Sharing Through Social Media ✽ Where Should You Promote?

Well. I spent most of my morning working on Etsy Keywords. Again. I'm so tired of keywords, haha! But each time I do go through them I get just a little bit more visible in the search engines... and this time, I've only worked on my canvases and just finished a couple hours ago, and I'm already seeing results, so I'm very hopeful about that, haha! I've found a really neat tool that maybe I'll share later this month, once I've had the chance to explore it a bit more :)!

Then Mama and I took the little girls shopping and came back home for lunch... and then I tried to start the lawn mower for about 15 minutes :P. Haha. I gave up and came in to eat pie instead, hahaha! And then worked on keywords. Again ;). Bethi made us spaghetti for supper tonight, and about three minutes into the meal, Daddy was like, "You must have done good, Bethi."
Mama and Daddy together: "Everybody is being quiet!"
Mama: "...AND eating."
Lol! And then I came to stalk my own blog, because I couldn't remember how to make banana bread. Those changes I made that time worked, by the way, if I never told y'all that, haha! Emmi was a little smartelic and brought up the time I made banana bread without bananas (yeah, I don't know...), as she told me "Make sure you make the banana bread RIGHT this time, Bri!"
And Andrew announced, "As long as it's not overnight oatmeal, it should be fine!"
Stinkers...

 But now I'm here to work on my blog post for Write31, and I thought since we talked about sharing your shop judiciously yesterday, we would talk about platforms to share it on today :)! I have a confession to make... I'm really. Really. Really. Bad. at advertising on social media :P. It feels attention-hoggy and, sometimes, worthless. But it really is a good idea to grow your shop! So here is some wisdom that I've gathered from other, better sellers, even if I may not be very good at implementing them... I give credit for this post to countless promotion experts who have graciously shared bits and pieces of these tips through their own blogs and forums! Some social media ways to share your shop are...

-Pinterest. Sharing on Pinterest requires good photographs that won't fall to the sidelines compared to all the gorgeousness that Pinterest already holds. But, it's said to be one of the *best* ways to share your items, and you need good photos to sell well on Etsy anyway, so it's definitely something I'm working towards, and you'll want to too! I've heard that
1. Pins are the best way to keep your content in front of people for longer. Your pin will stay actively visible to people for about 3 hours each time it's pinned!
2. People shopping from Pinterest tend to spend more money per purchase than people from any other social media platform!
And really, Pinterest is a place of wonderful DIY, decorating, and crafting ideas that people could spend hours browsing on if they are caught by a new idea for their home or crafting ideas, and is the first place they check when they are looking for those ideas, so it's not much surprise!
When sharing on Pinterest, make SURE you pin "Rich pins". Rich pins are the actual listing pin, from the pin it button on your Etsy, so that it shares your keywords (they'll help you get found on Pinterest too!), your price (which it will change if you decide to offer a discount or realize you were under-pricing, so people are never disappointed!), and will send people right to your listing, even if someone else pins it and changes the caption. You don't want to upload a picture and then just add your shop link to the description :).

-Instagram. I haven't used Instagram yet (the only reason I have one is so I could stalk my best friends -with permission, haha!), but this is another site where people come for eye candy, and so if you have great pictures and make sure to share your link, it could definitely turn into a sale! I follow a couple Etsy shops on Instagram... and I have to admit, their products tempt me when I get on to look up the trip pics a friend has told me she posted ;). I'm in an Etsy group and a lot of people say this is their best drawing social media platform! I think you might only be able to post pictures from your phone, though... and my phone doesn't take eye candy pictures, haha :).

-Facebook. If you have a personal FB account already, it's not hard to create a page for your shop. Then you can easily share your listings, special deals, and interesting tidbits with those people who are interested in your shop, without overloading the friends who don't really care, haha. I do still share the best deals or most exciting news on my personal page, though, because... well, it's a part of my life! I've heard that FB lowers the visibility of posts that are links to external sites. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but just to be on the safe side, I've lately been writing my post, uploading a picture from my files, and then telling people to look for the link in the comments, if I share a listing, instead of using the Facebook "share to FB" button. Another way to use FB is to get into a Etsy Buyer and Seller group. Those are groups where people searching for specific handmade items can ask if the sellers in their group have anything that matches the description of what they are looking for. You can post items that might fit in their thread, and it typically takes your competition from thousands on Etsy to maybe hundreds on the most "all-encompassing" threads on Facebook :).

-Twitter. I really actually don't like Twitter much at all (do you KNOW how hard it is for a wordy person to share A.n.y.t.h.i.n.g. on Twitter?!?!?!? Gah!), but it can be good for your business, especially if you are part of an Etsy team and you all share a hashtag and retweet each others items. Plus, for those followers (or sharers... are there any of those?) who DON'T like a lot of words... well, goodie for them, you were cut off at 140 characters... haha!

-Blogging :)! All the professional blogs seem to use Wordpress... but everybody seems to like blogger better, including readers, so, do what you like... heehee. But you can share so much on your blog, so why not share your Etsy shop too :)? You all may have guessed that that is my favorite platform. I try to use all of them, but sharing what I'm working on just comes so naturally on my blog. It just seems so much more natural to share my projects as I talk about my life than it does out of the blue on Facebook. And you all are kind and don't complain about it, haha :). So thanks for that!

Which platform is best? While Pinterest might get the biggest dollar amount sales, and Instagram works best for a lot of sellers, Facebook is my best traffic generator (with a lot of unheartened work... haha), Twitter is the world of the fast and focused, and Blogging can be the most enjoyable for the seller... the answer is that none of these are the best to use, if you don't enjoy using it! The answer to sharing on social media is to be consistent, and if you enjoy using where you share, you are so much more likely to stay consistent! Pick one and focus on it. You can build from there if you like!

Another tip to sharing on social media? Be you. Don't just share your shop links. Let people see behind the scenes of your shop. Share quotes that mean a lot to you. Share little bits of your day, what you struggle with and enjoy about running your shop, any laughs you get from working on your projects (like the time I almost drank from my glue bottle instead of my water bottle...twice... while quilling ;) ), and other people's shops and projects that you enjoyed looking at! People are going to quickly lose interest if you are constantly asking them to go buy your items and nothing else. But I know that when a person lets me know little bits about themselves, it raises my interested in the products they share, too :)!

What social media platform is your favorite? What humorous stories might you have from running your Etsy shop :)?