Social Media Networking & Marketing Advice

With more and more home-based businesses starting and using social networking to market their products, it's good to have a few tips on how to work these free advertising venues.

1. Follow the rules. If you join a group or website that has rules, then follow them. When you break rules, you are a trouble maker, not a revolutionary. Other group members will think, know, you're just there for marketing and don't care enough to learn about the group and support its members. Ultimately, you might even be banned from the group and your company becomes the one that was kicked out of the circle. You lose because groups have valuable information and even potential customers.

2. Don't steal friends. To sit there and go through another businesses friends' list is down right rude. Facebook and twitter have made it easy for you to find people who share similar interests, add them if you want more followers. If you're just starting out and all of sudden you have all the same friends as another shampoo maker, something just doesn't seem logical even with the friend suggestions. Plus, their customers will be quick to call you on it. Instead do the work to get friends, that way you're adding slower and actually get a little inkling of who the person is.

3. Don't abuse tagging. Don't just randomly tag people that you really don't know. Yes, the site is free and you can do what you like, but it costs you in long run. Would you want other businesses tagging you and filling your pages with their items? When you start tagging it becomes a two-way street. Will you be happy, jealous, or angry when your friends start liking and buying from those who tag you and link on your pages? You have your pages so link them from your blog or website, cross-feed twitter and facebook, and suggest your fan page to friends. Also, if you want to get an item noticed by others, then share a post/link from your business page and tag yourself. That way whoever is following you will see it in their feed. It's just that simple.

4. Give, interact, and be thankful! Try to interact with other companies and your customers while giving them something useful. If you have a little advice or a product you like, share it. Be sure to check your pages and tweets for comments to answer questions and give thanks for compliments and retweets. And when all else fails and you think you have nothing to give, give your services or your product. A give-away is a quick way to get everyone excited, including yourself!

What this all boils down to, is don't be lazy. If you really think about it, all it takes is time and a little effort to reply, say thank you, post a link, and network. That little effort really does pay off if you are consistent. When you take short-cuts you will come up short.

What advice do you have for promoting your business on social media outlets?

No Comments - It's Ok.

A few times I've read blogs about people not getting comments and how they feel nobody supports them. Or that AfroMyNaturalHairIsHotFireAndI'veBeenBloggingForManyYears has a clique and they comment on everything she posts. When I first saw these 'comment on my blog posts' I felt pity for the blogger. Then it sort of looks desperate, demanding, and ungrateful. So, I offer a little advice on blogging.

1. Don't start the blog just to get comments, become popular, or make money. If your heart is not in it, you will be easily discouraged when things are moving slowly.

2. Give it time. It takes a while time to build a blog following.

3. Show yourself. If you have a make-up blog, don't just copy/paste the make-up all the time. Show yourself in it. Do a slideshow or video with you putting on the make-up. Sharing a recipe? Have somebody snap a photo of you or you take one of somebody eating it.

4. Ask questions or opinions! Folks love to talk, but sometimes need to be given the mic to speak up.

5. Bring people to your blog. If you have facebook & twitter and the rest of them, tell people that you have a new blog post.

6. Don't look pitiful, ungrateful, or desperate. Always, be welcoming, humble, and helpful.

This is a repost from my other blog carmennc.blogspot.com

Handle Your Shipping

In efforts to prevent fraud and scams to my customer and myself I have been using a few safe guards, but I'm finding that as business grows, so do problems.

PayPal has a buyer/seller protection program. The guidelines are rather simple and include ship to confirmed addresses and use tracking. I am currently using first class USPS with delivery confirmation and completely blocked orders from unconfirmed address. If a non-receipt of order dispute arises I can provide this information and be awarded as the winner. But, I don't really feel like a winner. I might have the money in my hand, but the poor customer has nothing. I'm an optimistic person and try not to think that customer is trying to get over and that the postal service does deliver packages to their destinations. But I know better than that. I received a neighbors retirement check and hand delivered it myself. Once one of my packages was delivered, but returned to the post office, then delivered again because the package had scribbles on it. Also, dishonest people will scam when they see the opportunity.

After receiving an order of $300+, I decided that delivery confirmation wasn't enough and had it insured. With insured packages of $200+ the recipient has to sign for it. The postage was roughly $5 extra which is well worth the peace of mind that I was protected and a full investigation would be launched if a problem did arise. Since then, I have been insuring orders of $30+ and not even charging extra for it.

I have thought about changing my s/h rates from by number of items to a scale based on the price of the order.

What precautions or measures do you use to safe guard your shipments and insure delivery? If you have any shipping advice please share!

Pulling Ideas from Odd Places

Sometimes coming up with new designs and ideas can be a job in itself. The goal for selling is to have products to sell. For returning customers I try my best to offer something new and even more creative. It's also a chance to try out a new skill and step out of the box.

I went to a fabric/yarn store with my mother after Thanksgiving. She knits & crochets and needed fabric to line a few purses. I crochet and thought I'd try my hand at some stretchy socks. While going through the isles we both stopped and looked at some spools of curtain/lamp shade dangling things ~ I'm most certain these dangles have a proper name. Mom has decorated lamp shades with them and they do add fashion to the decor. One caught my eye.

From curtain dangle thingies to earring and hair accessories.

Marketplace Shop or Stand Alone Store

I do have an Etsy shop. Right around the same time that www.tomokastwists.com was being created, I opened up an Esty merchant account. I get asked about it from time to time and here is my view on Etsy and other marketplaces.

A quick way to set up a shop is to use a marketplace, a hub for many stores. I have found these to be extremely user friend with low or no upfront costs. There are several to chose from and the choice is yours. Often owners will pick more than one to test the waters since listing costs are near nothing.

Which should you pick Ebay, Etsy, Artfire, or one of the others? Once again, it does not matter. It is up to you to bring the people to the site to buy. So even if it is just a blog with buttons, you have to bring them to that spot. If people want your products they will buy them from anywhere that looks decent with paypal buttons. Ebay charges a one time fee that will be billed to you monthly. Etsy charges a small upfront listing fee. Etsy also skims off a little off each purchase and bills at the end of the month. Ebay offers a store option in which you can list several items for a monthly flat fee. Artfire has no fees for the basic shop, that I know of as of the time I am writing. They also offer a complete store for $7.

Once you start seeing that your sells have picked up and remain steady, all these small fees will begin to add up equal to or more than a stand alone website. If this occurs, then it might be cost effective to create an inexpensive websites.

The advantage of having a stand alone is that you have room to grow. You can include pages for testimonies and pictures that customers send. Add a video, a little music, a whole page for useful links. A stand alone can be customized. You can even add a blog to it.