The Etsy Seller's Guide to Social Media

After your Etsy shop is set up and your items have been listed, it can be very beneficial to start building your brand identity on social media. Social media helps you attract new customers and develop ongoing relationships with customers who could become very loyal to you and your products for years to come.

Connecting with fans on social media is your opportunity to give customers a more personal, behind the scenes look at your business. It's your chance to tell the story of what makes you and your business special. What inspires you? What projects are you working on?

Each social media platform tends to attract different types of audiences, so it's useful to promote slightly different content in different places. Depending on the amount of time you are able to commit to social media, it's perfectly fine to start small and choose just one place to promote yourself.

Facebook

With over 1 billion active users Facebook is the most popular social media platform around. As you begin promoting your business page on Facebook, it's quite likely that many of your followers will be friends, family and co-workers that want to know "What have you been up to?"

Since many of your Facebook followers have a real world connection to you and your business they are very interested in your day to day successes and struggles. Show off your work in progress, celebrate sales, share your inspirations and ask questions.

Twitter

Twitter is a very effective platform for attracting new customers through the thoughtful use of #hashtags. However, it can be challenging to capture people's attention in 140 characters or less. That makes Twitter a great place to be more quirky, funny or even a bit vague so people will click on your links.

Be funny, clever, insightful and don't underestimate the power of sharing pictures of your pets or random things that just make you smile.

Google+

Google+ is the new kid on the block when it comes to social media and is still regularly making significant changes to attract more users. As with Facebook and Twitter, you can share a behind the scenes peek at what makes you special on your page.

Google+ also makes it very easy to connect with others who have similar interests through the use of communities. Don't be afraid to join a variety of communities and share your items. Be aware that if you share the exact same content in multiple communities in a short period of time, Google+ will eventually start marking your community posts as spam and they may be permanently removed by community moderators.

Instagram

Instagram makes it easy to share your vision of the world. Unlike any of the other platforms, you must use the app on a smartphone or tablet to share content.  Just snap a picture of what you are doing or products you are listing. When you are writing the caption of your photo, add a few relevant #hashtags.

It's important to include a link to your shop or website in your Instagram profile. This is the only place Instagram displays a clickable link.

Quick Tips

As you begin posting on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram or any platform, it's important to keep in mind that there's a fine line between promoting yourself and being spammy. If you only share links to your shop items and Etsy treasuries, your followers will quickly lose interest and will likely unfollow you.

Also, if you are use more than one type of social media, it's possible that people are following you in more than one place. Posting different content on different platforms keeps your fans engaged.

And, of course, don't forget to put the "social" in social media. Like and follow others with similar interests. See what they are posting. Leave thoughtful comments and like and share posts from others. What goes around, comes around.


PRESENTED TO YOU BY OUR LEADER :

My name is Ellen and I LOVE to design and create things. I find it deeply satisfying to start with nothing more than an idea and finish with a tangible, beautiful, functional piece of work. I enjoy learning new techniques that I can incorporate into my creations. I practice a variety of different art forms, but find I always have at least one knit, crochet or sewing project in progress.

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For free craft pattern's, tutorials and inspiration visit Ellen's blog, The Chilly Dog.