Monday, May 19, 2014

Your Online Tool box!

As an Etsy shop owner, I am discovering everyday new ways to promote my work and my shop.

Here is a non-exhausting (and non-pretentious) "Online Tool Box" that I have put together for all the Etsy shop owners out there! I will make sure to update it as soon as I hear of new tools, apps and websites that can help us all make our shops more successful !

Making and Promoting Treasuries                                                   

One of the great tools on the Etsy website are the treasuries. A treasury is a 16-item collection curated by Etsy members. It is a great way to showcase your work!

Here are some interesting tools that will help you make your treasuries faster and more efficiently, as well as promoting them on different platforms.

✔ Brittany's Best Treasury Box
The Treasury Box is an extension that can be installed on Google Chrome only. It is very useful to make treasuries, send group convos (to the shop owners featured in your treasury) and to save an image of any treasury on Etsy. It's free.
brittanysbest.com/treasurybox-chrome-extension/

✔ Shmetsy
Shmetsy offers three convenient tools : Shmetsy Sketchy (that allows you to save your treasuries as drafts), Treasury Maker (that allows you to create treasuries more quickly and efficiently) and Convos Sender (you can send convos to the shop owners featured in your treasury in one click). It's free.
shmetsy.com/tools.html

✔ Enhantsy
Enhantsy is a convenient extension that can be installed on your Internet browser and that offer different features to make treasuries and send convos much more easily. It used to be free, but now you have to pay about $3 a month to use it, after the 7-day free trial period.
enhantsy.com/

✔ Treasury Pin
Treasury Pin is a great tool that allows you to pin your treasuries onto Pinterest, with a customizing tool to pin collages of all the items in the treasury, rather than the first item only.
treasurypin.com/


Monitoring Traffic                                                                            

Another important aspect of our Etsy business is the monitoring of traffic. How many views and favorites do my items get? Where are the visitors from? How are my items positioned compared to the other shops' products?

 Heart-O-Matic
This tool gives you the detail of the hearts (favorites) your shop and your different items got. You can also access a complete list of the people who favorited your shop.
craftcult.com/heartomatic.php

 Are my Listings relevant?
You can check the relevancy of your tags and titles with this online tool.
tools4etsy.com/Wall-e/Relevancy/Keyword

 Are my Listings trending?
Are you items trending? You can find out with one click, using this tool.
tools4etsy.com/Wall-e/Trending

 Craft Count
You can take a look at lists of the top sellers on Etsy, and see how your shop is positioned compared to the best sellers out there.
craftcount.com



Improving SEO and Tags                                                                   
Tag Wars
This very useful tool gives you a chance to compare different tags and see which one has the highest relevancy, popularity and probability rates. This is a great way to choose the best tags to be found in searches.
tools4etsy.com/TagWars


Boosting up your Blog or Website                                                         

There are some great tools out there to boost up your blog or website.

✔ Shop Widget
This tool will give you a chance to add a dynamic shop widget (with integrated slide show) onto your blog or website. Easy to use, and free!(You can see an example of the widget at the bottom of this page)
craftcult.com/shop_widget.php

✔ Etsy Mini
The Etsy mini is a direct gateway to your shop! You can generate your code and paste it in any webpage or blog HTML. Any change you make in your Etsy shop will be automatically updated in your Etsy mini. You can customize your Etsy mini to suit your needs.
etsy.com/your/mini


Managing your Business                                                                      

✔ Etsy Seller's Worksheet
You can download this convenient seller's worksheet that will help you keep track of your items and optimize your business.
mdmproofing.com/iym/products/etsy/sellers-worksheet/



Offering discounts and coupons                                                           

✔ Etsy on Sale
This website is dedicated uniquely to discounted and on-sale Etsy items. You can use it to promote your items that are on sale, but you will have to purchase credits in order to post on this website.
www.etsyonsale.com


Be seen and heard on social media platforms                                       

✔ Wanelo (wanelo.com)
Wanelo (that stands for Want - Love - Need) is a great site for Etsy shop owners to promote their items. Check it out, and claim your shop today! Someone might have already posted one of your items on Wanelo.

 Pinterest (pinterest.com)
It's next to impossible to avoid Pinterest when promoting your Etsy shop! Joining group boards is always an excellent idea to get your items out there.
✔ Facebook (facebook.com)
✔ Tumblr (tumblr.com)
✔ Twitter (twitter.com)

More apps and tools                                                                            

More Etsy apps :
You can browse here to find more Etsy apps. You can arrange the different apps by popularity, newness  or alphabetical order to find what you need :
www.etsy.com/apps


Interesting reads                                                                                   

✔ 8 ways to keep your social media updates fresh :
http://socialmediatoday.com/salman-aslam/2059286/8-ways-keep-your-social-media-updates-fresh




Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Watch out! The Hanji Web is expanding...!

In the last few months I had the pleasure to make meaningful contacts with other Hanji lovers and craftspeople from different parts of the globe!

It's a thrill and an honor for me when people take the time to send me a message, asking questions or simply encouraging me to pursuit my work.

It seems that the global "Hanji spider web" is expanding! ... and that's awesome news, needless to say!

✔ In the last few months I have received emails from two different people (one lady from Germany, and one young expat who now lives in Seoul, Korea) asking specific questions about Hanji craft and techniques. I really hope that my advice was useful to them, and that they will let me know how their projects are going! ☺

✔ At the end of March, I had the great pleasure to meet a group of Hanji craftspeople up in Seoul, when Hanji artist Jan Coveney was in town and gave a very interesting talk titled "Hanji after Korea";

✔ A Facebook group was recently created by some Hanji lovers in the U.A.E. to give a forum to all the Hanji paper craftspeople out there! (If you wish to join, contact me!)

✔ I received this morning a lovely e-mail from an American young lady who is going to teach a Hanji art program for teens in a public library in the Los Angeles area and who wishes to use some pictures of my work in her promotional flyer. What a thrill!

Watch out ! The gorgeous Hanji paper Web is getting bigger and wider.... you might get caught sooner than you think! ☺