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.