Pinerly

Pinerly?

Anyone heard of it?

I mentioned it on my a posting a few weeks back.  It has been hit with mixed results.  Personally, I love it. It tells me not to waste much time with pin boards such as Pinspire, Pinterest and perhaps even my own personal favourite, "Rebel Mouse".


Pinterest hit massive increase in people using it right up to about January of this year and then all of a sudden numbers suddenly nose-dived.  People began seeing use of pinterest as a massive time-consuming activity that allowed a person to over endulge in the visual things that they would never be able to buy.  It is beautiful - gorgeous in fact but my interest was solely from a business point of view.  Personally, despite some wonderful photography on the site, would rather spend my evenings or days with the kiddies.

For those of you who don't know what pinterest is - you can see below on the older post - basically it is a social pin board for your pictures.  My interest is that we can attach our domain name to it and hopefully people will click on the photo, go to the site and buy our soap.

So... Introducing Pinerly.  www.pinerly.com

This little site gives people the statistics behind each and every photo you to pinterest through the pinerly site.  Their blog is full of information about how to make the best eye-catching photos relevant to a pinterest community.  I mentioned before - remove prices, add three word to the photo and post at certain times.

The info was good but finding out how to use it was a daunting task.  First of all you have to register.  By doing so you get a code.  You then must use the code to tell others about pinerly and when you have gained a number of followers then you are granted access.  Once access is given you drag a little tool to your toolbar similar to that of Pinterest.  It states "pinerly it".

Edit you photos, customise them to poitrait rather than landscape, add the relevant text and photo shop to your hearts content.  Add a link for where you want people who click on the photo to be taken to and you are done.

Click pinerly it and you will be transferred to pinterest.  Pinning on pinterest is easy - its all done for you.  You just click "pin".  Having done so you can then sit back and look at what kind of reach your pin has had. How many re-pins, likes and numbers of people who saw it.  A little like google analytics for pictures.

Here's the thing though.  Despite the hours (and I do mean hours) to find out how to use it, edit photos, pin photos etc.  I really can't say that it has been worth it.  I get an average reach of 50-180 veiwers to each picture.  None that I am aware of has ever produced a sale and that includes the high amount of promotion that went on over the CraftFEST period.

When you then add the time spent to pin to Wanelo (where I seem to do better right now) Pinspire and Rebelmouse - then you can be talking about a massive amount of time without making any money.  Throw Facebook, Twitter, Whosin, and some other thing I was shown the other night and you are literally talking a full time job promoting with no evidence at the minute of any return.

So - proceed with caution.  I loved Pinerly - if even it was only to give a reality check.  One thing I can't stand is time-wasting.  Social media is fantastic for business (apparently) - but there is a limit to this on-line community and what it can do to provide a turnaround.

Will I stop using them - no, but nor will I be overly concerned that I need to fill boards, and complete tasks to ensure all our products are up to be found.  I think I can quite happily sit back and edit the odd photo every now and again to pin when it suits.

That is, until CrafFEST.  Then I'll be beavering away as a means to help promote as best we can each others work on this convoluted interweb we weave.

We Sheepishly Accept our Cow Award

We won an award.  Not just any award.  Its the weird and wacky award!

The Cow Awards are given every week.  There are three winners and last night we were one of them.  Our little sheep will now be pinned along with some other fantastic winners.

Its all a bit of fun but it does have added benefits.  It gets pinned, FB'd and tweeted by the organisers and has a little bit of a cult status as lots of crafters try to think of new and creative inspirations for a Thursday Evening.

If you have something you would like to submit - why not tweet an item of yours (or someone elses) between 4pm and 7pm on a Thursday Evening with the #cow and @cowawards.  Winners are chosen on a Friday Morning.

And one little reminder of our winners this week:

Are you Mooooooooved by our wonderful herbivores?

Pinterest Fever - Anyone?

A few months ago I was introduced to Pinterest.  Yet another dreaded social networking site but this time with a focus on images.  

I like photos - so I thought, "sweet".

Thing is the site is more than a little addictive.  You go on and see some of the most amazing locations in the world that you want to visit.  There are oodles of things that you would like to purchase and even more images that convey a lifestyle that you just want to emulate.

With regards to marketing though - the jury was out.  Will it work for promotion or not?  In one sense it is free so, "nothing ventured - nothing gained" was very much the old adage attached to me pursuing it.  On the other hand it is very time-consuming and the potential of converting likes, pins or comments into sales was something I wasn't sure about.

I was not however aware of the sheer effort one would have to go to in order to get noticed.  People pin in their thousands within just a few minutes so it is just all to easy to get lost in the midst of the photo flood that meets your world as you click on "feed".

Bring on an invitation to join pinerly - an app that follows how viral your images are on pinterest (ie. how many people show interest in your items).  

Further.  They give advice on things such as times of the day to post, the types of descriptions you should be writing, portrait vs landscape, writing on top of photos to grab attention and many other helpful tips.

I saw the need to photoshop - some think I haven't ever really tried.  And this is what I cam up with... 

Now it is by no means perfect - but it is me making a start in my journey of understanding the power of the image.

On shop sites there is a need for high quality, high definition and great colour/lighting to enable a possible purchaser to make an educated choice about the product they see in the image.

There are blog photos which tend to be more of a behind the scenes type of photograph.  The products as they sit in the studio, us taking the photos, or indeed how we make the soaps.

Then there are the promo photo.  Photos that attract attention.  Photos that demonstrate our core values with very few words attached to them.  Photos that convey a message - but realistically can't be used to sell the item as it fails to convey shape, colour or texture.

Time will tell,  I'm going to schedule my posts for peak times in the hope of gaining some attention to twitter, blog and shop.  In the meantime though anyone can pin the images as found in photobucket and facebook.  If you'd like to promote our work just click on the links and pin away.  I'd appreciate that!

And that's it from me.

Garreth.

Careful now- next up might be a review on Twitter, and then there is Stumble Upon, Pinspire, IFTTT, Delicious, Craftjuice and countless others.

The CraftFEST 'I love your blog' blog thing

Pass on the Craftfest lurve

This idea was passed on to me by Lu at Handmade in Keswick

This is the Craftfest 'I LOVE Your Blog' Award

I am awarding this to Tania at Cola Creations

If you have read my last post in supporting local by campaigning at your computer then you will understand why I like this blog. Tania has been a faithful servant in promoting the works of others in the run-up to Craftfest. She is the first to reply on threads an support other Lilac Lovelies and as she moves on to lead the Blue Team I'm in no doubt that the blog will fill with advice, promotion and wonderful information for Crafters out there. Of late - she has got into picmonkey

If you are sent a Craftfest 'I Love Your Blog' Award and you would like to Share The Lurve, then have a look at this.

How To Share The Craftfest Lurve

1. Paste our 'I love Your Blog' Badge to your page

2. Put a on a link to the blogger who sent it you

3. Put a link to the blogger you are awarding the Lurve to

4. List some other blogs you like

5. Inform all the bloggers you have mentioned by commenting on their blogs.

6. List 'How To Share The Craftfest Lurve'

7. Tell us something you'd like to say, or show us something you'd like to sell.

So here are some other blogs I'm in to at the moment

Lottie Of London

The Old Button

Craftfest Blogs

KKMarie

Beaded Bazaar

The Dressmaker's Closet

Rachael in Wonderland

Siog Designs

The Crystal Cavern

Revive Holistic Beauty

Pins and Needles

Free Spirit Designs

A Cat-Like Curiosity 

Inky prints in the attic
Loutul

And The Thing I'd Like To Show You

This Winter alternative to Soap on a Rope should be available for sale shortly

Weather In ClougheySunny and pleasantly warm!

Calling all Arm-chair Anti-Capitalist/Anti-Globalisation and Fair Trade Campaigners! Support Local

Do you quietly boycott the multinational global brands in a bid to make the world a better place?  Perhaps you even take to the streets?
Do you try and support Fair Trade wherever possible?
Are you concerned about the global financial collapse, carbon foot-prints and environmentalism?



If you do - you will probably also have some nominal notion about the importance of shopping local. Of supporting local crafters and ensuring they get a fair wage for the quality products they make.  If you do - you will believe in supporting people at a time of financial austerity as opposed to paying massive prices on items that aren't worth it.  You will resent paying way above the manufacturing cost just so you can get to see an advert about it on TV that will try to persuade you to buy more.  Adverts that proclaim luxury and quality whilst the company has workers tied (sometimes literally) to the   sewing machines - as demonstrated by my son!

I am therefore calling on all moralists, anyone with some form of social concern and desire to rectify this sorry, jaded and false consumerism to take a stand.

I'm not asking for much but I am asking for action.  Action that requires you to click that little left button on the mouse a few times to register your support for crafters - people to make things, the manufacturers located in your own homes, towns and villages that we so often overlook.  People struggling to get by because they love what they do as opposed to worrying about trying to gain that prestigious and luxurious prize of a "minimum wage".

I'm asking you to wage a war against the capitalist multi-nationals in a bid to support your friends, acquaintances and  yes, even that odd old lady(kindly demonstrated by Carla) down the road that is really quite a recluse but who faithfully knits scarves to sell in order to raise funds for an orphan in Africa (better that then actually send the thing!)



For the first week of September I am asking you to spend a few minutes each day working in support of Craftfest: clicking, supporting, liking and tweeting lovely little items that you find on this on-line craft market.  Craftfest runs a few times a year in a bid to create an online community craft market where sellers can work together to promote and share each others wonderful creations.  It gives fellow crafter's the sense of being part of a bigger community, of supporting and encouraging one another and promoting each others work to their own client base.

Most of us register in a bid to try and sell a few more items and make a little extra wonga...

But in reality Craftfest is much more than that.  You see even the on-line world is dominated by a multinational: google and specifically, google ads.  Other search engines all work the same way.  BIG on-line companies pay for space that dominate the top pages of any search.  Whilst the search engine's claim to work democratically there are ways to promote your work on-line.  You must word items in specific ways, tailor it to specific items and make sure you edit your descriptions so google doesn't treat it as spam.  This all makes sense to an expert but to a novice crafter - the on-line world is daunting.

One solution to this is to make a little noise on the net.  The more noise you make then the likelier it is you will get noticed by search engines such as Google.  If you create enough noise you may even get the wonderful chance of having something going viral.  The only way of doing this is by using Social media.

Herein lies the genius of Craftfest.  The craftfest community is about a market stall - but it is so much more than that.  It is fundamentally a means of creating noise on the internet.  The sheer fact that the 200 stall holders will be working our butts off all week tweeting, blogging, pinning etc. each others work is all in the hope that the favour will be returned.  If returned that means you have up to 200 more people tweeting and commenting on your items at the one time.  200 people taking one hour to tweet and re-tweet just may get noticed but if they can also recruit people to campaign with us on our behalf then we could really up the anti!

If each crafter brought with us another 1 or 2 people to campaign with us then we can up this number to 600 people liking, tweeting and pinning at once.  If we get 10 each - 2000 and so it goes.

What do you get out of it?

Many of the crafter's don't have cash and can't offer discounts (the barely make enough money as it is).  That's the point.  This is a campaign.  This is you taking the high ground.  You may not be able to purchase - and to be honest that is fine (sort of) but perhaps more importantly you can help us get noticed to buyers.  That is awesome.  Why do it?  Well... its because you believe in it.

I'm a firm believer in Organic, in fair-trade and in ethical shopping - but the reality is that most of this helps people abroad.  Shopping local is an idea but its been difficult to see it become a reality.  By helping to promote the people of Craftfest - you are doing your bit to change to world.  To change the focus from the global, to the local.  From the mass-produced to the hand-made, custom orders that the people of Craftfest specialise in.

So what do you say?  Are you in?

Craftfest: www.creative-connections.bing.com
It runs from the 1st - 8th Sept.

We will be tweeting, FBing and blogging many things over the next week and we would love you to play a part.  Share, like, pin, tweet, talk about us to anyone and everyone.  Do it a few times a day at different times in the day.  Sure we love you sharing about us at any time - but this week is special - its about creating some noise!!!!!

So lets raise the warrior cry for our crafters!  Lets give some artisans our support - lets stick our tongues out to the people that brand us and define us and say "ENOUGH!"  We will do our own thing - thank you very much.

Feel free to pin, share and like this to your hearts content - lets get craftfest out there!

My stall:  http://creative-connections.ning.com/photo/albums/scentcosmetics-craftfest

My other details:
OUR WEBSITE

Promotion Promotion Promotion

And then there was LU

Few have managed to work harder for Craftfest than LU.  She is tirelessly looking at ways to promote Craftfest and each others work.  She's on Twitter, Facebook, Etsy, Luulla, Folksy, Wanelo, Linkedin, Pinterest, pinerly and some I've never heard of - all with the sole aim of getting people onto the Craftfest site to view and perhaps purchase some products.

Always good to have a sense of humour - and Lu has that in abundance.

She is also talented.

Don't believe me?  Check out this...




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Where do these people get time?

Lu - I wish you well for Craftfest!

Cushions

There is always something that grabs your attention at the craftfest stalls and today's winner was definitely Jen Edgerton with her Cute Pet Gear Stall.  I'm not renowned for being an animal lover (anaphalatic allergy to horses and mild one to dogs) but I have to say some of these items just make me smile.  I think they are gorgeous.  Almost a worth a life-time on anti-histamines!!!







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Cushions are the In Thing!  Personal Space Interiors has already been mentioned as has Kooshka.  The next on this blogs list are those creations belonging to Charlotte Hingston.  I should point out that Charlotte has more than just cushions.  There are some beautiful banners and pictures also on her stall.









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Wreathes don't often bring me happy thoughts - but mixed with a collection of pillow boxes and clothes-pegs these wreathes came in as a wonderfully pleasant surprise.  I could really get hooked on the clothes-pegs though.  Cola Creations and Amy Mortimer have definitely got me re-thinking my approach to laundry chores!






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... and words fail me for this next stall.  How do you even go about starting to make the cloaks and capes that Paige Damien undertakes?  Each one hand-made and completely stunning!



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And finally,  How about some soap?  A welcome selection from the wonderful Cottage Soap Company.





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