You 'LIKE' us!

The Art Jewelry Elements blog debuted just over two years ago and we are so excited and grateful you all are along for the ride! To supplement the blog and interact with you, our community, we also have a Facebook Page.

As we got closer to 1000 likes on the AJE Facebook Page, the team decided to do something big to celebrate reaching 1000 likes. What do we do for the best community on the planet? We have a giveaway, that's what. Not just one giveaway, but SEVEN giveaways, one for each day of the week. But it gets better! The winner for each day will win two of the art jewelry elements pictured below made by two different AJE contributors....

And guess what! We hit 1000 likes on Monday June 9th.

The details:

• The giveaways start on Monday June 16th.

• The giveaways runs 7 days with a different prize of 2 art jewelry elements each day.  

• Each day of the contest will feature something from two different AJE contributors 

• For a chance to win that day's prize leave a comment on each day's blog post AND MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE AN EMAIL FOR US TO CONTACT YOU!

•  We will draw a winner daily, so don't forget to comment each day. 

•  ALL winners will be announced at the end of the week. 

• This giveaway is open to anyone living on planet Earth.

• Each person is eligible to win once. Unless you're on the AJE team. Then you cannot win any of the days. Sorry. I want to win too and I'm pretty sure I have the power to rig it. No one (except maybe me) should wield that kind of power.  

GOOD LUCK!!!

Jen Cameron

Glass Addictions

There's an App for that

Computers revolutionized the way we do business, and now smart phones and tablets have made running a business in the digital age mobile. I thought I would share a few of my favorite apps that have made it possible to be on the road and still get things done without a computer, a day planner, a notebook, and a knuckle buster. 

For clarity, I'm working with an iPad 2 and an iPhone 4S. I don't know about Androids or any other types of smart phones or tablets, but I'm sure they can run many of the same apps or have a similar app. 

Square: 

I've been using square for a few years and it has made my life, and many other business owners lives easier. Even my hairdresser is using it now! 

The first year I used it, some customers were leery, others amazed. Now most of have seen one in action or at least seen the commercials for them. But it's so easy to use. Go to the Square website to sign up and get your FREE card reader. Go through the registration process, download the app to your phone and/or tablet, and you can take credit cards anytime anywhere. Without monthly fees for the privilege of a merchant account, without huge per transaction fees. And Square automatically initiates a transfer to your account on file the next business day. 

I cannot tell you how much Square has saved me compared to the inexpensive merchant account I used to have. The bank where my business accounts are kept actually tried to talk me into their version of Square. I read the informational sheet they handed me and laughed. I told the teller no thanks because they still want to charge a monthly merchant account fee plus the per transaction fee was much higher. She said they came up with this to compete with Square. I told her they need to keep trying. 

I know Paypal has their own card reader, and perhaps others do as well. I know nothing about them and recommend research before making a decision for which one you want to use. 

TurboScan:

I have one of those all-in-one copier/printer/scanner. But it's slow. And it's in the basement. And it's so darn inconvenient. And sometimes I am at the lake, which has an inexpensive laser printer, but no scanner. One day I needed to email or fax a document, but I was out of town and would have had to go to Kinko's to accomplish this. So I searched for a possible app and found TurboScan. And I have used it for all kinds of things. Yesterday I used it to email my contract for Bead Fest Philly in August. 

Here's the app in the app store. It also shows what the opening screen looks like. Get your document and click on camera.

Set your document on a dark background for best results. Then click the shutter button at the bottom. 

It automatically cuts out the background for you, but you can tweak it if you want to. Then a screen comes up where you can change how dark the writing is. I've always stuck to the darkest setting. 

The next screen gives you the option to change properties and give the document a name (center bottom), email (left bottom), or add another page to the document (right bottom)

Here's the page that comes up if you click on the pen in the center:

And options for distributing your document: 

Evernote:

What I love most about Evernote is you can add something to it, and it updates it across all your devices where you've installed it: phone, computer, and tablet. I've barely begun to scratch the surface of what this app can do, but I love it. 

I'm not very good at carrying around pen and paper. I always have good intentions, but it never happens. Evernote is where I record my business mileage. I have another note where I collect quotes. You can take a photo of something and write notes about it so you aren't wondering later why you took that picture or what you wanted to remember about it. Write lists. Upload your beading patterns or any PDF to it. I love this thing. It's my pen and paper. 

Facebook Pages: 

If you're on Facebook, and you have a Facebook page for your business, you need Pages. It allows you to update your page as your business. You can upload photos you've taken with your phone to your page. Without Pages, you can't really interact with your community to your full potential. And if you have multiple pages, you can easily switch between each page. 

Instagram: 

Supposedly people (mainly the younger crowd) are leaving Facebook in droves for places like Instagram. My customers aren't teens, but who knows how long it will be before us older people follow in their footsteps (if at all?). But that's not the only reason I love Instagram. I love photos. And I love sharing photos. Instagram has fun effects AND it's so easy to share these photos to other platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. And I can take a photo of something right out of the kiln, take a photo, edit it, and share it with a few clicks. 

Camera:

I know, this one comes pre-installed on your phone. But I use it more than any other app and it has saved me SO MUCH TIME in uploading a kazillion photos to the computer, sorting, editing, then sharing the photos. 

In fact, my next blog post (in two weeks) will be some tips on using the camera on your phone to take better photos of your work. 

Until then,

-Jen Cameron

Glass Addictions

Comment Selling: Review of Soldsie

Maybe you've heard that Etsy is making some changes. Many of them are unpopular to shop owners who handcraft every single thing they sell. While I'm not going to touch the "political" issues, there is one issue that stands out more than any other to me. And it's not really the one people are talking about....the fact that as shop keepers on Etsy, we ultimately have very little control over our shops.

So I went in search of other options...Another website similar to Etsy? My own website? Posting photos on Facebook and offering it up there? I've discovered some interesting things in my search. 

The one I'm going to talk about today is called Soldsie. I first heard about Soldsie about 3 or 4 weeks ago and was immediately intrigued. So intrigued I did my first Soldsie shopping event a few days later. 

But let me back up. What is Soldsie? They call it "comment selling." I call it brilliant. Broken into the most simple terms, you create an event...including starting and ending times of the event, and list the items you want to sell from your dashboard. You advertise your event on your Facebook page and ask your followers to register in advance. 

Soldsie automatically posts your listed items at one minute intervals at the time your event starts. Here's a sample of what it looks like on my Facebook page: 

If somebody wants to buy it, they simply type the word "sold" in the comments. Then they check out by clicking on the "Soldsie" tab at the top of the page:

Because I have not been on the buying end, I believe Soldsie will remind buyers to pay if they do not go to the Soldsie tab...but I don't know for sure. All the people who bought at my event paid immediately. 

I have only had time to run one shopping event so far. So my experience is limited. However, my initial impression is very favorable. 

Pros: 

-No fees for the first $700 in sales! After that, it's fees are 3% of your sales. 

-Easy to set up

-Even though it's mostly self-explanatory, there are several video tutorials and other forms of instruction

-They want you to be successful, so they give tips on how to make your Facebook page get more "likes" and how to advertise your sale so that people will be ready to shop

-You write up the listings in advance. Soldsie posts it at the right time so you don't have to be at your computer. 

-The listing section is simple to use. 

-It's easy for shoppers to use...whether on the computer or a mobile device. No clicking over to another website, no hoops to jump through. Just type the word "sold" and then pay. 

-Soldsie automatically handles invoicing and making sure you get paid. 

-When you ask a question, it is answered very quickly. 

-You can offer coupon codes

Cons:

-Only one item per invoice. This means if your customer buys more than one item, they will need to check out more than once. 

       

       -Updated: I received an email from Julie at Soldsie after she read my review. She had this to say about the payment process: "because we never know when a customer is done shopping, we do send out an email for each Sold comment, however when they click on the link any of the emails (or on the link or tab) to get to their invoice - everything they've commented on will be listed there and you can checkout for everything all at once."

-My biggest issue was shipping charges. When selling beads, people may want to buy more than one bead. I don't necessarily want to charge them full shipping fees for each bead they buy. There is no way to automatically set it up to reduce shipping if they buy more than one item. After the fact, I figured out ways around this

     1) create a coupon that the customer can use on subsequent orders

     2) Use the Add-Ons section of each listing to give the buyer multiple options for shipping i.e. domestic 1st class, priority, international, insurance, etc. 

     3) Include the cost of shipping in the product and offer free shipping instead. 

-If you are selling something that has an inventory of more than 1 and your customer wants to buy more than one, it will charge shipping for each and every item in the listing. I found that out the hard way when it tried to charge a customer $21 in shipping for 7 spacer beads. 

-Because Facebook is so fast paced, shopping events lose effectiveness after a few hours. 

-Soldsie recommends about 10 items in one shopping event. So if you prefer to do large updates, that may not work well for you. I don't know. I tried 21 items. I sold 4.  

-Customers were confused by the link to register to shop. I received several messages that they tried to pre-register, but it didn't work. However, I would get an email that they did indeed pre-register. 

A Few Helpful Hints:

Because I decided to sign up for Soldsie on a Tuesday and have the sale two days later, I did some quick heavy advertising. First I offered a bribe of a free bead. All they had to do was share this photo on Facebook and/or Instagram.

Then a few times a day I would post a teaser photo of one of the beads that would be offered during the sale with short concise instructions on how to pre-register for the party. 

I sent a newsletter to my list. 

If I really worked Twitter with any kind of regularity (translation: more than once a year), I would have posted it there too. 

Blogging would be good, but I never got to that. 

Do not bother with the free trial to Shipping Station. It was complex and confusing and I never could get it to work for me. Plus it costs like $30/month once the free trial is over. Paypal shipping is far easier and doesn't have the extra fees.  

Overall, I really love Soldsie and plan to use it regularly in combination with my website (that topic will be covered another day). Because you're able to try it risk free, there's no reason not to give it a shot. 

-Jen Cameron

Glass Addictions

Getting More Traffic to your Facebook Business Page

Frustrated by the lack of "likes" on your facebook page? Or the lack of interaction? Yeah...me too. I've tried the various things like...asking a question that will (hopefully) start a conversation, sharing updates about what I'm doing in the studio, etc. I often felt like I was talking to myself.

However, I noticed when I posted the occasional photo, there were a lot more likes and comments. The more likes and comments, the more people will see your content. However, posting photos periodically throughout the day gets cumbersome to upload to computer then post to facebook.

Or at least, it was, until I got the Facebook Pages app for my iPhone. It's super easy to use and I can share photos immediately after taking them.

For the last few weeks I've been prepping for a show, which was last weekend. I posted snapshots of new beads, my worktable, in progress jewelry, etc. a couple times a day.

During the show I posted photos of my booth, close-ups of my business card holders, the fact I was barefoot behind the table...

Looking at my stats from March 30-April 7, I got 65 new page "likes". Mostly from posting photos. My show was April 5th-7th, so some of those may be the result of people looking me up on Facebook after meeting me and seeing my work at the show.

Have you noticed the chart at the top of your page (only you can see it)? Mine looks like this:

If you click on the chart (or on "see all"), it will give you all KINDS of information. Facebook is hoping you will use that to pay for advertising....but you don't have to. And it gives you some really helpful information to run your business. 

You can get an overview that looks like this and shows you likes, people talking about this and weekly total reach:

Under the "Likes" tab, you get the chart I showed you at the beginning which shows the number of likes and unlikes you've gotten for each day. But it also gives you a breakdown of your audience. Particularly helpful if you decide to set up an ad campaign...or helping you have a better grasp of basic demographic information about WHO is liking your page:

Reach has three components. Demographics and location:

How you reached people and visits to your page:

And since I've already shared a ton of charts, I won't bother showing "Talking about this" because visually it looks the same as what you've already seen. However, it shows two components...demographics of who is talking about your page (gender, age, location) and HOW people are talking about your page. 

I wish I could give you specific information about how the new "likes" translates into sales, but I have not listed anything online since I started showing lots of photos. I do recommend making your page very visual, but not just listings. Because that gets spammy and people will probably leave your page if all you do is peddle your product and do nothing to interact with your audience. 

Have you discovered any tips that have helped increase the audience and interaction of your Facebook page? Please share in the comments section! 

Still recovering from three days of running my booth...

-Jen Cameron

Glass Addictions