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 :)?

Etsy Conversion Rates ✽ Are You Sharing Your Items With People Interested in Buying?

One of the ways that Etsy determines whether a shop is doing well or not is by conversion rates. The better your conversion rate, the more likely your listing are to be placed higher in the search results, because Etsy wants best sellers to be placed first; they make money every time something sells, so it's a good idea to make sure good sellers are seen.

Conversion is determined by how many sales you in 100 views of your shop. Every time someone clicks on your shop page or an individual listing, that becomes one of your views. Whether they buy it after clicking or not determines how it plays into your conversion.

Etsy considers a good conversion rate to be 3%, or three orders out of every 100 times your shop is visited. An average conversion rate is 1%. The best way to decide where your conversion rate falls is to go to your shop dashboard, and under the stats section, choose to view stats for the last 30 days, and divide that number by the number of orders you have received. That is your conversion rate!

If you are having no views or sales at all, you probably want to work on your SEO or your photos. People either aren't finding you because your keywords aren't working, or they aren't interested in your thumbnail when they see it.

If you are having a lot of views but no sales, you might want to check your pricing, your descriptions (people might not be buying because they aren't sure of the details of what you are selling), or make sure that you are advertising to the right group of people, and they are clicking through, but not really in your target market, so they just lurk, rather than really consider buying your items.

Sharing your items through social media and Etsy teams is good, and something you really should consider! Etsy encourages it, and it can bring people who wouldn't otherwise see your items but are truly interested in them to Etsy.

You want to be careful, though, that you aren't simply sharing to get seen. There are some people (I was guilty of this, too, until I looked into it!) who share their items with other sellers just so that they can trade likes on their items. The reasoning for this is that the more hearts your item has, the better your "engagement" rate is. But if people are JUST visiting it items to like items to get a like, this is actually worse for your conversion rates than it is good for your engagement rates. "Generic" views, views from people truly interested in your product, are all you need :)!

Selling on Etsy ✽ Mailing your Orders

When you get an order and go to package it up, there is more to think about than the cheapest way to mail and how to get it sent, though those are important. It's also a good idea to think of presentation, professionalism, and going above and beyond for your customer!

Some ways to do this are...
-Carefully packaging your items so that they arrive in good condition. Nothing is more disappointing when buying online than receiving your order broken or incorrect.
-Including the packing slip you can print from Etsy with your shipping label. This allows the customer to be sure of what they ordered if a mistake is made, and makes you seem a little more confident as a seller.
-Printing your shipping label from Etsy's site. Not just to save money, but also to continue to brand yourself as an Etsy Seller when they receive their order!
-Include coupons as a "thank you" for their purchase... and to hopefully get them to come back ;). I created some coupons that match my social media setup for shop graphics, to create a cohesive "branding".
-Take the time to add a handwritten thank you note for their purchase. This is a good place to ask for a review, nicely and as a favor, not a demand (I hate when people demand good reviews, haha), and to let them know you would be happy to help them again :)!
-For special orders (like #30, #50, #100, etc) or for orders of larger dollar amounts then usual, or whenever you might want to just give your customer an extra day brightener, a free sample of one of your smaller items is always fun to receive!

What ways do you use to make your packaging stand out? What was the most uniquely special package you have received from a small seller :)?

Selling Custom Orders on Etsy ✽ Variation Options

(I didn't get my blog post up yesterday, oops! I was busy working on a custom order for Under the Tapestry... haha! That post was begun though, and so it will be finished up as an extra after the month is over :).)

Selling ready to ship items is nice in that when the order comes in, you just package it up and schedule a pick-up, and that's that. But I really enjoy making custom items, as well. It's really fun to make the perfect item for someone to give as a gift!

There are a few ways to make custom items through your shop. If custom items are something you want to offer, you might want to go to Shop Manager>Settings>Shop Options, and you can turn on the "Request Custom Order" button option. Then buyers can request a customization from your shop page.

There is also a button to ask the seller a question, and you can offer in your description that they can convo you with any requests they might have.

Once you've talked about options for customization with prospective buyers, they can either purchase the original item they contacted you about, if you are doing all changes free of charge, or you can create a new listing if a price change is needed.

If you need to create a new listing, you have two options. You can click "make this a custom order" in the conversation box you have been working out the details in, which will create a private listing for them to order, which Etsy will notify them has been set up. The other option, if for some reason you do not have a conversation to use as a custom order base (say, it's for a church member, you have been discussing the possibility of changes on one of your social media platforms, etc), you can create a regular listing for the customer, and just email them yourself when it is available. It's a good idea, using this option, to title your listing "Reserved for ----", or "Custom Order for ----", so that nobody else buys it first ;). Some people even put a generic shop icon picture instead of a picture of the product, that way no searchers see a neat looking picture and order it. It's up to you.

I offer canvases that are made with quotes of the buyer's choosing, with several color options for the background and the text color. This has been a best seller in my shop, and people enjoy being able to make that personalized gift. Several people have come to me with additional changes they wanted made, though, and it has been neat to see how this simple starting point gets people's minds turning! I've customized the font, made the canvas horizontal rather than vertical, and my favorite canvas orders were the ones that I later took and made into my other customizable canvas option, the Family canvas! I'm considering listing a few more custom canvas listings as more "springboard" points, based off of the frequent questions I have received :).

Another option is to not offer customizations, but to offer variations. If you sell multiple colors, sizes, or item counts of things that cannot actually be changed in their design, setting up variations when you create your listings gives you those options to allow set changes within pre-set boundaries. It's a simple operation; it's one of the optional boxes when you post your item. You can create variations that have a price change (works well for different counts and sizes), and a way to be turned disabled later down the road (so that if you run out of one color of yarn, you don't have to cancel an order for that color). Disabling removes the option from the drop down menu from buyers, but allows it to stay listed on your side, to be reactivated when you get a replacement of the option. Variations are nice to use as a seller, too, because you can list multiple items for one listing fee!

Do you offer custom orders? If you could make a change to the custom canvases I sell, what would it be?

Reviews on Etsy ✽ An Important Aspect to Building Trust

One of the things that is going to help people decide to buy from your Etsy shop is going to be having good reviews! If they get to hear others excited to share that you were an awesome person to order from, it will help build that confidence that you'll work well with them, as well! Obviously, you don't have a lot of say over people giving your reviews. They either will, or they won't. You can give them a little nudge to think of doing so, but ultimately they'll decide whether the time is worth it to give back to you. So how do you make that time worth it? You become a seller worth giving great reviews to! Go above and beyond, and always do everything in your power to make sure the customer is getting what they are paying for!

-Don't make promises you can't keep. Make sure your product is as stated, make sure your shipping estimates are realistic, and don't tell someone that you can definitely do something when you mean you can *try* to do something!

-Do NOT let your items seem better than they really are before the person is holding them. Make sure you are certain what your products are made of and what it includes. Make sure the quantity is what they expect, ect. Be honest!

-Mail your orders out ahead of time. This really grabs people's attention! It's always nice to get what you ordered ahead of time, instead of constantly having to worry about whether it will arrive in time, if it's even on it's way to you, because it just feels like it's taken for.EVER to get here... it's really appreciated!

-If you make items that can be changed up slightly, you may want to consider allowing your buyers to have an option to change those! And I personally love offering completely custom orders. My Family Goals Canvas was actually originally my regular Custom Quote Canvas, but two ladies came to me separately, asking if a larger one could be made with phrases rather than quotes, and it was a neat idea :). The more your customers get to know you, and the more you go out of your way for them, the more involved with your shop they feel, and it really makes the worth of their review go up in their own eyes, I think!

-Make your package special. Don't just mail them their order, put a little effort into making it seem like a gift box than just something they earned. This will look different for each seller; I'll share what I include in my packages tomorrow :).

While you don't have a say in who writes your reviews, or if they even will... your actions are chiefly responsible in determining whether their review will be average, poor, or glowing! Outstanding service will often be rewarded with a review; a review makes future customers a little more willing to make their purchase!

And it is perfectly alright to tell them you would appreciate a review in their package... a lot of people don't think about how important it is for small sellers to get them! I also like to convo buyers after they should have received their item; it helps me be proactive about any issues, it gives me another chance to make sure they know I am available to help them with their order, and, they often take the initiative while already on the site to go ahead and rate your shop when they answer your convo :)!

How do reviews change your view of a shop? What would you do to create outstanding customer service?