DIY herb Planter

Anyone who is into cooking will tell you the advantages of using fresh herbs in your food. But how do you store them when cut herbs from the supermarket only last a couple of days?

Well you make a cool herb planter of course!

Improve the effectiveness of your boosted posts on Facebook with audience awareness

This is an article for all those of you who would like to use the Facebook "boost" feature.

If you are struggling with your post reach and haven't yet tried my suggestions on how to extend it without paying, then I would suggest you click on the image below to be taken to the relevant article.

If you have tried these methods already and you are looking to use your marketing budget more efficiently then the are ways of making your money go further.

The first thing to remember is that Facebook does not like text in boosted posts. This is because the algorithms that Facebook use to decide what content is shown to whom finds it difficult to distinguish between the topic of the text with that of the image/video. The most effective boosted content is either a picture or a short video. If you need text to appear, just ensure its embedded in the image or video. 

Like this;

Not this;

Ok? Got it? Right lets move on.

When boosting a post you can be very specific as to who you actually want to see it. There's no point marketing your page to men in their 20's when all your customers are women in their 40's

I will (once i get round to it) write an article about identifying your audience. Subscribe to this blog to be notified as soon as it's available. 

Once you know who your audience is you can use the appropriate feature on the boost window. 

Step 1

Click "create new audience"

Step 2

Step 3

Define your audience by interest. These are the things that people were prompted to list as interests when they first created their profile. 

Note, if you requested that someone must have one of the listed interests and they don't have any of them, then they probably won't see the ad.

This will refine your post audience ensuring that only your ideal customer is targeted. 

So give it a go. Try starting with a very broad audience and then quite a restricted one, see what difference it makes to your page views and sales.

5 steps to increasing organic reach on your Craft Business Facebook page

Social media had become a game changer. 15 years ago if you wanted to promote your craft business your options were things like; advertise in craft publications, attend craft fairs and give out business cards perhaps even have a radio ad. Now with platforms such as Facebook and Twitter it has never been easier to put your products in front of potential customers.

Facebook cottoned on to this and now provides the "boost" feature. For a modest fee you can have your ads placed right in front of potential buyers that fit in to the criteria that you have set.

But do you know the one thing better than cheap publicity? Free publicity!

The number of people that see your business is described as your "reach". The more people see your posts and share them, the more your reach will increase. 

So whats the best way to do this?

Here are 5 ways that you can increase your reach on Facebook without spending a penny.

1. Share content onto relevant groups.

Only sharing content on your own page is just preaching to the converted. You may get a couple of shares from people who already "like" your page, but your going to be waiting a long time to see your reach increase that way. 

Start sharing your content with Facebook groups that would find it interesting.
For example, if you specialise in making button frames you may want to share a picture of a recent commission on Crafting with Buttons

If you make Harry Potter inspired book folds then you may want to share a picture onto Home made Harry Potter


2. Encourage interaction by asking questions.

If you put an interesting post on your page, someone may "like" it but that would probably be the end of it. 
If instead your asked a question, then someone may leave a comment answering it. Facebook ranks post with comments higher than that of those with just likes. Comments also work by "bumping" posts up to the top of the news feed meaning they are more likely to get seen.


3. Create "shareable" content.

Shareable content is something that the reader would think that other people would find interesting.
We've all see these posts on Facebook;

(Sorry for the naughty swearing)

This is a prime example of "shareable" content, because nearly everyone will know someone with their name on that list who will inevitably "tag" them and share the post.

By creating content that the readers friends and family will find interesting, you are encouraging them to press the "share" button. 

4. Leave the hashtags where they belong! #######

There's a time and a place for hashtags and Facebook isn't it. Facebook just doesn't like hashtags. If you can't bear to leave those scratches alone then use them very sparingly.

This info-graphic from Surepayroll demonstrates how using too many hashtags on Facebook can do your post more harm than good.

#just #don't #do #it

5. Don't be all about business.

If all you ever do is bombard people with images of the same woolly hat you have made in 20 different colours, your page will be getting "unliked" faster than you can blink. Keep the content fresh and engaging. Direct sales and marketing posts should only be making up about 50% of the content that you share. 

What are your customers other interests? If you make customised wool gloves then why don't you share that article you just saw about us being in for the coldest winter on record? If you sell bath bombs, then write a post asking people when was the last time they had a proper soaking session in the bath? Keep all content topical, relevant and consistent with your brand image.

I hope you find these tips useful. If you have any other queries as to how you can improve your Facebook business page then please get in touch, we love hearing from you!

Click the image below to be taken to our Facebook page.

What a load of Blog! How blogging can help your business identity.

Newsflash! Tesco is blogging about 5 things you can do with a pineapple......

OK I'm not sure if they actually are, but its the sort of thing that they would blog about.

In today's social media culture, nothing is private. Your savvy customers want to know everything about your business so they can make an informed choice about who you are, and if they want to do business with you. 

And that's a good thing! 

A customer that is engaged with your story and your brand is far more likely to buy from you, and more importantly keep buying from you. 

Blogging is about strengthening your businesses identity. Creating and sharing content that promotes your businesses core values instils interest in your customers and helps them to trust you. This makes them want to buy from you, because they feel that they know you better than they do your competitors.

Blogging is the human face on the mechanical business machine.

I'm not saying that your business is a faceless robot. But if your looking to have hundreds or thousands of customers that could be spread all across the globe, It's difficult for them to really "know you" unless you help them out a little. 

But your blog doesn't need to sound like a teenagers diary entry.

"Dear diary, today I made a sale *happy dance*"

Blogging needs to set the tone of your business. The blog of a legal firm will sound very different to that of a sweet shop. Imagine you are talking to your customers sitting in front of you. What sort of language would you use? How formal would you sound? Is the tone conversational? Frank and to the point? Chatty?


What will it cost you?

Quite often, nothing.

If you have a website already then you probably have everything already in place to start blogging. You may want to add a page to your website that you can keep updated and use as a blog. Alternatively you can use a free or very cheap blogging platform and link it to your site.

These are two of the most popular free blogging sites;

Wordpress.com

Wordpress is so simple to use! 
You can create a very professional blog in literally minutes. It looks great, but it costs.  The most basic packages are available for a minimum of £2.50 per month but these are so basic that I'm not sure that you would find them much use for business purposes. 

Their business package means that you can use your own domain name, remove the word "Wordpress" that would otherwise be plastered all over your blog as well as a host of other benefits. 
But with prices starting at £20.83 per month, (that's a whopping £249.46 a year) you need be sure that your blog is going to be earning you some revenue before you leap in. 

You can get a free website or blog through Wordpress. But if you are serious about blogging then I would recommend upgrading to one of the more professional packages.

If you want to monetise your blog or use it as a store/shopping platform for your product then it's great.

Blogger.com

This is hosted by Google. The advantages to this are that you blog will be fully integrated into your google profile, making sharing your content and getting it seen easy peasy. Blogger also includes Google analytics free. So if you like to know where your audience is coming from and what they are looking at, then this is the one for you.

Blogger is compatible with Google Ad-sence, so making money from having ads on your page is as easy as clicking a button.

It is also absolutely free. 

The downside it that it is not as user friendly as Wordpress. It's also quite complicated to try to set it up as a shop.

How often do you need to blog?

This entirely depends on your audience. You want to keep your content fresh so that your readers have something new to interest them each time they visit. 
Popular blogs with 10,000 readers a day need to update their content every few hours but that's because they have a huge reader base to be kept entertained. 
Blog as often as you think your readers will visit, whether that be once a week or once a month.

What content should you put into your blog?

Content needs to be;

Honest

Part of the reason why you are writing a blog is so that potential customers can get to know and trust you. If you value your businesses integrity (and I'm sure you do) then you will only write about what you know to be factually correct. Giving your opinion is fine so long as you make it clear that's what it is, and so long as that opinion fits into your brand. If in doubt, leave it out.

Interesting

If what your writing is boring, your customers won't read it. If what you are writing about is fundamentally boring (tax legislation for example) then use interesting language and try throwing in a few info-graphics to liven it up a bit.

Relevant

If your business is a bouncy castle rental in Croydon, don't blog about the political situation in Cuba. Leave that for your own Facebook page.
Do however blog about the largest bouncy castle ever made, or link to an article about throwing the best ever kids birthday party (just make sure it recommends bouncy castles).

Helpful

Your customers want to be better informed about your business, so inform them! 
Write an article on how your product has helped someone live a better life. Or how your service has helped someone save a ton of money. Your blog is about promoting YOUR business.

Shareable 

Shareable content is like the philosophers stone. One article that hits the right note with your readers can be shared countless times, propelling your business ahead of your competitors. There is no real formula to what makes something go "viral". 
New, innovative content that makes people go "wow, I haven't seen that before! everyone I know needs to see this!" is what makes people press that magic "share" button.

Branded Fabrics - The great copyright debate

Ok, I know this post is probably going to make you either love me or hate me. The topic of copyright legislation surrounding fabrics and papers has been long contested and comes up in crafting chat rooms every couple of days.
For a long time I was under the impression that if a crating material whether that be paper, fabric or otherwise featured a copyrighted character then you could not make that item into something else and sell it, right? WRONG!

So many crafters ASSUME that because something has a character on it that you cant go near it with a barge pole, but this simply isn't the case.

Here I attempt to make this clear for those who wish to use fabrics in their makes....

Christening Papercut

Beauty and the Beast Enchanted Rose tutorial

Glitter Bow Tutorial

Time to take a break

You should probably just give up....


Did that statement surprise you? If it did I bet its only because your hearing it from someone else, when you're so used to saying it to yourself.

I see this everyday....

You know what?

Giving up is exactly what you should do, because whatever it is your doing isn't working.

Without realising it, you have "Crafters Block".

If what you're currently doing is not matching up with what you want from your craft business then you need to make a change, and that will require a break. 

Don't worry I'm not suggesting you burn all your yarn and feed your decopatch papers to the dog. But to make any significant change you need to draw a line under how you were running your business and concentrate on how you are going to run it in the future. You may have had this beak already, just in the time it takes to read this article.

To crate a successful business you need to have GOALS.

If you really know what you want from your crafting business then read on. If your not 100% sure of your crafting goals, head over to this article for some ideas and inspiration.

Right so you know what your goals are? Great!

Its time to refocus on those goals and do what needs doing to achieve them. 

Our blog is FULL of articles CRAMMED with advice on helping you to achieve success from your business. So whether your goal is to increase Facebook reach, Etsy sales or customer satisfaction, we will be here every step of the way to help you.

Its OK to take a break, we've got your back.