I've been recently looking for more ways to increase my exposure as a wire wrap artisan and I've noticed that there is a real dearth of material geared to those who might be buyers. Most people I talked to didn't really have much knowledge about what makes what I do so unique and creative. The team post that I created several months ago:
http://etsymeetntweet.blogspot.com/2013/07/6-twitter-tips-to-help-get-you-noticed.html was posted to this teams blog (Thank you very much!) and it surprisingly drove quite a bit of non- etsyian traffic to my shop. So to kill two birds with 1 wire wrapped stone (so to speak) I decided to create my own buzz. I took my existing Wordpress blog, added a creative category and started jotting down info that would hopefully answer many of the questions people had who were seeing my type of jewelry technique for the first time. I tried to focus on what made this type of work unique and why someone should buy it versus other non- handmade work. I started with some history since I truly believe that buyers really like a story. I added some pics of ancient wire wrapping and some pics of my own work. I really tried hard to not only promote but to provide a real service to those looking for something different. Here's a few tips that I learned that might help others looking to do the same thing :-)
1. Don't just focus on your own work specifically. People want to read an article with useful info, not just an advertisement.
2. Try to point up what is unique to your media or field. What sets it apart?
3. Use pics to illustrate your points. Visual interest is what will get people to read through the whole article instead of just scanning.
4. Don't forget to publicize your article! Just like I'm doing here, on facebook, twitter, stumbleupon, LinkedIn etc.
5. Also don't forget to add tags to your article so that hopefully search engines can find your article. You may become an authority in your field overnight!
In terms of what blogging service to use if you don't have one, I like Wordpress because it's simple to use and it has a good set of tools in place to help you organize and promote your content right out of the box. I only use the freee service and it's been perfectly adequate so far for what I need.
Okay well that's it....almost forgot! :-) Here's the link to my article "A Buyers Guide to Wire Wrapped Jewelry" please check it out and let me know what you think!
http://manzen.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/a-buyers-guide-to-wire-wrapped-jewelry/ Good luck and happy blogging!
