Promoting Handmade Crafts on Facebook

A Facebook business page is an effective way of not only meeting potential customers of our crafts, it can also be used as a tool for keeping in contact with past customers. The use of Facebook business pages as a marketing tool for promoting handmade crafts can be extremely valuable and I hope the following will help to show how effective it can be.



I started my Shpangle Jewellery Facebook page for my jewellery business about a year ago, and to be honest I didn’t realise how effective it could be and pretty much left it alone. Within a very short period of time I noticed my customers were starting to follow the page and after a while this number grew to the level it is today; almost 550 followers, the majority of which are my customers.



I strongly believe that all forms of social media have their place in the marketing of our handmade crafts. In fishing terms, it isn’t necessarily the rod that you use, but the type of bait and of course, patience. I relate the likes of Twitter to fly-fishing; you whip your line in and out of the stream with the attempt of catching that Salmon. Whilst Facebook on the other hand, is a bit like being a Trawlerman; you cast your net into the deep ocean and over time it begins to fill.

The Benefits of Promoting Handmade Crafts on Facebook

In my mind the use of Facebook as a marketing tool for promoting crafts has the following benefits over other forms of social media marketing.

1) It is extremely visual. Pretty much all of our crafts are visual and often a photograph speaks a thousand words. With Facebook and the use of product photographs and related text it is fairly easy to build up a pictorial story of your work and portfolio of your handmade goods. Generally, people like to see photographs rather than short snippets of text.

2) It has longevity. A product photograph or announcement posted onto the wall stays there and remains there for all to see for days, months and years! Quite often I have discovered comments made on photographs and other announcements made many weeks after the initial event.

3) Communicating to the masses. Rather than having a conversation with just one person it is clear and easy to communicate to several people simultaneously. It is very much like having a newsletter with which the recipients can give instant feedback. For example, I often post details about new product releases and quite often get immediate feedback from people asking for further information.

4) Other business pages. It only takes one happy customer to recommend your product or services on another popular business/organisation Facebook page and before you know it your page has become popular amongst people who have a genuine interest in your product.

5) My customers are there. With over 30 million UK Facebook users (half of the UK population) and the majority of them using it every day, Facebook has a huge reach! The other great thing about Facebook, is that it covers such a wide spectrum of people, ages and interests.

6) It is dynamic. A Facebook business page is similar to a website; it says a lot about you and your products, but has the benefit of forever changing. I often receive customer testimonials left on my Facebook page rather than my website.

How to get more followers to your Facebook Page

Personally I would focus on natural likes for a Facebook business page rather than just likes for the sake of having numbers. I would rather have a few people who engage with my content than hundreds that don’t and these natural followers will have an interest in what I have to say!



Yes, there are plenty of methods out there for enticing followers but there is no point if they do not have any interest; you really want people who have an interest in your business and share your content with others, and generally spread the word!

Some methods of making it easier for people who have an interest in your business to find you on Facebook include:

1) Add Facebook buttons to your website and blog.
2) Connect your twitter and Facebook feeds together so that they are updated simultaneously.
3) Specify your Facebook page link on emails, business cards and related forum signatures.
4) Post fresh informative content regularly to your page.
5) Post a signature to your Facebook page on other related Facebook walls.
6) Always interact with your audience and acknowledge comments etc.

I hope you find that useful and for anybody considering setting up a Facebook business page; please give it a go, as like me you may be pleasantly surprised with the results.

If you have any other comments or suggestions on how best to utilise Facebook for promoting our crafts please let me know.

Mick

Cat Bookmark from Cute Kids Clocks

Last week I was informed by Jenna over at Cute Kids Clocks blog that I had won her blog giveaway! How exciting! It is not very often I get to win something and I was given the choice of a handmade animal bookmark or keyring. I decided on having a cat bookmark so that I could give it to my daughter; she loves both reading and cats so thought it would be appropriate for her.

The cat bookmark arrived a couple of days ago and I was initially impressed by how beautifully packaged and presented it was, complete with a handmade card that Jenna also sells from her website.


The Cat bookmark itself is made from hand-stitched felt; it is beautifully stitched and is lightly stuffed. The attention to detail is immense from the stitched ribbon to the decorative spiral of the wire fastener. My daughter loves it, to such an extent that she didn’t want to take it to school in case she damaged it!


Please visit Cute Kids Clocks website to see her range of handmade gifts and homewares, including her range of children’s clocks that are again all hand-stitched, fun and colourful.

Thank you again Jenna!

Mick

Messages of Hope Necklaces

My first sale of jewellery from my online shop in 2012 was actually on New Year’s Day, when a gentleman purchased a necklace for his partner. I remember it well as I noticed at the time that the delivery address on the invoice was different to the billing address and that I had asked him if he wanted it gift wrapping.

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by the same lady who had received the pendant. She firstly thanked me for the necklace however then informed me that her partner had sadly lost his fight to a brain tumour earlier that week.

She wanted to thank the nurses from the hospice that had looked after her partner by giving them some of my jewellery. Obviously I was honoured and we decided that I would make name on rice necklaces for them. Each of the necklaces would contain the word ‘Hope’ written onto a single grain of rice and that I would make them all different with the inclusion of flowers, glitter and various other sparkly things!

So here are all fifteen of the hope necklaces that I made for the nurses at the hospice; I hope they like them!




If you would like to see more of my name on rice jewellery and perhaps read about how they are made, please visit my name on rice jewellery website page.

Mick

Baby Keepsake – Birth Celebration Necklace

I had a lovely custom jewellery order to complete last week. I was sent a selection of baby keepsakes, presumably that had been kept within the baby box and I was asked to make a birth celebration necklace with some of the items.

The necklace design I produced was this; a rectangular shaped pendant with the baby items encapsulated within resin and a little bit of glitter. The baby items that were used included a ‘love and kisses’ label from the baby's first coat, a piece of purple ribbon from the baby's blanket, a strip of card from her birth announcement card and sequins from her first Christmas.


Now that was the finished pendant but here is the original design that I sent to the customer before making the pendant. Can anyone spot the deliberate mistake? Ok, perhaps not deliberate but nobody is perfect!



She loved the pendant and what a great way of not only preserving those baby keepsakes but also providing a wearable piece of jewellery for the little girl when she is older.

Mick

Hello Mr Snowman

Now where do I start? Well, I was awake at a very early hour this morning with my head swimming with jewellery related thoughts. And whilst I waited for my family to awake I thought I would write my weekly blog post and this is what I ended up with....a poem? Or is it a verse? Not sure really because I did fail my English O-Level the first time around.

So here goes, this was inspired by our Mr Snowman who sadly melted away recently.

Hello Mr Snowman standing tall and proud
You look mighty handsome with snow all around
With your bottle top eyes and carrot for your nose
But don’t you get cold not wearing many clothes?



And as the snow around you started to melt away
You just kept on going to see another day
I apologise for removing your scarf, hat and gloves
But staying warm in winter is one of my loves.



Bye Bye Mr Snowman and please come again
And for next time a new carrot I will try to obtain
When the snow falls again and sticks to the floor
We will see your face smiling back at us once more.

Thanks for reading!

Mick

Unusual custom made jewellery requests

I have been really busy since Christmas with custom requests for my jewellery that sometimes I don’t know how I am managing to fit it all in! Some of it may be due to the run-up to Valentines’ day, with the usual love heart sweet pendant requests and some probably because word-of-mouth is spreading.

Amongst the requests I have had a few unusual jewellery designs. I love making every single one of my pendants but when a custom jewellery order comes along for something a little bit different, I find it exciting and sometimes challenging!

The first pendants I am going to show off are these resin pendants that contain Silver Birch tree bark. These are extremely important for the family who asked for them because the bark was taken from a tree with great sentimental value.



The second pendant contains the world’s smallest rubber duck, along with a miniature dice (to represent the birth day), and is bordered by two locks of hair.



The next piece of memorial jewellery was interesting to make; the pendant contains the ashes from a much loved pet and I was asked to make it gothic looking.



Finally a keyring containing salad! I have incorporated miniature slices of cucumber, tomatoes, egg, onion, lettuce and even celery into the charm.



...great for those watching their weight or if you are just fond of salad! The salad keyring has given me inspiration for a new range of unusual jewellery so watch this space!

Mick

Featured Artist - Equine photography by Hoof Behind the Lens

The really nice thing about making custom jewellery for people is that I often meet some lovely people that I may not otherwise have met. This happened last year when I was asked to make some horse hair jewellery for Nell Best who lives in Cumbria. Nell is an equine photographer and travels the area and beyond taking beautiful photographs of peoples horses. She started her equine photography business ‘Hoof Behind the Lens’ last year at the age of 16 and it is going from strength to strength.

I asked Nell if she could do a little interview that I could share with you and thankfully she agreed. All the photos below were taken and kindly given to me by Nell.

Firstly can you tell us a little about yourself?

Right, Hoof Behind The Lens is an equine photography business based in Kendal, Cumbria and owned by Nell Best. I am an equine photographer and I take photos of horses out at shows, at home with their owners and also offer photography for horses that are for sale, so that owners have photos that will best show off their horses to potential buyers. I offer prints of the photos that I take, in various sizes, both normal and poster sizes and can mount photos if required. I cover the areas in and around Cumbria but am willing to travel if there is a demand for it.



Whatever kind of shoot I do, I strive to create beautiful photos that owners will be able to treasure forever.

My website is Equine photography by Hoof Behind the Lens
and I am also on Facebook at Hoof behind the Lens on Facebook or Search for Hoof Behind The Lens - Equine Photography.



You take beautiful photographs of horses, how did you come to learn your art?

Thank you. Well I've been at it for a while really, I started taking photos of my horse Bella when I got her in May 2010, just on a little compact camera, and took more and more, but I got frustrated that I couldn't be that creative with a compact camera, and couldn't get the quality of photographs I was aiming for. Then in December 2010 a friend of my Dad's had a Canon DSLR camera he had owned for a couple of months but not used, and he said he saw my talent from the photos and asked me if I would like it. So since then really I've just kept at it, taking photos daily, mostly of my very patient horse (and model!), Bella.



I then set up Hoof Behind The Lens in March 2011, really as something to take my mind off things as I had recently lost my Grandma, and it grew from there, with more and more people wanting photo-shoots. So it's just endless practice really that's got me where I am now, and I still have a long way to go!



What inspires you?

I'm inspired by horses in general really, just the way they move, interact with both people and other horses, and just generally everything about them. I think they're stunning creatures, and I strive to create photos that reflect that. There's not really a main human figure that inspires me, there are many Equine Photographers that I look up to, including Tim Flach and Bob Langrish, but I am mainly inspired by the beauty of the equine species itself.



What's your favourite photograph you have taken and why?

You know what, I really couldn't pick. I do have a few that I really love, nearly all of those are of my own horse but really, I love all the photos that I take, and am just as excited about the ones I've taken and love already, as the ones I haven't even taken yet, because I want to take better photos each time.



Do you have any tips for anyone starting a photography business?

I'd say just practice really, keep on taking photos, never stop, and always look critically at your work and try to see what you could do better - then do it! Start doing shoots for friends and family, and start up a website and/or Facebook page as they're great publicity, and get the word out about your business. I started from nothing not even a year ago now, and now I've got a successful little business at the age of 16, just by getting out there, taking as many photos as I could and getting the word out that I'm different. Also, never ever give up! It's a hard business because everyone nowadays has a camera, but keep at it and you can only improve!



What is my favourite photograph?

Well that is an easy one for me but I am biased! Nell posted this photo onto my Facebook page last week. It is a photograph she too of the pendant I made for her last year and it is awesome!



Oh and this one!



Nell has definitely got a photographic talent and business awareness that will see her good for the future and is definitely someone to look out for. She is also already a great role model and inspiration for any young person who wishes to start a business.

Thank you again Nell for letting me share your equine photography story so far....

Mick