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Saturday, June 6, 2015

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.









11 comments:

  1. I know exactly how you feel! I spend so much time marketing lately that there's no time for creating anymore. I really need to find that balance.

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  2. I know! Three tv channels when we were kids! Now you have to have cable and I refuse to pay the outrageous price for it. I've got Netflix and I can watch the current shows online if I want. My husbands Great Aunt grew up before they had cars, I imagine the internet is kind of like that for us. When I was little my Mom was key punch operator for the computer at Cal Berkeley, thing filled an entire room, I'm typing with mine on my lap lol

    Marketing though, I refuse to stress over it. It is what it is, eventually I'll find my stride and run with it. Until then I'm having fun :)

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  3. Laura, you hit the nail on the head!! But...you're still doing better at this than me. You manage to find time to keep up your blog! I haven't been around much during the last week. That's because I spent so much time in front of this computer "trying" to do social media that I have totally blown out my lower back as well as managing to raise my stress level around 75%. I have been reduced to sleeping in the downstairs recliner.

    On Pinterest you’re verified? Read all about this at one point only to find out I couldn’t “get” verified because I don’t have a stand alone website. You have a business account? rich pins? I read about this too but couldn’t figure it out. You’re using promoted pins? Hhmm… I wonder what that means and you've signed up for buyable pins... you think…I read the first sentence about those and thought “oh no” dolphin talk again.

    Okay, sometimes I read someone’s blog post and think wow, maybe I just have to stop doing all of this stuff and go back to the days when I could spend hours creating JEWELRY. Remember how much fun that was? Oh that’s right, it was fun but I ran out of space to store the jewelry.

    Ahh, I just had an idea..maybe I could do a blog post answering your blog post and then I could post a link to your blog post and then, oh yeah, I never can figure out how to do those links… OMG…how have these thoughts started started zooming around my head a mile a minute before I finished my first cup of coffee????? My back is killing me sitting in front of this machine…where is that Sunday newspaper….bye.

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  4. PyxeeStyx, totally... and me too. Sometimes I find myself missing being in the workshop. It's easy to let time slip by when you're on the computer.

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  5. WindDancerStudios, glad to hear you refuse to stress over marketing. I tend to stress over everything. (Yeah, working to correct that.)

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  6. Omi Silver, sorry to hear about your back. :-(

    BTW, you don't have a stand-alone website? Why did I think you had an IndieMade shop?

    And yeah, verified, rich, business, etc... but ask me when the last time I actually pinned anything. Ha ha ha!

    Perhaps we all need a system whereby when the clock dings we go to the workshop then when it dings again we go to the computer and we never let the other interrupt our scheduled task.

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  7. We're all right there with you, Laura! It seems most online sellers I know are torn between the numerous outlets for marketing and doing what they love artistically. In theory, I come back to the "do what you love" motto. In reality, the internet time sink for me isn't even just focused on marketing. I'll post something to pinterest...and then poke around looking at cool things and "boom" a half hour has passed. Multiply that by a couple of venues you use to market and YIKES! Self-discipline is a tough row to hoe, but when you love making jewelry, you'd think creating would win every time...so why doesn't it??? Focus and discipline...now where did I misplace those tools!!!

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  8. touch of silver,

    We had a nice discussion about this blog post on Facebook and I think what I'm coming away with it is:

    A) Dedicate SOME time to judiciously market on social media
    B) Think about the social media outlets your target audience is likely to use
    C) Don't stress about not being able to do it all or know it all

    And you're right about the discipline... totally necessary.

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  9. Yes, Laura! And a related thing I also wonder about is if / how many of the folks you call "automatons" (with so many pieces and so many different listings / sites) factor all that time into their prices.... Seems to me that either some of them must have some magic online-services wand I don't have, or they're classifying the time they spend online as "personal relaxation" (i.e., doing that part for free) instead of as "work" time (for which they should be paid out of their sales).

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