Hobby & Craft Forums

[Nickie]

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Please don't rush out for an eye test- seeing really is believing and we finally have the blog up and running! It's taken much longer than expected but better late than never so they say!

'So what have you been up to' you might ask? Well the answer to that would be 'lots and lots' but mainly we've been concentrating our efforts on a new website selling craft related items and kits. It's not finished yet but we're hoping to have it finished in the next couple of months or so and we'll be sure to let you know when we're ready to launch.

In the mean time, we've been selling some of our kits on ebay- we're still having a nightmare photographing them however so the pictures aren't the best they could be. One of our best sellers has been our Pandora style bracelet kit priced at only £14.99 including postage. Our feedback on them has been phenomenal and every time we've ordered them in, they've sold out in a matter of days.

Payvment store front- Facebook

We've also set up a store on Facebook? Heard of them? One of the very kind members on the forum put us onto this (thanks Lajoni)! It really couldn't be more simple to set up- just download the Payvment application and store front and you're away! And the best thing about it is that it's completely free- what have you got to lose but a few spare minutes of your time! You can even link your Etsy store to it and take payments via Paypal! We've only managed to add a couple of products so far as we wanted to test out just how easy/difficult this application was to use but found it really easy to use. You can see our Craft Kit Central store here if you'd like to see an example of how your store might look before you dive in and create your own! Oh, and don't forget to set your fan page landing url to your store- this way everyone who visits your fan page gets to see what you have on offer and just might spot something they can't live without! If sales aren't your main aim then leave your landing url as it is like we have at Hobby and Craft Forums.

Link Love- Facebook

Forum member Lajoni also put us onto Link Love which is fab for link building and acquiring more fans for your fan pages on Facebook. Just looking at the forum statistics since I started posting links through this great idea really does prove it works. We've had some really useful members join the forum out of it too. This is a great idea but be warned, it takes a lot of effort and time to get what you want out of it and there's also been reports of people being banned on Facebook because they're posting too many links. This hasn't happened to us yet and we're currently 'getting away with' 30 links per day but there appears to be no information or guidance Facebook as to how many links per day/week etc is acceptable. Please let us know if you find any info relating to this so we can update everyone!

Link Love works by allowing others to post on your discussion board within your fan page. You must create a discussion especially for this purpose but you can call it whatever you like as long as it's clear what it's for- most people have simply created their discussion with the title Link Love.  This is so other crafters can leave their links in your discussion. Some crafters participating in Link Love networking have made it easier for their visitors than others by creating a master list of links to others fan pages who already have the relevant Link Love discussions set up. Don't forget though, for this to work and publicise others pages (as they will be doing with yours), you need to 'like' the persons fan pages you are posting your link on- and that means all of them!

Well, that's it for now folks- I'll be back soon awaiting another glass eye to put to sleep lol!

Tags: Facebook, Link Love, Payvment, Payvment store front, Using Facebook for link building, Using Facebook to increase sales, Using Facebook to link build
Posted under: Uncategorized

[MikeSeddon]

Hi Nickie,

Well done!

If you want to give your blog an SEO boost then you might find some of the tips and tricks in an old blog post I wrote about 2 years ago. It's still useful.

http://www.kksmarts.com/blog/seo-wordpress-blogs/

Hope that helps

Mike

[sunrisecards]

this all sounds very interesting
I've set up store on facebook as well , just no sales yet

[Nickie]

Yes, it'd be really good to know how others are getting on with it wouldn't it- how many sales and/or hits on their stores etc if they've not got it set to their landing page. For me and the forum, it's not appropriate to set my landing page as my store so I might set up another fan page specifically for the jewellery. It means link building for the 2 pages then however which would be a complete nightmare lol!

[ladymuppet]

Thanks Nickie

Very useful information..........I will give it a go

[RogerRabbit]

I wouldn't waste more than 5 minutes a day on Facebook promotion!

You're not Cadbury's Warner Bros or Coca Cola, etc...

It's as bad as using this Etsy crap I see mentioned on here and Ebay to an extent. You're relying far too much on the short to medium term on quick sales and not enough on brand loyalty. You see it's like getting a shop within a huge shopping mall. Fine, there are a lot of visitors because they all visit the mall and you get a few folk popping in on their way past. But do they buy? Not all of them because they were browsing around waiting out the rain until their bus arrives. But what happens if the mall shuts? You do too I'm afraid! So what do you do about it? Do you go for get rich quick in the mall, or do you use it as a stepping stone to promote your own external activities such as your main shop which exists out on the edge of town where nobody shops very often? Waiting for the Google Building Contractors to come and build a really nice flashing sign that says "We like this shop, we suggest you go and shop there". Because Google Building Contractors say you're worth a look, people will find you eventually.

Likewise with Ebay, people browse because there's no end of stores on there and if they do give you an analytics or enable you to use external analytics programs. Then you'll see a lot of visitors but a very small amount of sales i would assume but anyway... My point is, by using a third-part i.e. Facebook/Ebay/Etsy to sell, you are relying on this external company to give a rats bottom about you and your existence. Unless you're a huge money earner for them, you wont get anywhere quick. Even worse, you're at their mercy! If they up the price to list your items, you're screwed! You have to comply or ship out! You wont get brand loyalty, you wont build customer relations because if one of your competitors sees you're selling on one of these third-party websites, they can muscle in as soon as the application form and the email address have been confirmed. But building up your website through paying somebody to do it for you or hardwork learning the ins and outs of good web design will however mean that you have the upper hand. It takes months and years to prove to Google et al that you are the best website in your niche! Nobody else can see you're selling jewellery or soap or cards or whatever it is you folks sell, and then expect to be up on page one with you all...

[Lighthousegirl]

That is an interesting perspective

For someone looking at their web strategy there are a large number of things to look at and a large number of factors to balance, so what is right for one person and one business is not always right for someone else.

It is important that your strategy starts from a customer centric perspective - what is it they are looking for, where do they go to look for it (facebook for example is turning in some impressive figures at the moment, and while its no google yet, people are spending a lot of time there, but they may or may not be the people who you are looking for) what will they want to see when they get there, what will be appealing to them etc etc. So I guess if your customers look for your type of products on etsy then etsy may well be the place to be while you build market awareness, and potentially alongside other web presences. On top of that you also have to balance factors such as cost, personal technical capability, maintenance time etc etc etc

Its not a simple question and as my old boss (CIO Director at one of the large coprorates Roger mentions!) there are as many solutions to a technology question as there are people in the room, its all about finding the one that is right for you right now.

[ladymuppet]

Hi Roger

I see what you say but everyone has to start somewhere, as the forum is titled hobby and craft forum its highly unlikely that all of us can pay hundreds
to build a website and get it ranked high. I make jewellery and have a website and it is very hard on a small budget with little understanding of SEO and webbuilding to just rely on my web without a third party .

Maybe you could explain a bit clearer for those of us who are computer iliterate how to get that hobby site ranked in the top ten