Promoting outside of Etsy

[Former_Member]

I have been hearing alot about people promoting off of Etsy for their shops. My question is how do I go about that? I started a facebook page for my shop and I did a fan page but I don't really have very many people on it except my personal friends who already know about my shop. Twitter also I am not really too sure how to go about doing that. I don't think I know anyone on twitter so how do I meet people or get people to join? Any help with promoting off of Etsy would be a great help to me and would be much appreciated!
Thank you

[ConcertinaPress]

One way is to get business cards that mention facebook on them - on the ones I make , I made the facebook part a different color, to make it stand out more (I made these before my friend barbara had a "short URL" which you can get by visiting http://www.facebook.com/username after you have 25 fans. ).

You can include business cards with each order you sell, keep them at your craft show booth, or post them on community bulletin boards.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/74086936/250-artist-photo-business-cards



Another thing I do is I take out paid advertisements with http://www.CraftCult.com and I have a Paper and Stitch shop (http://papernstitch.com/shop/concertina-press) - I've always had good luck with CraftCult.

I've also just started a blog http://ConcertinaPress.blogspot.com and I find that drives a lot of traffic to my etsy shop (and my big cartel site, but big cartel isn't doing that great for me, so I might change that link in my blog to etsy instead of my big cartel shop...not sure) I cross-post links to my blog on my facebook page and twitter (I have a twitter account but I don't LOVE twitter - http://www.twitter.com/ruthbleakley)

All in all, what it comes down to is that a lot of times for online businesses it's 80% marketing 20% making stuff - hopefully others will weigh in with their tips.

[Former_Member]

Twitter is very easy to get going. Open an account with your business name, add Follow me on twitter with your business name to your profile and start following other people. Also, tweet your product Daily. I have 50 followers in under a week and none of them are preexisting friends, they are all new. Give it a shot....

[Former_Member]

ConcertinaPress thank you soo much for your tips and tricks I will try and get a business card going and I will look into the craft cult idea, I have never heard of it! The blog is a great idea as well I love shops that have blogs it makes it easier to conect with the shop owner in some ways! Thank you again for your help your awesome~ :)

[Former_Member]

throughthenexus I will give Twitter a try thank you for telling me how it works because when I went on there I was lost!!!

[Former_Member]

ConcertinaPress: thanks for the info. I'll check your blog for sure; I'll also check the other sites you mentioned.

As for Twitter, I like it a lot. I must admit it took me a while to get the mood, but now it's my best online promo friend.

To answer FrancesAndManCrafts, to have followers on Twitter you start by following a bunch of people which interests might be similar to yours and your business. One way to find people is to look at http://wefollow.com/ which lists Twitter users by categories. You tweet your new listings, your moods, engage in open conversations with other by replying to their tweets and in no time, you get followers.

By all means avoid over-tweeting your listings because it really gets annoying (by that I mean something like 10 tweets in a row being just listings). People like to get to know one another and you definitely need to add variety to your tweets. In no time you'll get more followers than you could dream of!

I'm at 106 followers and very happy with that. Twitter doesn't necessarily means sales though. But it helped me gained more than 500+ monthly visitors to my shop! Eventually one will like what's there and hit the Add to Cart button.

[Former_Member]

Thank you for the website I am looking at it right now!

[Former_Member]

I have facebook, twitter and a blog! I don't have much going with facebook because I think instead of opening a business fan page, I did a personal account again and I'm not sure how to fix it as of now......
And I think you should totally give twitter a try, I opened my twitter account not too long ago and had 55 followers now, if you want, after you open your twitter, we can follow each other.
And the other thing is blog! I started my blog about a week ago and tried to let people on Etsy know about it, and so far I had 9 followers and had set up blog features with other blogger. And google seem to give higher priority to blogs so if you post about your items and give links to your shop, when you gain readers to your blog, you are gaining potential buyers! Check my blog out: http://pingypiejewelry.blogspot.com/
Give it a try, hope it works well for you!

[Former_Member]

Perfect! Thank you ! I really enjoyed your blog and I will try and find you on twitter.. It just soo confusing. However I think I can help you with the facebook thing. I created an actual whole acount and a fan page also so if you want me to help you I will ! Thanks again!

[Former_Member]

https://www.etsy.com/listing/487322026/womens-boho-skirts-maxi-dress-gypsy?ref=related-3