News and Things To Expect

Happy February, Rats! Instead of Mosaic Monday, I'm going to give every a run down of upcoming events, and team links that you may have missed.

In case you missed our last virtual lab meeting, we discussed things we would like to do/see more of in 2010. As some of you know, we already have a team forum thread on etsy, feel free to post whatever you'd like, whenever you'd like!

Are you on Twitter? Follow us, and even better, want other rats to see your tweets? Include #sqk in them, it's our team hash tag on there!

How about Flickr? It's a photo sharing site, and we have our own group on there. Just request to join, and you'll be approved, usually same day! Once your there, you can upload your photos to the team for other members to see.

The team also has a Facebook Fan Page, post any thing you'd like - photos for critiques, exciting news, questions or ideas.

And lastly, I started a google group specifically for the rats, where you can, more privately, discuss things that you may not want in the Etsy forums.

Our NEXT virtual lab meeting is scheduled. It will be Tuesday, February 16 at 3:30pm EST! This meeting's topic is Tag and Title help/critiques and improving your SEO (search engine optimization). Come by for help or to give help!

Now, as for 2010. We have lots of awesome things in store!

First up, our Spring Giveaway! I have already notified those who will be participating this time around, but thanks to everyone that applied! I'm so thrilled that people were so eager to help out and have a little fun. We have 8 shops that will be giving almost $200 worth of free swag! How awesome is that? In two weeks, we will start revealing who they are, with mini-interviews with the artists, too.

We will also be having another challenge in the summer. Feel free to contact me with any ideas you have for  the challenge, including theme or prize. This won't begin until mid-spring, so back of the mind it ;-)

Also look for more How-Tos and craft tutorials this year. If you would like to make a video or write an article (or both!) on a specific technique that you have down, shoot me a convo or e-mail and pitch your story! I'd LOVE to have other people teach how to do things (even if it's something like properly utilizing twitter, or sewing a button, I'm open). Should it be really involved or super neat, I may even ask for you to hold a Lab meeting!


Speaking of pitching stories, I am also opening the Lab Rat blog to ideas for articles/ghost-writers. If you have an article related to Etsy, creating, promotion, crafting, etc, send a rough draft to our team e-mail and we can discuss.

Finally, remember our trunk show? We will be having another one near Christmastime this year, but I am planning on contacting other team leaders to see if they would be interested in holding a multi-team trunk show, allowing more, fresh eyes and potential customers to see what each other's teams have to offer! I will begin contacting them in the summer and want to make this big, organized and tons of fun!

 A big thank you to lushboutique (Jenni) and nightowlcraftworks (Sally) for being amazing co-leaders! Without them, this team would never be as on top of things (or successful!) as it is right now. You ladies are amazing :-)