With all new toys, they become the most popular. Here is the thing with new toys, if you don't know how to use them, they get tossed aside or not played with at all.
Pinterest has become a fast growing social media network for the visually stimulated audience. This is usually the creatives that browse the internet, women and marketers. Many of the creatives are crafters, wedding planners, home school Moms, photographers and how to guru's. But what about the non crafters..non creative, the "I'm looking for a product I can't find locally in a store" people? Are they on Pinterest?
That is a very Pinteresting question. One of the other issues to think about, that is if you are a crafter using Pinterest for marketing, is who is watching..rather, are they watching? Or are they just following everyone else so that their followers will see their stuff for sale? This is a problem when you're only on Pinterest for self-promotion and networking.
That saying I have built my business by, "Give yourself away and you will find yourself a rich man", applies here. First, you need to prove you are worthy to be followed. Make your Pinterest Boards valuable and interesting, worthy of looking at from your "regular" followers. Second, offer your followers information relevant to your business that will make them want to come back to see what you have up on boards that is new. Just like blogging, be consistent!
If you just post links just to post, you end up with a dead end. No one likes a car salesman. NO ONE. If you promote any product just for the sake of networking, you really don't get to far. Your looks and clicks will increase some, about 35% more. But what about conversion rate? The best you can hope for is your close friends buying from you.
So here is my suggestion, make your boards look worthy. Find the most beautiful, cool, interesting, "Wow!", I LOVE it!, type stuff. Make your images worthy to be pinned, pin up awesome-ness, cool gadgets, unusual one of a kind items. Then, once you start to get noticed, then you can promote your friends' stuff..and yours in the mix of it all. Take the time, put in the effort to be worthy of someone else's time and p-interest.
One last thing to add into each pin: the search engine on Pinterest is driven by words you use in your descriptions, not necessarily your board titles, so be mindful of your first paragraph of items you sell that they have correct keywords for your items to be found easily. Pin items with correct and keyword rich descriptions. If the descriptions don't pull into your Pin when you click that "Pin-it" button, highlight the text you want to pin with the image and then click the "Pin-it" button. The highlighted text will pull into the description of the pin with little effort on your brain to come up with text.
Susan ~ ArtFire LInk
ArtFire LInk on Facebook
ArtFire LInk Group
On Google+
Showing posts with label social networking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social networking. Show all posts
Viral Sharing on Facebook
Sharing on Facebook has been one of the most effective ways to promote and virally get the word out on links, sites and content on the internet. When security was breached..Facebook took some action in removing the "share" bookmarklet under posts accept for just links..
So when you post an external link..you create an option to allow all who see it to "share" it. Groups don't have this 0ption as they are secure. Our original group page..before they switched over, made it easy to "share". The the current format of groups on Facebook only allows individuals to "subscribe" to the individual posts. This really only shows up on your private newsfeed for you..not for others from you or about you.
SO! Here is what I propose, to make It's Better Handmade more viral like it once was..is to switch us over to a Community page..and out of the group format! The links we are all adding to the group page is only allowing members to see, and not our friends..and friends of friends..unless they join the group.
Many of us only network in our venue..meaning, we add friends who are artists like us..we need that support from others who do what we do. We will keep the group for encouragement, learning, tips and tricks primarily. The new community page will be where the "share" bookmarklet will exist for external links and thus re-establish the viral sharing.
Chatroom Day! A New Weekly Event!
Wednesdays are Chat day, where you can go to one of our Chat Rooms that are all inter connected and ask questions, post links, share videos, meet others live! There is one located here, one at our Social Network and one in the forums for ArtFire Guild members.
You can even pop the chat box out!
You can even pop the chat box out!
What Do You Have?
It's Better Handmade! is all about promoting, training and supporting handmade Artisans. We have seen alot of the dog eat dog market within the handmade world. Many business men will tell you that if you don't offer people something for free, they won't give you the time of day. Unfortunately, that is very true. Few will give you their heart and soul to help you. But when you find one, they are GOLD.
Those are the friends that you walk along side through life, who love you to the end, who support you even when they don't agree with you. Personally, I have few of those in my life. Remember when your Mom said to you, " If you want a friend, be a friend." That is a self-less ideal.
Before It's Better Handmade began less than a year ago, I belonged to a group called On Fire for Handmade. And still am. They were a Ning group. Then they moved a couple of times when Ning decided to charge you for your network. Anne Hopfer is the director for that group. She holds many businesses. She loves making widgets and banners for those members that need help. Her graphics have a scrapbook touch. She is a handmade Scarf designer..and very upscale may I say. She Also has a Gift Guide page that is really cool She does many things.
When I teamed up with Vicki Diane Designs to make a Group on Facebook, The title was inspired from a common moto that Anne would use in her site "It's Better Handmade" . She inspired that Organization title. She inspired me..I wanted to continue the legacy to inspire others.
On August 9th, 2010, when Collections on ArtFire were activated, as a Maven, we were instructed on how to create great Collections that were front page worthy. Kevin often would instruct us on what we were to focus on. One week in August 2010, I got a great idea to make a page for Collections on Facebook. I love ArtFire's logo of the fire. ArtFire doesn't mind us using the title Artfire in anything we do...as long as we don't promote ourselves as the entity, but as the community of ArtFire. They are not really picky about it.
So with that, I made a page called On Fire ArtFire Collections and added Kevin from ArtFire to Admins. Later on, in October, Facebook began to change formats of their pages, structure of their sharing capablities and cleaning out some closets shall we say. That was when our Profiles changed. That day in October when it was time for my profile to be analyzed, I was shut out for half a day. When they opened up my account again there were some changes they had made to my account. They had deleted a couple of my empty pages and recategorized a couple of my other active pages. On Fire ArtFire Collections was recategorized to a Community page. Kevin had later added a great app he built for adding Collections streaming into the page like the kiosk. That was really cool.
A week ago, Anne messaged me that her members were confused about the page, thinking it was hers. She felt like I had infringed upon her name "on Fire". After a few days, our relationship had become stressed over it. As a business person, you can't let people push you around when it comes to your business. Having the special app and Kevin as co Admin really made the issue more complicated. I love using the page. The folllowing was around 150 people, so I couldn't change the name..rules state you can't after your likes reach 100 followers. So I had to decide what was more important, my friendship with Anne, or my ego...and keep the page?
After a day, stressed out and almost loosing my friendship and connection with Anne and her group On Fire for Handmade, I decided that the page I had created, even though no one was posting on it but me, may indeed steal traffic from her site. But deeper than that, I may loose a friend.
...
That just won't do.
...
So, I deleted it, we no longer have that page, On Fire ArtFire Collections...On a brighter side, I wanted to include Treasuries anyway. So there is a win win here.
It's Better Handmade is not self promotional. We are about promoting others. In in industry where sales are come and go..we truly need each other to support us and encourage us. My connection with Anne Hopfer and On Fire for Handmade is far more important than a page on Facebook.
Anne loves contests and features, I love teaching you SEO and leading your business to a healthy level online.
Posted: 3:09pm MST: "I don't know what is going on, but Anne has blocked me from her profile and her group. Wow...I don't know what to say....so much for friendship."
Those are the friends that you walk along side through life, who love you to the end, who support you even when they don't agree with you. Personally, I have few of those in my life. Remember when your Mom said to you, " If you want a friend, be a friend." That is a self-less ideal.
That is the heart of It's Better Handmade.
Before It's Better Handmade began less than a year ago, I belonged to a group called On Fire for Handmade. And still am. They were a Ning group. Then they moved a couple of times when Ning decided to charge you for your network. Anne Hopfer is the director for that group. She holds many businesses. She loves making widgets and banners for those members that need help. Her graphics have a scrapbook touch. She is a handmade Scarf designer..and very upscale may I say. She Also has a Gift Guide page that is really cool She does many things.
When I teamed up with Vicki Diane Designs to make a Group on Facebook, The title was inspired from a common moto that Anne would use in her site "It's Better Handmade" . She inspired that Organization title. She inspired me..I wanted to continue the legacy to inspire others.
On August 9th, 2010, when Collections on ArtFire were activated, as a Maven, we were instructed on how to create great Collections that were front page worthy. Kevin often would instruct us on what we were to focus on. One week in August 2010, I got a great idea to make a page for Collections on Facebook. I love ArtFire's logo of the fire. ArtFire doesn't mind us using the title Artfire in anything we do...as long as we don't promote ourselves as the entity, but as the community of ArtFire. They are not really picky about it.
So with that, I made a page called On Fire ArtFire Collections and added Kevin from ArtFire to Admins. Later on, in October, Facebook began to change formats of their pages, structure of their sharing capablities and cleaning out some closets shall we say. That was when our Profiles changed. That day in October when it was time for my profile to be analyzed, I was shut out for half a day. When they opened up my account again there were some changes they had made to my account. They had deleted a couple of my empty pages and recategorized a couple of my other active pages. On Fire ArtFire Collections was recategorized to a Community page. Kevin had later added a great app he built for adding Collections streaming into the page like the kiosk. That was really cool.
A week ago, Anne messaged me that her members were confused about the page, thinking it was hers. She felt like I had infringed upon her name "on Fire". After a few days, our relationship had become stressed over it. As a business person, you can't let people push you around when it comes to your business. Having the special app and Kevin as co Admin really made the issue more complicated. I love using the page. The folllowing was around 150 people, so I couldn't change the name..rules state you can't after your likes reach 100 followers. So I had to decide what was more important, my friendship with Anne, or my ego...and keep the page?
After a day, stressed out and almost loosing my friendship and connection with Anne and her group On Fire for Handmade, I decided that the page I had created, even though no one was posting on it but me, may indeed steal traffic from her site. But deeper than that, I may loose a friend.
...
That just won't do.
...
So, I deleted it, we no longer have that page, On Fire ArtFire Collections...On a brighter side, I wanted to include Treasuries anyway. So there is a win win here.
It's Better Handmade is not self promotional. We are about promoting others. In in industry where sales are come and go..we truly need each other to support us and encourage us. My connection with Anne Hopfer and On Fire for Handmade is far more important than a page on Facebook.
Anne loves contests and features, I love teaching you SEO and leading your business to a healthy level online.
On Fire for Handmade
Posted: 3:09pm MST: "I don't know what is going on, but Anne has blocked me from her profile and her group. Wow...I don't know what to say....so much for friendship."
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