Hello blogettes I seem to be neglecting my blog lately I must admit I keep meaning to come on and blog but I forget. I've been busy online lately making a facebook page
www.facebook.com/andiesaccessories for my sewing and knitting projects and also this week I set up a folksy shop for them too
www.folksy.com/shops/andiesaccessories although there isnt much in my shop as yet as I haven't got round to putting everything in but I'm hoping to do more soon. I'm not really expecting an influx of orders or anything from this but just thought I'd have a go its only a few pence to list things and facebook pages are free so why not.
I so love making things and for a while I thought I should only make things I wanted to use myself or to give to other people even though there were lots of things I wanted to make that I didnt have a home for. Then my hubby said why not make things you enjoy even if you aren't going to use them, the making is the fun bit and thats your hobby, making things. Just like some people spend money going to the pub, for a meal, snowboarding (in hubbys case), dancing etc they spend money on their hobbies without producing something they need except having a good time so why shouldn't I. So off I went cutting and sewing away and I can't seem to stop at the moment I'm either sewing something or thinking about sewing something.
I have a facebook page where I show what I've been making jewellerywise so I decided to make one for my sewing accessories too. I saw some other pages on facebook which people seemed to be using as a mini shop window to sell their makes and so hubby and I thought I might try the same just in case anyone wanted to buy something I had made so I added prices to things.
Now I don't have very many facebook friends who would see my page as I sort of joined without planning to (an old friend and my nephew signed me up one day while I was out the room) and I've not really done much to connect with many people on it. I'm not one of these people who sent a friends request to everyone I ever knew,I tend to wait for them to find me just in case they don't want to be friends lol. So apart from family a couple of old friends, a few people from busymitts, and a couple of friends made so we could be neighbours on facebook games I don't have a huge facebook audience so it was suggested to me to go on networking pages to get likes for my new page.
I found a page called 'uk mums who make' which you can use to promote your business facebook page. I wondered if I was allowed to use it as I'm not a mum (although I am an auntie 4 times, 1 of whom lives with us, and a godmum twice) but it said you didn't need to be a mum to use it, you could just want to advertise to mums so I joined in and liked the page and popped my page name down for people to see and hopefully visit. I also visited a few other peoples pages and saw some quite nice things for sale.
I got a few likes off people who saw my post but then I saw news of a silent tagging cirle and after reading about it decided to take part. Its a way of getting more people to like your page and hopefully see your products. At a specific time the uk mums who make page post a comment saying 'silent tagging circle' and people leave a comment with the name of their business page on the list. the idea is you then go down the list liking all the business page names on it and they like you. So you end up with lots of new likes for your page. Well the first time I did this I ended up with over a hundred new likes which was brill I thought, although I had liked all the pages on the list which was over 400 so I now like over 400 pages, obviously some people post their name but dont like everyone elses pages, still a quarter of them had clicked to like my page and that was still a lot of likes.
It had took a lot of my time to work down the list and then my personal page was full of posts from 400 pages, it was like wading through treacle reading through them all and I must admit I thought I had made a mistake astheir was so much to see it would take me hours each day to find read them and spot posts from my friends. I read that after liking your page a lot of people hide your posts if they think you are a page selling something they arent interested in buying so as my news feed was so full I did the same. I worked my way through the posts checking out the pages to see what they sold or did and if I thought I'd never need them and if not I hid the posts, their page names are still on my list of likes in case I ever want to look at them or buy from them in the future but my page is now not as cluttered.
Now knowing that and I and others have done this I'm not sure if this system will generate any business because if you hide the posts because you think you arent going to use them then whats the point in liking the page at all??, It seems some pages are obsessed with the number of likers they have but if the likers dont see your posts and look at your pages what is the point in someone liking it, its just a number otherwise.
Hopefully though some people will have kept my posts on show and may come and look at my page and like what I make. Some people come over and visit your page and leave a comment and like you that way so I don't hide their posts as they have taken the time to visit but a lot of people seem to like your page without even visiting at all, its just a number thing to them.
Only time will tell if joining in the tagging circle was a good thing or a waste of time but I did find a few pages I liked the look of and have ordered off 3 of them myself already so it was good for me in that way.
