Thursday, August 13, 2015

How To Work the Room … In Your Pajamas



How To Work the Room … In Your Pajamas

or

How to Share the Love in Social Media 
(and Gain an Abundance in Return)

Tuesday night on The CraftStar’s LIVE show (http://bit.ly/1ID9C9L), it was all about showing the love. 

We’ve talked a lot about how important social media is to small businesses;   we’ve done a bootcamp on how to get maximum results from the various platforms, how best to promote your fabulous items … but last night’s conversation was a bit different, yet still utilizing social media.

It started with this piece on a great blog: 


… and how YOUR sharing can turn a trickle into a waterfall for the overall benefit of The CraftStar and its sellers.  And boy, that waterfall became the Niagra Falls within hours of talking about it LIVE and explaining how best to share things.

Katherine Kotaw, The CraftStar’s Marketing Director led the conversation:

I call it the art of NOT promoting yourself.

If you use social media to promote your business (and if you aren’t, you should be), the worst thing you can do is use the platform as an advertising tool.  The best thing you can do is be SO generous that people feel obligated to return your generosity.

It works.  You get ALL the promotion your business needs, and you never come off looking like a used car salesman (or any kind of salesperson).

Let’s use the recent article in She Owns It as an example.  The piece featured four artisans and both mentions and links to The CraftStar. 



It serves every one from TCS to promote this article because it will increase traffic to the site, to your shops, to your items – even if you’re not mentioned directly in this article.

Here are a few ways to promote (and how it will benefit you)

  •    Share the article on any or all social media platforms and thank the author of the piece (in this case me).  Tag me (with the @ sign before my name), and I will see it.  And I will thank you and share something of yours.  I will go to your TCS page, find something I like and share it with my followers and yours.
  •    Share the article on any or all social media platforms and congratulate TCS for being a supportive community to people who can’t work 9 to 5 jobs.  Tag:  @TheCraftStar and, if there’s room in the post, tag Bethan and Rhonda too.  They will see and share.  If they don’t immediately share some item of yours for sale, you will be at the top of their mind when they share again.  And at the top of their mind when I ask for names of people to include in upcoming articles.
  •    Share the article and thank Melissa Stewart and She Owns It for publishing a piece that supports female entrepreneurs.  Tag both of them (again using the @ symbol before their names).  You will get thanked/liked/retweeted etc.  And you may gain new followers and advocates.
  •    Share the article, thanking, congratulating, etc and include a picture of your work when you do (as a Twitpic, for example).  Don’t tell people to buy the item.  Let it speak for itself.
  •    Go to the She Owns It article and comment on the article.  You will get a link back to your site or shop.  Do not include a link in your comments or you may get booted for spamming.  The link will occur naturally when you include a website address with your comment.


These are some getting-started tips, we'll delver a bit deeper next week.

Share the love!  You will be amazed at how much you receive in return.

A few pertinent questions came out of this conversation Tuesday night (and if you missed the show, you can catch it anytime here:  http://bit.ly/1ID9C9L What is the Law of 10, and what are the differences between tags, tags, and hashtags?  Yes, there's enough tagging there to make any head spin.  We’ll cover that and the Law of 10 next time.  But if you want to get ahead of the game … check out the LIVE show!

PS.  A quick re-cap on the difference between tagging and hashtagging in social media:  When tagging a person to get their attention, use the @ symbol in front of their name or business name.  Use the # (hashtag) symbol in front of a keyword/topic related to your post. Such as: #smallbusiness #thecraftstar

More to come next week!




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