Social Media

[Dink]

How many people use social media like facebook for advertising?

[Cyberthrasher]

it's my main "website" while I'm working on developing a website that suits my needs. You can't beat it for getting your name out there to people who would normally not know who you are or what you do. All it takes is for one friend to like something you do, then all their friends see it and so on.

[Beaverslayer]

Yes I also use Facebook, none of the other ones though.

[Dink]

I definatley see the benefit of it, however is there such a thing as over doing it, I like to put things out there when it is something cool and out of the ordinary and not flood it daily with with the repetitive same thing different color type items. So is the philosophy of this marketing to keep a continous flow of things and to continually keep your name in front of people, or is a suttle weekly post work better.

I am not directing this at any custom type item because they are all different, but just as an example I may see the same item like clothes or jewlery one or more time a day.

I guess I am just trying to figure out, Is there proper ettiquette

[billymac814]

I now use it and it works out well. Its an easy way of opening up lines of communications between me and customers. I make a lot of repetitive stuff so I don't post a bunch of stuff, normally if I do a custom job or something a little different from the norm. I also did a "How its Made" type segment and showed all the steps I take to make a holster and it was well received. I think it helped justify the cost for some people. It wasn't a "How To" so no one is going to learn how to do it really just see how its done. There's a lot of people who have Facebook these days so its almost a necessity. I now have my photo albums linked to my site so if I post a photo on Facebook it shows up on my sites gallery. That makes it easy because I do it all from my phone.

Just don't overdo it and annoy people and all will be well.

[Cyberthrasher]

I definatley see the benefit of it, however is there such a thing as over doing it, I like to put things out there when it is something cool and out of the ordinary and not flood it daily with with the repetitive same thing different color type items. So is the philosophy of this marketing to keep a continous flow of things and to continually keep your name in front of people, or is a suttle weekly post work better.

I am not directing this at any custom type item because they are all different, but just as an example I may see the same item like clothes or jewlery one or more time a day.

I guess I am just trying to figure out, Is there proper ettiquette

In this regard, I think it's easy to turn people away by posting the same stuff over and over and over and over. I have a couple of companies I've liked on my personal page that have actually turned me away from purchasing their products because they basically fill my news feed with a separate post for each of their items every morning.

ALL of my work is custom, so I usually post up progress pictures and the finished items. Sometimes if I don't have anything going on I start working on other ideas and ask people what they think. I have a long way to go to fully utilize it though. My main problem now is that everyone sees me as only offering one product because that's the orders I've been getting.

I think the key to FB for people like us is to engage our fans. Don't engage them like they're a business customer who's just there to browse and buy, bring them into the shop like a part of the family and say "check this out"

[aguilerag]

Using FB as marketing is a great thing as social media has become the new, big and reasonably cheap/free thing for advertisement. (I'm not counting the FB ads you could buy). I have helped my friends develop a FB page for their business and like anything business related, you need to have a plan on how to use it.

If I were to help someone use FB for their custom leather work (as I hope to start doing myself once I become better) I would advise the following.

If you are making things from scratch I would start by posting a picture of the material you are going to use and a picture of the peices after you have cut out all the patterns. You can explain what item you are going to make, a little about what material you are using and some of the steps.

This is a good attention grabber and will build interest in seeing future posts and pictures of updates.

I have done this for my dog training business. I have my son video tape me at the first visit for the dog to see what the behavior problem is then edit it when I get home to add my voice and explain what the problem is and what I am going to do to help fix it. As I always follow up with my clients I tape every visit to show the improvement I have helped the dog to make. This has helped me get a lot of new clients as people are waiting to "see what happens next". This could be true for the follow up progress pictures of the item you are making.

Just my opinion

[Chief31794]

I definatley see the benefit of it, however is there such a thing as over doing it, I like to put things out there when it is something cool and out of the ordinary and not flood it daily with with the repetitive same thing different color type items. So is the philosophy of this marketing to keep a continous flow of things and to continually keep your name in front of people, or is a suttle weekly post work better.

I am not directing this at any custom type item because they are all different, but just as an example I may see the same item like clothes or jewlery one or more time a day.

I guess I am just trying to figure out, Is there proper ettiquette

I can't believe you're talking about Facebook and Proper Ettiquette in the same quote, LOL. I have a facebook page for my work, very seldom post pictures unless it's something new or unique. My daughter has a gazillion (new word I learned from my grandchildren) friends so when she marked my site as liked it lit up pretty good with all sorts of traffic. I don't know that I've seen much sales from it, but it does mention my ETSY store and the traffic there is pretty good.

Chief

[aguilerag]

I am just learning how to do leather work and make items. I have made a total of 1 wallet kit, 1 wallet from scratch and 2 checkbook covers (works in progress). I have posted pictures of me starting the projects, a couple updates and the finish product (wallets) on my personal FB page and have recieved 7 people wanting to order wallets from me, and 1 wanting a check book cover. I explain to them that I am recently new at this but they still want to order. The Tandy wallet kit, which was my first full item I ever made, someone wants to buy it from me.

I want to learn more and become better before I make my own FB page dedicated to my work. I think posting pictures of works in progress could be broken down to 3-4 without being considered spamming and keeping peoples interests. Beginning, after tooling/staining/dye, during assembly, final product?

[Cyberthrasher]

Beginning, after tooling/staining/dye, during assembly, final product?

That's usually what I try to do - artwork, tooling done, dying progress, finished product. Sometimes if it's a larger tooled piece I'll do a few progress pictures in the middle of the tooling to show how much detail goes into it all.

[billymac814]

Its also basically a forum for your customers. They can make a comment and others can respond or comment as well. A lot of times that's enough to push someone over the edge and place an order. Its one thing to see a customers comments section on someone's site but actually seeing a customer make a comment is a lot more personal.

When I did the "How its Made" thing I didn't want to blow up people's timeline with pictures so I used an app I have "before and After" that allows me to combine two pictures together, this allowed me to basically cut the number of posts in half and still be thorough.

I use the same app for when I do restorations or repairs.

I find FB very useful these days, so many people have it from young to old, definitely more young but they really aren't my customer base.

I think its much more personal than just having a website, at least that's how I use it. A website is still equally important for ordering purposes and for those who don't use Facebook.

[aguilerag]

Billy, what do you specialize in and what would you consider your customer base?

[Dink]

Alot of great input from everyone Thank You. I see two somewhat reoccuring themes that I like

1. Don't do it to the point of annoying

2. Bring them in to your shop like part of the family, Thanks Cyberthrasher I like that

The photo series of projects is also a great idea, I may have to try this

Again thanks to everyone for your input

Dink

[billymac814]

I mainly make modern holsters and belts so my customer base is usually age 25 and up and usually right leaning.

At one point my main thing was motorcycle seats and the age group was similar but it seemed that my biggest fans were not actual buyers as the seats ended up being fairly expensive and I found it difficult even charging a lot to really make a lot doing them when I broke down my time. I started using Facebook after I made the transition from seats to holsters so I would say most of them the people are there for the holsters. Prior to Facebook And prior to having a website I had a Blog page and I actually preferred that and the layout but I can't keep up all three so I quit updating it and more people have Facebook so I think it works better.

Ill still post anything I do whether its a high chair or a holster but most people that "like" my page are there to see gun related stuff, its not that often and shows people I do other stuff.

I also have another page that is specifically geared towards repair work that I do since those customers can be virtually anyone and people who may not have an interest in guns and my gun people may not have an interest in seeing some of the things I post on that page. I find since the holsters are fairly specialized its better to just have two separate pages. My repair customers are generally local where as nearly 98% of my holster and custom items are online sales.

Here's the next segment of this topic. How many "likes" does everyone have? I have 173 on my main one and only 61 on the repair page. I just started really using them a few months ago when I figured out how easy I could post stuff from my phone using the "Pages" app. I really should promote it more though, I've seen people include a card with each order with their FB info, I might consider doing something like that.

Billy, what do you specialize in and what would you consider your customer base?

[aguilerag]

The reason I asked was that most of my friends on FB are old military friends ranging from age 25-40+ (SEALS/marines/military police) and some are people I havent met but are friends with my friends that are doing or did what I did in the military. FB in my experience is a way to reach a broad customer base. Maybe you should use FB ads (it does cost some money but overall cheaper than a lot of advertisement) to try to reach the correct customer base on FB. Over 9 million users and if you use FB ads correctly a great way to reach a wide base that could help sales.

[Cyberthrasher]

Here's the next segment of this topic. How many "likes" does everyone have? I have 173 on my main one and only 61 on the repair page.

I just reached a whopping 67

I think about 20 of those are from people here, 37 or so are my friends from my personal page, and the rest are friends of people here. Needless to say, most of my customer base is in the 37ish who happened to be friends with me already and are part of my blues guitar group.

[Beaverslayer]

In the 2 1/2 months I've had the Facebook page for Beaverslayer Custom Leather, I've garnered 153 likes. The first few weeks it rose pretty steadily, now it's tapered down to only a couple a week.

The newest "likes" I have no idea who they are or whence they came, as they have no likes or friends in common with me, so somehow in Facebooks vast reach, it is being seen.

[Cyberthrasher]

The newest "likes" I have no idea who they are or whence they came, as they have no likes or friends in common with me, so somehow in Facebooks vast reach, it is being seen.

I always go view their page and see if they like leather related stuff. From there I usually find that they either saw one of my Springfield spotlights, they're from here, or they're friends with Kings X. I honestly have no idea how he's drawing people to my page since I don't think he's liked any of my posts recently and I only like his stuff from my personal account, but I'm not gonna complain about it

[artycpt]

At first I didn't put a lot into my facebook page. Recently I have been trying to make more of an effort to post finished projects and add statuses with at least some frequency, even when I don't have anything new to post that I have made.

My page is relatively small in comparison with the likes you guys have received so far. How it all pans out for marketing is something I am trying to figure out. I have noticed that contributing to other groups or pages from my page profile has gotten my page some attention.

[Cyberthrasher]

I have noticed that contributing to other groups or pages from my page profile has gotten my page some attention.

I think I need to start doing the same. I'll add a couple more to your list right now

[billymac814]

I could probably do more to gather up some more interest to my page. My wife keeps saying I need to suggest the page from my personal account but I never do. I should though, I know my friends don't need to see anything I do but I never really thought about their friends seeing it.

I've found my likes to come more quickly now than before which is the opposite of beavers layers experience. It seems the more I have the faster new ones comes in. It seemed to be slow getting to 100 and seemed like in only a few weeks I got 70 some more.

Facebook used to annoy me with the pokes and likes and its still rather dumb but its definitely caught on and I can see its place in the world. My page still doesn't seem to get as much traffic as my site does but I think those who spend time on my FB page are "better" customers. They are the ones who will generally be back as a repeat customer and they are the ones that usually post pictures of my stuff on gun forums and without them I doubt many people would find me, I don't post on any forums since, I would if I had more time but I already spend too much time here lately.

[EmbossingDieCompany]

Even if you don't post regularly, I think everyone should have one......it's almost like the yellow pages nowadays......people will search for you on FB before they look for your regular .com website. And definitely have links to any other selling sites you are on (Etsy, etc.) and your contact info (phone number, e-mail address).

[Beaverslayer]

I always go view their page and see if they like leather related stuff. From there I usually find that they either saw one of my Springfield spotlights, they're from here, or they're friends with Kings X. I honestly have no idea how he's drawing people to my page since I don't think he's liked any of my posts recently and I only like his stuff from my personal account, but I'm not gonna complain about it

Cyber, there is one that likes my page that is a "Hutterite", all his "Friends" are also Hutterites. I didn't even think that they were even allowed to have computers or access them.

[billymac814]

You must not have watched the show about the Hutterites on Natgeo. All the younger people seemed to have smart phones and computers. It seemed like they do what they want regardless of what they are supposed to do.

Cyber, there is one that likes my page that is a "Hutterite", all his "Friends" are also Hutterites. I didn't even think that they were even allowed to have computers or access them.

[Cyberthrasher]

Cyber, there is one that likes my page that is a "Hutterite", all his "Friends" are also Hutterites. I didn't even think that they were even allowed to have computers or access them.

Maybe they all have basement data centers where they access the web in secret. If you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist, right?