Day 17 on icraftgifts.com Bootcamp

[PillowThrowDecor]

So tell us what you've done this week.

Cheers
Christine

[SoranaGallery]

You have an internet woman on your hands here...SoranaGallery...
1. have made 5 canvas inchies, embellished
2. 4 christmas ornaments--just need to sew the binding down...binding already attached...then add some type of hanger or ribbon to let customer string from tree.
3. started 2 art quilts I plan to embellish.

Are you a juried site?

Jena in WA

[PillowThrowDecor]

Would love to have you on board. Not juried so go ahead and list them if you are sign up
  Will look forward to seeing them on the front page. Cheers Christine

[Northern Girl Jewelry]

I'm way behind this week, regular life stuff has prevented me from doing assignments.  I won't be able to catch up this weekend, we are going out of town for a wedding.

As a newbie to twitter, here are my thoughts.  (and I'm already ducking for cover...)

I'm not able to add 20 to 50 people a day to follow.  I don't have that much time on my hands and I'm not willing to follow just anyone.  If my goal in using twitter is to use it as a social networking site, the people I follow need to be interesting to me.  If my goal in using twitter is for marketing, the people I follow need to be my target market.  So it takes time to weed through people.  And if I use # to replacement for things like handmade or jewelry, all I will get are people who are posting things to items they are selling.

I don't want to follow people on twitter who only tweet links to items to sell (their own or someone else's).  If I want to shop, I will go to a shopping site.  It will be much easier to find what I want by being able to see images than it would be to go through people's tweets, have to link to an image, back out and continue with the replacement...  These people are not interesting to me, so the flip side of that is that I don't want to be like that.  I don't want to post only (or mostly) tweets to links to items for sale.  And from what I read, many others don't either.  I'm not saying no one should tweet links, I just mean I don't want that to be all I see...

I realize that twitter can be a powerful tool.  But I think it can be a powerful networking tool.  It's not an advertizing tool.  There is much value to networking, and that can absolutely lead to sales, no question.  But I think that if twitter is approached as an advertizing tool, ultimately, people won't find it all that helpful.  So I think that the way a person approaches twitter and how they use it will determine how successful a tool it is (to achieve whatever that person defines as success).  

My opinion at the moment is that slow and steady wins the race.  So no, I don't have 500 or more followers at the moment.  And I'm not following that many.  But I have found some really interesting things posted by those I follow and I hope that eventually others will think that of what I post.  

Afterall, isn't twitter supposed to be about building relationships?
 
So Christine, thank you for introducing me to twitter.  I had signed up back in February, didn't get it at all and given up.  Without bootcamp I wouldn't have tried it again, and now I think that it is something that can be worthwhile...  

Julie

[PillowThrowDecor]

You are absolutely right!!! Networking is Key!!!

 Don't follow people that are not of interest to you.

And yes... you better sound interesting too!

Julie... Just go at your own speed.  We all have different lives and I often forget how much freedom I have in my day... that is one of the benefits of being 50ish.    

I find so many interesting people out there! I have three areas of interest and am able to easily find them with hashtags, or replacementes or just snooping who is following who.  My challenge is to BE INTERESTING. So far I really enjoy being the voyeur and still am a bit shy..LOL !!!

It is OK to UNFOLLOW someone just the same as you will get dumped off someone elses list too at times. So if someone is constantly pimping their product and it is annoying you, dump 'em.

Sounds to me you are doing just fine with Twitter and your Bootcamp stuff. Family always comes first!!!

Cheers
Christine

[Sirocco]

I have been faithfully following along for the past two weeks and have tried many of the bootcamp suggestions, but twitter still kind of mystifies me. I am with Julie on this matter. I am not really sure how to use twitter effectively as a marketing tool. I am not really sure how to use twitter effectively for anything. The lingo is confusing. I had to google “followfriday” and “tweetmeme” to figure out what they meant. Clearly I am very new to twitter. I have not installed tweetdeck yet or alexa sparky. Sparky wants to collect a lot of data about my surfing so I might not use that add-on. Anyway, I am enjoying the bootcamp. Keep up the good work. I will comment more often.

Paul C

[PillowThrowDecor]

LOL... I was of the same mind also about 2 months ago.  It was hard to understand the usefulness of twitter when people talked about what was on their dinner menu or what they should wear to whatever.

There is a lot of prattle on Twitter that has no usefulness in my mind.  But it does offer us an opportunity to network with people who share similar interests.

I'll try and post more information on how to's about Twitter.

Tweatdeck and literally hundreds of other applications help to make you   smarter, better, faster on Twitter.  But if you haven't mastered it yet the add-on applications won't seem very useful.

If I were to sum it up... "Consumer comments or recomendations" are a far more effective or valued marketing message than a printed ad. So you want your product to be part of the "buzz".

Even if your twitter followers don't actually buy something, there is value every time they click on your site/product to have a look at it. You become more "popular" in Googles eyes. So whenever someone replacementes for an item that you may have it is more likely you will be seen first before all the 100's or 1000's of other people selling the same sort of thing.

I am rather unsophisticated in the technical terms too but I do no this internet world is driven by views, links and buzz!

Keep up the good work and manage what you can. You are right about Alexa... it does collect information about how you surf the net and personally I don't have a problem with that because there is nothing in my life that is top secret and I know the collection of their information is generic.  Again, do what you feel comfortable with.

Good going and yes... stay in touch as this is what keeps us all going.  We are all at different speeds and at different levels of understanding this "stuff".  Cheers

Christine

[mountaindreamers]

week's activities :

new listing Mountain meets skye necklace

still looking and following blogs, offering encouragement.

Twitter,  as a relatively seasoned person ( over 50 , that looks scary in print ) . I find it a challenge to adapt to all the techno stuff however I realize that our markets include people who use this so I do. I think twitter is so new that who knows if it is  networking or advertizing site. I think that is still to be seen.  I don't post when I am going to eat dinner , or go to the store or go to sleep, ok I think it is the old thing , who cares? But apparently some do in the younger set. I do like being older it has a great perspective. Just wanted to clarify.

And Julie I agree, I don't want numbers following me on twitter, but folks who are truly interested in the same things to build networks, I have had to block one site that was clearly porn, and there have been several people who follow me but I really don't have much interest in their businesses. So I wouldn't worry about numbers, I might reciprocate with one or two a day. It is all good.

Hey Christine what is the DL ( do you guys have the Down Low in Canada, maybe too much American slang)  on technorati.com , my first glance is that if you blog you should sign up there so that your blog reaches more people, what do you think?  I was ranked 3 million or something like that ,pretty funny.

have a great weekend, I am still catching up from the wreck , the concussion left me slow, for the first few days I couldn't type correctly. Don't shake the noodle, not good. cheers to my Canadian friends. Laura

http://www.mountaindreamers.blogspot.com

http://www.twitter.com/mtndreamers

[Zs Knees]

week's activities :

Don't shake the noodle, not good.

Lol, good advice Laura:) I hope you're feeling much better.

Well, as for me, I took a week off to freak out about my personal life, and I feel much better now. Job still uncertain, and I'm doing the work of 2 now since my manager left. Crossing my fingers for some stability here soon, and in the meantime, back to bootcamp!

I uninstalled Tweetdeck, since it was slowing down my already-slow computer. Twitter continues to elude me, as I see it does others too. I'll keep trying for a while... I find I have nothing I want to tweet, except links to items for sale, and that's where I agree with Julie's comments. Maybe it's just the anti-sales person inside me... I don't know what my hang-up is, lol!

I think I might revisit some of those old sites we opened accounts on before (oodle, youcraft, plaincraft, a dozen others I've forgotten...). It doesn't make sense to open accounts if I just neglect them.

How do you all keep up with so many accounts on so many sites??? Do you just make your rounds every day to each? Once a week?

Mountaindreamer, I see that you're keeping up with several shops and two blogs... how many hours do you spend a day in front of the computer??? Any advice?

[mountaindreamers]

Thanks,  my concussion is better but have constant ringing in the ears now from the blow to the back of my head, going to the Ear doc on Tuesday. we will see how it goes. I am just grateful to not have any broken bones.

Twitter, I just link jewelry items and # them to target groups like jewelry etc.And also if I put a new blog I will link it , but as for constant updates on what I am doing "right " now , It is a stretch to think any one cares. It does increase the views on your site, so that can help, I think twitter will probably evolve into an instant marketing tool and also as a place to tweet mindless daily details. I work online all day at my job that pays the bills but we are blocked from accessing blogs, twitter etc , anything interactive. Like Christine said you have to have good habits, I can log in to all 4 main sites I use with about 5 min per site just to make sure I am up to date and answer messages. Blogging is pretty quick , as I type fast. You can waste a lot of time "drifting " from one site to another.  I have spent more time on line since boot camp, checking out other icraft sites and linking to blogs. Now that the ground work is done I am cutting back as I need to increase my inventory for the upcoming Holiday. It is a balance.

Thanks Laura  http://www.mountaindreamers.blogspot.com

https://icraftgifts.com/mountaindreamers

[GalleriaLinda]

I am impressed with this bootcamp progress from everyone.

Wish I could say I have been able to participate as I thought I would but is is not to be right now.

I just got out of the hospital after a nasty bout with bronchitis. I need to limit activity for a while to get better, but now that I am home, I can at least check in bootcamp and maybe post in the marketing forum.

Best to you all!
Linda

[mountaindreamers]

I hope you feel better soon, summer bugs are almost worst than the winter ones, ; ) Laura

[PillowThrowDecor]

Swine flu has struck my sister-in-law's friend in Sacramento. This lady passed away at age 52.  Man alive ... doesn't that just make you wanna  grab the good bits in life now!!!

So ... important message from this mother hen... LOOK AFTER YOURSELF Linda and all of you!!!

Technorati.com  hmmmm I have to refresh my memory on it.

This is summer and as was suggested we need to be thinking about getting our ducks lined for Christmas.  Inventory needs to be ready.  I sure would love to hear from others on how they get ready with their Christmas inventory, etc.

There is so much that I would like to see each of us learn in bootcamp but there just isn't the time. One of the most important objectives it to get everyone doing something regularly.

This is the second bootcamp for me and I think it is going to take another 2 bootcamps before I am really happy with a finely tuned marketing plan.  Bootcamp is really helping me determine what I DON'T want to do in my marketing efforts.

So I encourage all of you to be acutely aware of what feels good and what is easy for your daily routine.  Besides feeling good about what you are doing you have to know that it is producing results and results are evidenced by views first, and then sales.  Yayyyy Google Analytics.  So that's where I want everyone's mind to be headed.