Making Jewelry or Driving Yourself Crazy with Marketing

I've officially "had it".  I can't figure everything out.  I concede.  And maybe it's not even that I can't figure it all out but that I don't want to figure it all out.

Pinterest
Promoted Pins
Buyable Pins
Business Pinterest
Verified Pins
Rich Pins

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

And that's all just from one social media form (Pinterest).  Multiply that confusion by dozens of social media forms and dozens more search engine optimization strategies.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not leaving the tech marketing world entirely.  I'm just drawing a line.  It's the line that keeps my sanity in check.

And today I blame Google Analytics.  It used to be easy.  Now it's all convoluted and tangential.  Bah!

As far as Pinterest goes... I'm verified, I have a business account, I have rich pins, I'm using promoted pins, and I've signed up for buyable pins... I think.

Trying to keep up with the tech marketing Joneses can be an exercise in frustration to say the least, and a way of avoiding making jewelry in the worst case scenario.

More and more of my jewelry buddies are lamenting the loss of jewelry making time in exchange for social media marketing time.

And yet if we don't do it, we KNOW we're not going to be noticed.

Who are these automatons who can make enough jewelry to have more than 100 listings on Etsy at all times and can still spend almost 8 hours a day with Pinterest and Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and.....  Yeah.

Pulling back the reins and trying to keep my work in perspective.

I can't do it all.  This is so sad.

The internet is kind of a weird place for "all or nothing" kind of people.  When I do something, I wanna do it... RIGHT... I wanna do it... BIG... I wanna do it... BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE.

When I was 14, I collected memorabilia on Jimmy Page.  It was fun.  I'd take the bus downtown every couple of months and look at the magazines in the music store to see if there were any articles.  When I got to go to San Francisco, I'd go to the record store that had bootlegs albums and I'd rifle through them looking for the ever so rare bootleg of Led Zeppelin live.  I'd take my cassette tape recorder and make sure I was at home to record interviews off the radio when they occurred.

I think you get the picture.  It was fun, like a treasure hunt with rare finds.

Now?  Now, it's not as much fun.  You want Jimmy Page memorabilia, you just need money.  Much less skill involved.  Much less planning and joy when rewarded.

But if you're an "all or nothing" person, you don't want to just get a few things in your collection.  You want the best collection possible.

I have to let go of the "all or nothing" mentality with marketing.  I will do my best.  I will try to learn what I can and I will spend a dedicated amount of time (no more than 30% of my work day) on marketing.

The line must be drawn even if it means losing internet visibility.

This rant had no purpose.  I'm just talking out loud this morning.  Forgive me.

So... on to other subjects.

TV Stuff

Here are my latest offerings to Hollywood.  Remember, if you're the first one to spot any of my work and let me know, you get the piece for free.

Sent these little earrings to the stylist for Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce.

 

And sent this pendant to a new celebrity game show called "Heads Up".  I'm showing you two photos because I made two versions, slightly different.

Copyright Infringement

A topic that comes up a lot in jewelry making circles.  Here's an article that might be an interesting read.

It tries to answer the following questions:

1. Is it copyright infringement to use someone else's material on YouTube without their permission?
2. Is it copyright infringement to post a picture you took from a from a google image search (or any other internet source)?
3. Is it copyright infringement to publish a translation of someone else's foreign work?

While I'm not running myself ragged with copyright worries, I do find these kinds of articles interesting.  I am intrigued with what's okay and not okay in this fast-changing internet world.

And now the ironic part where I share a meme I didn't create.  I kind of get the feeling memes are created solely for the purpose of sharing, but I could be wrong.  And here's an article on the subject (but sort of more the creating of the meme... not the sharing of it once it's been created... shrug).

Still hard to believe there was no practical internet until the 90's (when both my kids were born).  Neither of my children can understand the concept of a life before the internet and yet is was only a really short time ago.  And it's significant.  It's not like when my parents said things like, "we only had black and white tv shows when we were growing up".  The internet (and cell phones) changed almost everything.