and stick with it.
  • Learn the ins and outs of it.
  • Master all the nuances of traffic generation.
  • Figure out how to put most of it on autopilot.
  • Move on to the next one.

How to figure out which one to start with

1.   Use your Google Analytics (GA) data

If you are already driving social media traffic large enough to analyze some stats, then start here.

  • Go to your GA dashboard and look up your referral traffic.
  • See which social media platform drives the most traffic AND converts the best.
  • Focus on that one.

2.   Use your competitor’s data

If you are brand new to social media or even blogging in general, then see where your competitors get most of their traffic from. That should be a good indicator of where your potential readers might be hanging out. The easiest way of collecting this type of data is through Alexa.com.

Just search for any competitor’s site and go under “Clickstream” to see where their social media traffic comes from.

While there are scads of social media traffic sources, I have outlined some of the big dogs for you.

Twitter

Facebook

How to Get the Facebook Crowd to Like You More

Google Plus

Google Plus Bite-Sized Tutorial for the Busy Marketer

Pinterest

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Thanks, Ana! That's certainly enough to get us started!

Until next time! Mary Ann

Connect!

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If you have an Etsy shop and a Facebook fan page that you use to connect with your customers, you will be happy to know that it is now even easier to link the two.  This allows shoppers to instantly like your shop's Facebook page from your Etsy shop while browsing your wares. Once the connection is established, you can post items from your shop to your Facebook account without having to switch from your shop to Facebook.

Here is an image of my fairly new shop, The Hairy Vetch, where I sell hair accessories. It's not connected to the social world yet and looks a little lonely.

 

Clicking on the Facebook icon under the shop banner brings me to the Info and Appearance page of my shop. From there I can select the Facebook page I want to connect to the shop and instantly the Facebook Like button appears on the page.


 

Once I click the Like button, Facebook registers that I am my first fan!


Use the same process to connect your shop to Twitter. With a Twitter connection:
  • Shoppers will see a Follow button for your Twitter account below the banner of your Etsy shop.
  • You’ll be able to tweet about each new listing you add to your shop.
  • Anyone who has Followed you through Etsy will see your updates in their Twitter Timeline.

Now I should start my conversation with my future fans. For some tips on how to have a meaningful and professional social media presence in your shop, check out Etsy's Guide to Facebook.

Let's connect!

Thank you to Etsy a Holiday Handmade Cavalcade sponsor.

Simone
groundsel.etsy.com