Notes From The Meeting: Social Networking; Facebook

Continuing with our notes from our last Virtual Lab meeting, this week we are going to review Facebook. I consider facebook to be the inbetween step of twitter and a blog. It's a little more in-depth than twitter, but not as much as a blog. It allows you to upload photos into albums, and give direct updates about your work/life to your fans.

First things first, you will need a personal account before you can have a business fan page. If you already have a personal page, you're good to go. If not, click on that picture and get started on your personal page! If you prefer privacy, just sign up but don't load any pictures/info.

Alright, you have your personal page - now onto the business!

This is what the top of the business page will look like, click on the picture to go write to the page to create one. This page has an overview, and steps on creating the page. It's super helpful and easy to understand.

MichMade (who has over 200 fans) gives this tip on gaining fans: Friends, friends friends! Add your friends as fans, have them comment on your photos and page, so their comments will appear in their friend's feeds, allowing more people to see you. Soon their friends will fan you, and so on and so on. To turn fans into buyers, MichMade gives a code to all new fans for a 15% discount in her shop - she says this has worked great for her.

Now you have some fans, it's time to upload some pictures! Decide what pictures you are going to upload, and make some albums. My recommendation is to choose the best photos you have and upload those.

If you can, take alternative photos to what are in your shop. Give them something additional to look at. If not, choose the absolute best photo of your item and post those. Make sure your captions link to the item it shows or your store.

Having a business page allows you to send an update to all of your friends. This is a wonderful feature to use when you are having a sale, giveaway or are going to be at a local show. It alerts everyone you sent it to, it's basically a newsletter for your fans! Extremely useful. Just don't go overboard with sending them out, you'll lose fans.

SimplyInvitingCards shares the love and uses her fan page to list an item she loves from etsy every Monday-Friday. Doing this is not only quite nice, but she says more often than not, the seller she features will become a fan of her page and other sellers will fan her in hopes to have their items featured, too!

Use your photos to show exclusive views of new items you will be adding, and having photos of your works in progress is a great idea, too!

Don't be shy - if you are in a gift guide, front page, the storque, or a gorgeous treasury, show your fans! Everyone loves to share your excitement.

I would recommend keeping your personal and professional pages separate. Feel free to upload pictures of you wearing your creations, at a craft show or making things, but I would keep photos of you at a party or your cats on your personal page - it could turn off potential buyers.

Use those note to buyers! I include links to my blog, twitter, and facebook. I have gained fans this way, saying they were interested in future deals I may have.

Keep it professional, and update frequently without spamming. Have nice photos and interact!

Have more tips? Tell us in the comments! And feel free to link to your facebook fan page's there, too.

Notes From The Meeting: Social Networking; Twitter

Thanks again to everyone who came to the meeting on Social Networking - it was a pretty big turn out! Here are some notes I put together on the topic for those of you who couldn't make it. To keep these posts from being ridiculously long, I am going to do them in steps. I am starting with twitter, and later this week I will post the ones on facebook, blogging and etc. sites. So, stay tuned for this series!

 

If you have absolutely nothing else social networking wise, it should be twitter. It's a fast, efficient way to connect with others and it's really simple to update. Twitter is called "micro-blogging", and it's simply mini updates about whatever you want to post.

-Keep it interesting. No one wants to read about just your shop, over and over again. Think of your twitter as a television show. For 90% of it, you want to entertain people (with links to good articles, funny blogs or pictures, or a good video to watch), but for the other 10%, put a commercial in there for the hottest new product in your shop. Basically, give people a reason to want to follow you & be yourself!

-REPLY TO PEOPLE. It is entirely frustrating to @ or DM someone and not hear back. There are links on the right side to check who @ or DMed you if you are missing it.

 -To get followers, start by finding people you already know on twitter and follow them. Post a link to your twitter everywhere - shop announcement, message to buyer, e-mail. I include a link in my message to buyer (along with a link to my blog and facebook), alerting them of special promos, deals and giveaways. There are also sites to join for your twitter business. twibes.com, twibs.com and a good article with links on tips here!

-Follow only people you want. There is no need to go on a follow frenzy and follow everyone, I did this at first and my twitter page was just obnoxious to keep up with. I now have it slimmed down to people I enjoy hearing from, and I do add new people every now and then.

-Follow etsy and etsy admin. @Etsy @daniellexo @TeenAngster @marymarytweets are good ones to start with!

-Announce specials, sales or deals. Do this more than one time, but not back to back. Post a notice in the morning and late afternoon, this ensures you are hitting mulitple timezones without being obnoxious.

-Lately, there as been a LOT of spam and virus' going around on twitter. If you are posting a link, don't just post the link. I am INCREDIBLY hesitant to click on twitter links as is, so if you're trying to link to a new item, but want to keep it a surprise, just post something like "New listing [link]" or "I almost couldn't give up this new item [link]".

-Whenever I find a blog/website I enjoy, I always try to find their twitter. Not only will it update me when there is a new post, but I can talk directly (or as close to directly) with the writer and build a relationship. This is excellent promotion for your business if you manager to get a retweet or a mention in a blog/on a website. In addition, should they ask for people to promote on their blog/site, you will hear first word from them!

Peek back later this week, continuing this series with discussion on Facebook. If you have any more twitter tips, feel free to post them in the comments!