Many of us enjoy using social media sites like Facebook and YouTube, but did you ever stop to think about how important social media can be for your business?

If you’re running an online shop, social media is extremely important. Your costumers are online so what better what better way to interact with them than via social media? If you’re already using social media sites for fun then you’re a head of the game and can make an easy transition into using these sites as an organic way to market your online shop. If you’re not using social media sites yet, don’t worry. They are easy to get the hang of. Start by setting up a profile at Facebook and work from there. Facebook is one of the bigger sites and will help you connect with local people that may want to buy “offline” from you.

Continue reading my article on Handmade News where it was originally posted.

"I was not only honored to interview Patricia from Evil Needles, but it was a bit of a dream come true to chat with such a celebrity! I’ve been a fan of Patricia’s work for a long time now and the creations that I’ve bought from her are the crowning jewels of my wardrobe! Her work is always in high demand and completely original. Patricia took some the time away from her sewing machine to share some of her marketing strategies with us.

What online marketing strategies are you currently using?

My online marketing strategies are always changing. What’s useful today will virtually drop out of style tomorrow so I’m always jumping around. Right now my listings on etsyare serving as my biggest advertising outlet. Since I’ve been posting on etsy more heavily I’ve picked up quite a few boutiques as clients. This is sort of an indirect advertising campaign in that, of course, my main objective is to gain sales, however, one of the benefits of keeping a full etsy shop is that people find out about you.

In addition to etsy I also try to post a lot on Twitter. By “a lot” I mean two or three times a day, not 50 posts with nothing to say. This has been helpful because many casual browsers have found me through tertiary interests. For instance, I organized a photo shoot in front of Jack Kerouac’s house and did a Twitter post about it. Within a few hours I picked up a couple of followers on Twitter who are Kerouac fans. This post wasn’t a direct advertisement, but it got some new peoples’ attention who now know the name Evilneedles, and that, in essence, is what advertising is all about.

Before Twitter I relied heavily on Myspace bulletins. I’m still using these, but with less success. Myspace seems to be on the way out. We’ll have to see what happens.

My blog, Evilneedles.blogspot.com seems to be working a little. I always start these random blog projects, but they quickly fade away because I’m so busy. I’ve been forcing myself to post on this one and have gotten a few hits, but with all the crazy stuff online it’s really hard to hold peoples’ interest with posts about sewing." ........

**Keep reading this interview at Handmade News in the Marketing Department where it was first published.

"After implementing a new marketing strategy, you don’t want sit back and hope it’s working – especially if you’re paying for it! In this article I’ll cover a few ways to know if you’re marketing efforts are paying off.

First and foremost, start a marketing calendar. It is unlikely that you will be able to remember what you did three weeks or months ago that resulted in an increase in traffic. If you track your activities on a marketing calendar, you can quickly refer back to specific dates and figure out what could have contributed to the increase in traffic or sales.

Second, track the traffic coming into your shop. Set up Google Analytics if you haven’t already for your shop and blog. Google Analytics is very user friendly and contains valuable statistics such as where your traffic is coming from, how long pople stay on your site, and what time of they day they visited your site. It makes it almost a no brainer to follow the trends in your traffic....."

Keep reading my article, which includes 7 points in total, at Handmade News where it was first published. 

"In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us." Flora Edwards

Larry Hamm over at Chelsea Lynn Designs on Artfire is a friend of many in the world of handmade, he is also the voice of The Crazy Train on Blockhead Radio. Larry has a fantastic wife Janet, and an 8 year old son Jacob who live with him in Lansing, NC deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Larry is a friend to everyone and just an all around swell guy. He is most definitely the "shirt off your back" kind of friend. Right now, all of Larry´s friends and Blockhead Radio are teaming up to help him out in a tough time.

Larry is a disabled diabetic who currently has lost his health insurance. His medication alone monthly is over $2,000. Larry is not receiving disability, he has not been approved yet. His wife is the only source of income and she doesn´t make enough to cover his medications. Larry´s doctors have given him an outlook of only 18 months to live if he doesn´t receive a $17,000 gastric bypass surgery as soon as possible. Larry and his family need all the help from their family and friends they can get! Jacob and Janet need Larry to hang around here with them as long as he possibly can! All of his friends surely want Larry to stick around too!

All of us at Blockhead Radio are gearing up for the biggest Radiothon you´ll ever be a part of! July 24th at 6pm until July 26th at 6pm, Blockhead Rod will be live on the radio for 48 hours straight raising money for our friend Larry. A silent auction of donated handmade goods will also be going up on the home page of Blockhead Radio with 100% of the proceeds going to Larry.

If you would like to be a part of this wonderful event, please email DeDe Sorensen at: 48forlarry@blockheadradio.com Please donate any handmade items you can for the silent auction have your emails in with your donations by July 22nd. If you would like to donate cash for Larry’s prescriptions and surgery please visit Blockhead Radio July 24th through July 26th. There will be plenty of ways to get your donations in.

Keep listening to Blockhead Radio for fantastic indie music, and how you can help Larry Hamm of Chelsea Lynn Designs.

Here are the links for the Artfire Chatterbox thread and Etsy thread. Please comment on them if you can.

If you would like to donate and item to the silent auction please email DeDe at 48forlarry@blockheadradio.com. We ask that you hold onto the item and mail it out. Please provide the following information:

Bidding on the items will begin at 6pm eastern time on July 24, 2009 and the highest bid recieved by 6 pm eastern time on July 26, 2009 will be declared the winner. All the donations will be going straight to Larry's Paypal account and he will notify you of the winners name and address.

"Marketing is sometimes looked at as a dull and painful process. There are facts to learn, strategies to put in place, and activities to track. While marketing may never shake its snooze factor for some, you can take a much different approach. You can actually thoroughly enjoy this “must do” process for your handmade business!

The key to making marketing more manageable is often the perspective you take. Handmade artisans have the upper hand on this one! All they need to do is harness their creative energy in a “marketing minded” direction.

To be successful at marketing two key components are needed, knowledge and creativity. Since knowledge about the latest marketing trends and strategies are readily available, the knowledge component can be obtained with a little bit of research. On the other hand, the creative component is much harder to obtain. Creativity is often a skill or characteristic that one is born with. Handmade artisans figured out somewhere along their journey that they process this valuable tool. The great thing about creativity is the variety it comes in. It can take any shape and be manipulated to work to the artisan's advantage, especially with marketing. After actively working on the knowledge component of marketing and getting a good handle on what goals the artist wants to achieve, they can start to use their creativity to make those goals a reality! The more creativity used the better because that’s what will stand out from the crowd.........."

Keep reading my article at Handmade News where it was first posted.

"If you missed Part 1 of “Twitter Follow to Followers Ratio Explained and Why You Need to Know”, take a minute to review the ratio explanation to address the “Follow” side of your ratio. If you feel you have the “Follow” side under control, it’s time to discuss the “Follower” side to the equation. More often than not, you’ll be following more people than are following you.

If your ratio is rarely close to 1, you probably don’t need to do anything at this point. Just be sure to check in every now and again to see where your ratio is at. For the times when you clearly need to get things under control, here are a few simple solutions you can use to get your ratio back to a reasonable number.

First, figure out how many people you’re actually following. By this I mean how many people do you follow that actually contribute content you’re interested in. Some of the people you’re following may not even be updating their Twitter accounts or have closed them all together! Twitoria is a good resource to find out if the people you're following have been active on Twitter in the last week, 2 weeks, month, and so on......"

Continue reading my article at the Marketing Department of Handmadenews.org where it was first published.