Let's be real - social media is hard. Coming up with content for a consistent and fresh brand can be so time-consuming, and when you only get a few likes it can be so disheartening. I used to sit at my laptop, stressed out trying to come up with content that was both informative and engaging. I decided I was no longer going to be stumped! So I created a checklist of 125 content ideas, that I could check off as I posted them - and I stopped struggling! Suddenly, content creation was easy and I was writing captions that my audience loved - and I wasn't spending countless hours racking my brain for a witty caption. Well, I have made this checklist available to you - you can check out my 125 days of social media content planner right here! Or, if you want a sneak peek, I have listed 10 social media content ideas for your handmade business below (and even given details to be extra generous!). Share Your 'Why'
Most small businesses start because the owner wants more money. That's the easy answer to your why, but not a very effective one. When we say our why, we want to connect to our audience. Maybe you want to buy something in particular, or you struggle financially and want a more comfortable life. Or maybe you just love your craft and want to share it with the world! There isn't a wrong answer, but getting your story across is fantastic for building strong relationships. You don't need to go into massive detail, but tell your audience why you started. For example, I started The Digital Booktique because I wanted more funds for a house deposit. I want to have options when choosing a house, and to have some money left over after the deposit for furnishings and redecorating. I love helping Etsy sellers and small businesses reach their potential, and I love that my business not only supports my dreams but also my customers. Answer Business FAQ's This is a simple, but very effective type of post. Some people are too shy to ask a question about your business, so it's good to give answers so they don't have to ask them! If you have something that you are frequently asked, why not write a post about it. Tell your audience where you ship to, how to order or what materials you use. Answer those questions your audience may have about your shop to get them to buy. Introduce Yourself Who are you? Where do you live? What are your hobbies? What are your passions? Let your audience know the REAL you! Your business isn't just a shop - it's a reflection of you. Let your audience know the face behind the business to make it more personable, and your customers will gain ideas of what your business is about. Thank Your Followers Saying thank you is free, and can go a long way! Say thank you to your customers and followers regularly so they know you appreciate them. Tell them why you are thankful, and what their support has done for you. This can make you more personable and can encourage current and future customers to support you even more. Share Your Unpopular Opinion This is surprisingly a really fun social media post to do. Everyone has quirks, and sharing that with your audience can get them talking! It will give your audience a little known fact into your life. For example, my unpopular opinion is I hate milk. I find it disgusting, and I struggle having it near me. My boyfriend thinks I'm bonkers - and likes to tease me with a milk moustache after he's had a good gulp! Let your audience know a little bit about yourself that can get people intrigued and commenting. Do A 'This Or That' Post Do you prefer sweet or savoury? Books or films? Are you organised or last minute? Ask your audience this or that questions to get them commenting! You can even relate it to your business - do you prefer this or that style? Or ask for a vote on the colour of your product. Either way, you are directly asking your audience to comment on your post, which will raise engagement! Talk About Your Product Benefits You need to sell your products to customers - and I don't mean by saying 'Buy this product please'. I mean really SELL. Tell your audience why they need your product and how it will benefit them. Maybe your product helps a certain issue or can help make the customer feel pretty and stylish. Tell your audience why your products are beneficial to them to push the sale! Share Your Least Selling Product Ummm... Why? Surely we should be promoting our best sellers? This is true, but why not change it up and share your least selling product. It could be that you're not promoting it enough, so putting it on your feed may get some extra sales! Or, you could even ask your audience for suggestions. Getting your followers involved can be great for engagement, and by asking them their opinion you are showing that you care about good products in your shop. Ask Your Audience To Sign Up To Your E-mail List E-mail marketing is a great way to connect with customers who have signed up to hear about your products. They are interested in what you have to say, so building that audience is important. But to get subscribers, you need to tell them you have a list. You can ask your audience to sign up for your list by clicking a link in your bio - or you could ask them to DM their e-mail to you. Use your feed to help build your other marketing platforms! Share Another Small Business Because sharing is caring right? Even if you don't sell products catered to business, the beauty of being small is that we can support each other. We understand the frustrations of being a one-person band trying to juggle it all, or of feeling frustrated when things aren't going our way! Sharing another business can not only help them but can build bonds with other sellers. You could share a small business you recently purchased from or a product that compliments your own. Sharing another small business is free, and can have long-lasting effects. If you want to share my page (and tell people how helpful this blog has been!) you can find my Instagram here! Like these ideas? Check out my Social Media Content Planner here to get 125 post ideas to help engage your followers and plan your social media strategy effectively!
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30/9/2020 0 Comments THE TOP 5 MISTAKES ETSY SELLERS MAKE ON PINTEREST (AND HOW YOU CAN AVOID THEM!)I do a lot of Pinterest account work for Etsy sellers who are trying to promote their products with little to no success. A lot of them say the same thing - they are confused, frustrated and upset that they can't get it right. Especially with the knowledge that Pinterest can drive so much traffic, and you hear about so many people getting successful results. They say to me 'why can't I do that?'. And the answer is you can! Usually, simple little mistakes are the reason they are not finding success. And - even more so - everyone is making the same mistakes! I often find myself repeating the same advice over and over. So, in today's blog post, I will be highlighting the top 5 mistakes Etsy sellers make on Pinterest, and how you can avoid them! 1. Having a lot of empty boards This tends to be a pattern for POD shops, but I have also seen it in handmade shops. For example, I have seen Pinterest pages that have 100+ boards, but each board only has 3 pins each. They have used a separate board for each design, scent, product etc. This will not get you good results. You want a few nice full boards rather than lots of little ones! Think about a clothing store - they organise their products by type of product. Tops, Jeans, Pyjamas, Shoes and Bags are located in different areas. They are grouped together because they are similar, and there's large quantities of them. Most people will go into a shop looking for a specific item, like a T-shirt. If the T-shirts were dotted around the store it would make it harder for the customer, and make it less likely that they'd bother looking at everything. This is the same as your Pinterest boards. You want to group your items together like a shop would so your customers can easily find what they want in one board. You should be aiming for each board to have at least 100 pins, however you shouldn't rush adding pins to it and avoid repinning the same pin over and over in a short space of time. I always recommend newer shops with fewer listings have one business board with all of their products, but when they have more listings I recommend adding more specific boards. For example, I have a board for Etsy Business Printables, where all of my items are pinned. I also have boards for Etsy Shop Bookkeeping, Etsy Social Media Marketing, Etsy Shop Organization and Excel Spreadsheet Templates for Etsy Sellers - where I still only pin my own items, but they are split up if a customer knows what type of item they want. 2. Mixing work and play This is a massive issue that occurs a lot, and can be a big factor in why you aren't seeing the traffic or engagement you require - and that is using the same profile for both your personal and business boards. Usually, the issue starts with a seller who already has a Pinterest account but then wants to use it for marketing their shop. They decide instead of starting over, they will just add on to what they already have because they already have some traffic from the boards they have. The reason I don't like personal mixing with business is 1) You attract the wrong type of audience, and/or 2) You confuse the Pinterest algorithm. For example, if a shop that sells natural vegan soap has boards for their children's birthday party inspiration, this will bring parents who are looking for birthday ideas, but may not necessarily be interested in soaps. So the unique monthly visitors number they are seeing on their page are traffic that have absolutely no interest in their product, so those viewers are useless. Not only that, but the more you pin of others that have no relation to your products, the more you confuse the algorithm because Pinterest doesn't know who you are trying to target. The key thing to remember is your Pinterest account should be made for targeting a specific audience. If you are using it for marketing, it should be purely for that, not for your own personal likes and inspiration. Check out my FREE target audience worksheet to help identify your ideal customers interests for board inspiration by clicking here. The best thing to do in this circumstance is to make a business account completely separate to your personal account. If you have already done a lot of work on your personal account for your business, you can add your business account as a collaborator to your board so you can continue adding to it, but you will eventually want to make your own boards on your business account. For example, on my business account I have a board for Etsy business printables, but on my personal account I have a board for Etsy seller help that has both my personal and business account as a collaborator. This means I can save the progress I made on my old account, and not have to redo the entire board. 3. Only pinning from Etsy I see a lot of accounts use the share button on Etsy to create pins. There isn't anything wrong with doing this - it's a quick easy way to make pins. However, pins directly from Etsy should not be relied on. To be successful you need to make your own pins regularly and upload them. The reason for this is that Etsy optimisation is different from Pinterest optimisation. For Etsy, they prefer square or horizontal images, multiple keyword titles and detailed descriptions. For Pinterest, they prefer vertical images, short and concise titles and brief keyword filled descriptions. Use free programs like Canva to make vertical images that are optimised for Pinterest and upload them manually to create great titles and descriptions that will reach your ideal customer. 4. Being scared to repin others Many accounts get worried that if they repin others they will lose potential customers. But repinning is essential for good traffic. Not only does it bring users to you, but Pinterest also love it! They don't want you to add content and then leave it at that. They want you to share others so more people add content to be shared. The general rule of thumb is for every pin you add, repin 4 other pins. The confusion comes when Etsy sellers worry about promoting their competition - and the simple solution to this to to not promote them! For example, my board Printables For Businesses includes pins of my own, but also other peoples. However, I do not repin users who are in direct competition with me. So, I may repin others who sell printables for appointment making, MLM sales etc - but if someone sells Pinterest workbooks and checklists I will not repin. This ensures a good variety of products in your board, but also doesn't promote your competition. Don't be scared to repin others, but you also don't need to repin everything that relates to a topic if it has potential to take away custom from your shop. 5. Lack of optimisation This is the big one that can make or break your Pinterest account. There are two ways you can optimise your page to get traffic. 1) Keywords - You should be using long tailed keywords on your page, board titles and descriptions, and in your pin titles and descriptions. These can be found for free using the Pinterest search bar. And, 2) Image matching - Your pins should look similar to those that you find in your niche. This is so Pinterest can easily determine what will be popular with their audience. Optimisation will get your content in front of the right audience, rather than everyone seeing it with low link clicks. You want pins that generate high levels of traffic to your shop, rather than pins that are seen by everyone but don't gain traffic. And that's my list of top 5 mistakes Etsy sellers make on Pinterest! Have you been making any of these mistakes? Let me know in the comments! Do you struggle with your Pinterest account? Check out my free downloadable checklist here to up your Pinterest game today!
A big mistake many small businesses make is not identifying who their target audience is. They don't realise the importance of targeting a niche because they are scared of loosing other customers who aren't their 'ideal' client. But, creating a target audience does not mean you won't sell to any other group. In today's blog post, I will be discussing why identifying your target audience is important, what you need to know about your ideal customer and how to reach them. WHY BOTHER WITH A NICHE TARGET AUDIENCE WHEN I CAN TARGET EVERYONE? The point of having a target audience is to attract an entire group of people very well. When you target everyone, you end up targeting no one. Alternatively, if you try to target multiple niche groups, you end up with a confusing brand. That is often why you see people set up multiple shops if they are targeting different audiences or sell different products. The other end of the spectrum is that small businesses target a broad audience. For example, males in their 20's. If you talk to 50 different males in their 20's, they will all have differences. Not every 23 year old male is interested in the same thing, have the same fashion sense, watch the same TV shows etc. For example, if you're trying to promote organic beard serum to all males, those without a beard won't be interested because it won't be any use to them. Targeting men in their 20's with a beard will be a better marketing strategy. Even better, men with beards who prefer natural and organic products. Targeting all males will be a waste of time, and you will reach an audience who have no use for your product. Targeting men with beards who like organic products doesn't mean you won't reach other audiences. You could still reach men with a beard who have never tried an organic product, men with beards who are in their 40s, or even women looking for a gift for a man. But niche targeting means you reach a population of consumers who are interested in your product, rather than a lot of people who aren't. WHAT DO I NEED TO IDENTIFY? So, what exactly do you need to know about your target audience?
Get my FREE customer profile worksheet here to help you dig deep into your target audience! Additionally, you can use the what, why, where and how method. For this you need to identify:
HOW DO I REACH MY TARGET AUDIENCE? Now you've got a target audience in your head that follows all the above, you need to think about how to reach them. You need to get your product in front of the correct audience, and there are a couple of super easy ways that you are probably already doing (but maybe not as optimised as you should be!) 1) Keywords - This is particularly important in your Etsy listings. Using optimised long tailed keywords that will reach your target audience is so important. For example, let's say you sell printable wall art with a leaf design. You want to reach people who like leaves, but this isn't really a thing. Most people don't just really like leaves and that's it! People who like leaves could come under the category of 'nature lover'. So, let's expand on that. After some research, I can see 'Gift for nature lovers' auto populates in the Etsy search bar. This is a specific term that is actually being searched for by Etsy buyers. Using a term like this would allow you to reach nature lovers - and people who know a nature lover and want a gift! So, even though you have targeted a niche, you are still reaching either your target audience, or someone who is buying for your target audience. 2) Hashtags - Usually, hashtags are rather rushed. We stick them on the end of our Instagram captions and pick any that seem relevant. For example, #Etsyshop - In all honesty this is a pretty rubbish hashtag. Hashtags like these are commonly used because you are an Etsy shop. But, unless your target audience are Etsy shop owners, the majority of people who find you from a hashtag like this aren't going to be interested in your product. They may give you a follow because you have something in common, but we want followers who want to click the link and buy! There's nothing wrong with using a couple of hashtags that relate to Etsy - doing a little bit of networking isn't harmful - but you don't want to rely on these hashtags to get sales. So, using the example above, you could use a hashtag like #natureloverforlife to reach an audience who loves nature! Hopefully, you've learnt a little more about how to find and reach your target audience, and you can use the above to start getting organic traffic that are interested in your products! Who are your target audience, and how do you reach them? Let me know in the comments below! Want help identifying your target audience and specific methods of how to reach them? Check out my target audience planner here! With a guide and worksheets to help you tap into who your niche are and tips on how to reach them.
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