Web Site Launch Helped By Task 1

Time to reflect on my first FDSM Task. To be honest I think this task was the one that got me really hooked into social media. When I started researching web sites with online jewellery sales I was amazed to find that 1/3 of them were not engaging with social media at all. Most of the others were just dabbling (as I was) with Face Book and Twitter. However, some of the big names were getting into it seriously.It was Fossil, the watch, jewellery, clothes and accessories company that caught my eye as they were very actively developing relationships with their customers. Looking closely at all their customer communications I found that Face Book, Twitter, You Tube and Pinterest had the most activity. I was also interested to find that they were using Twitter as a customer query and complaints interface so that they had instant access to deal with any problems. Point to self - speedy response to customers is a high priority.

I really liked their blog as it was full of interesting and beautiful photos, with not too much writing. It also surprised me that there was very little selling done. Their blog was there to interest and engage customers - not to sell to them. Point to self - make my Chrissie Designs Jewellery blog interesting and about the amazing coincidences/experiences I am having on my journey developing my new business.

Finally, I discovered their Life-Style page with over 60 photos and links. This particularly interested me as not only did it give them a second bite at the cherry to promote things like their Blog and You Tube videos, it also linked to other people's blogs, photos, web sites. This promotion of other businesses was something I had never seen before in this way. It made for a novel and interesting page which for me highlighted the fact that their web site was not just about them and their products. Note to self - nice touch for the future on my web site.

Through undertaking this task I also discovered web analysis and the graphs behind FaceBook etc. Very interesting - Note to self - look at analysis for my web site. Having just this week launched my web site

www.chrissiedesignsjewellery.co.uk

This task could not have come at a better time!

So what did I learn from this first task and what actions has it prompted?

1. Varied Social Media platforms are important on a web site to develop relationships and increase traffic to the site. Action: Communicate on Twitter & Face Book every day at least once
2. The importance of web analysis Action: Research web analysis tools
3. Don't use Social Media to sell, just develop relationships with people Action: Create an interesting Blog that engages people to talk about their experiences in life
4. You can have instant contact with customers and respond to their queries / problems immediately to keep relationships positive. It is also good for other people to see how well you are responding to any problems/issues. Action: make my Twitter & Face Book pages more business rather than personally focused.
5. A Life Style page gives you lots of opportunities to link to and promote other people's blogs, photos and web sites. This allows you to develop a more interesting web site that will engage more people and increase the flow of traffic. Action: Develop a list of blogs, web sites and photos of things I like and develop my own Life Style page.

Think that's enough to be going on with for now!

Information Overload!

Maybe I was just trying too hard to retain as much information as possible from Amanda Hill's presentation at Tuesday's Social Media class, but by the end of it I was more confused than ever! Don't get me wrong, Amanda was a font of knowledge and obviously knows her stuff inside out and back to front. The problem is that so early in this course there are huge chunks of knowledge and information missing from my personal database (my little grey cells). Sadly, so much of Amanda's very valuable information was lost on me.

Thank goodness she is coming back in year two as I am sure I will pick up more things when I have a sounder knowledge base.

However, my social media mates came to the rescue this morning in the form of their blogs. I found both Barry's and Jeff's blogs really helpful in unraveling some of the things Amanda had been talking about. Barry's was especially helpful with a number of useful links to platforms with brief descriptions of what they are.

Chrissie Designs Jewellery web site is almost ready to be launched www.chrissiedesignsjewellery.co.uk. So I am now able to sift through the information overload and use some of Amanda's precious gems. Getting high in the Google rankings is a top priority, so making sure the web site title and the first 40 words (as well as focussed meta dates) are good ones is my first job. After Amanda told us that the 3 most used words in searches are cats, chololate and sex, I noticed that she had put two of them, (cats & chocolate) in her description on Facebook. Wonder if anyone else noticed that? Note to self - follow her example!

Sorting out my lists on Facebook is another priority. With two target markets for my jewellery - women over 50yrs and Brides to be, I need to make very separate lists in order to use social media effectively in my target marketing.
 
Developing a small business is time consuming. You have to be a 'Jack of all trades'. Social media is just one tool to be used along side traditional marketing and so it has to be very time effective. That's why my next action will be to set up Hootsuite so that I can consolidate my message posting to FaceBook, Twitter and Linked In.

My web developer and I are also looking at ISSUU for developing a newsletter/brochure. With its ability to link and share content it seems the most effective platform for increasing activity and trafic for my web site.

Finally, I am going to put some pin boards together using Pinterest. This will be a very useful platform for driving more trafic and potential customers to my web site. With its online shop, the greater the traffic to my web site, the higher my sales potential. Well that's the theory, now to put it into practice!

Reflection

It is almost 3 weeks since the course began so I think it's time to reflect on what I have done and learnt.

                                                                                                                 Firstly, I have to say the whole thing has surprised me. Before this course I had always avoided anything to do with computers that I thought would be difficult and frustrating. After all I have two daughters with IT degrees and a really great guy building my new web site; so my philosophy was why do it myself if others more skilled could do it for me!

I have to admit that the past weeks have not been without their frustrations, especially getting to grips with Goggle+. But compared with what I have learnt and how versatile Google+ is, it has been more than worth it.

I have mastered and now really love using the circles to communicate with only those people I want to 'talk' to. The support and feedback from people in the group has been so very helpful and motivating. They have helped me through my frustrations with Google+ and Blackboard.The most fun I have had was in being able to develop a digital presentation in real time with my fellow group members. It was awesome!

Last week I began my blog. To start with I chose to use LiveJournal as I had previously run a blog using Blogger, when I had a book published. On reflection, having written my first entry, I wondered if there was a blog within Goggle+. On finding it I began to explore its capability and found it to be much more user friendly than LiveJournal, so I switched.

I found the Google+ Blogger functionality far better because it has the capacity to automatically save work as you go along Its design function, in my opinion, is easier and has more scope than LiveJournal. It's layout is also easier to get to grips with. This of course may be because I had already used an older version of Blogger and was becoming more comfortable with Goggle+ formats. I especially like the new gadget functions available on Blogger. Being able, not only to personalise my blog but also make it more accessible and interactive with others has many positive advantages:

1. Google+ Badge to get more recommendations for my site in Google & to search and grow my audience on Google+.
2. Follow by Email - making it easy for readers to follow my blog by email.
3. +1 Button - Allowing visitors to  recommend my content on Google Search and share it on Google+.

So what else have I achieved? Well, having downloaded a whole realm of apps onto my iPhone. I am now utilising more of my phone's functionality as a tool for utilising social media in my daily life. The research I have undertaken, into my online clients use of Social Media, has also been most useful and has prompted my decision to, over the coming year:

1. Write a blog for Chrissie Designs Jewellery (which I have already started)
2. Develop several collections of my jewellery photos + other great photos on Pinterest
3. Create a series of You Tube videos of my work and some 'How To' videos
4. Sell my jewellery on Esty & Folksy creating links between my web site and their's

In conclusion I am excited about how much this course is helping me connect, communicate and be supported by others, and how it is already helping me plan and develop my new business. I am loving the blogging again, which has brought me back to my love of writing. I am hooked on Google+ which has really surprised me. And finally I am like a little sponge eager to soak up more knowledge and information about social media. That is my greatest surprise!

Working Through Frustration!

This was definitely me yesterday! Google+ is not the most user-friendly platform I have worked on. However, once I found the presentation documents I was off. This was easy to use as it is very similar to PowerPoint which I have lots of experience on.

The frustrating part of Google+ for me is how to communicate and share things with my team. Still not perfectly sure about it but I somehow managed to share the presentation with two of my three team members. That was the point I began, at last, to love Google+! Three of us working on our presentation all at the same time and communicating live via the message box was awesome!

I next turned to starting a blog. Following the publication of a book I wrote some years ago I wrote a blog for about 18 months so this is not new to me. However, I do feel I could gain from some help on the design front! I look at other blogs and wonder "How Do They Do That?" Point to self - must ask for help in this area.

To begin with I set up my blog on Live Journal which was very easy to use. Then I decided to switch to using the blog on Goggle+. I prefer this as it all links together and is easily accessed by my fellow students. It is also better as you can keep saving what you are writing as you go along, without publishing it. With Live Journal I lost a whole bunch of writing which sent me back into frustration mode again.

Using this blog has also proved quite motivational. Having communicated with my study team members that I had started my blog, I found the message had gone to others in the group. Still not sure why this is. Note to self - must sort this out! Anyway, I had some lovely supportive feedback from some of the group. Note to self - must check out some of their blogs and support them.

Also started did more research on my competitors web sites to see how they are using social media. Will leave my reflections on this for another day though.

Reflections on Becoming A Social Media Addict!

---

I'm off and blogging!

chrissiesis

April 10th, 16:32

Current Mood:

energetic

Well, here I go then. Who would have ever thought I would be doing a degree in Social Media. When I turned up on the first evening I thought I had signed up for an 8 week course on Social Media not a 2 year degree course! The thing that surprised me was that by the end of the evening I could not wait for the next week and was fully committed to the two years. Having never been to college or done a degree I suppose it was about time I did one and caught up with my two daughters who both have IT degrees.

What really got me hooked is the fact that the degree is practically based and I can use it in my jewellery business. The timing is perfect as next week I am about to launch my web site and online shop. Not having enough hours in the day, already, I really appreciate the minimal amount of writing that is require.

So to my reflections. I am still getting to grips with Google+. It is not as easy to navigate as FaceBook but I can already see its advantages. I like the use of the circles as it keeps things private. Must get my web cam set up on my lap top so that we can get the live chat working. Not managed to work out how to find the 'Blackboard' as yet so some more work is needed on exploring this. I must learn to ask others for help more - one of my downfalls is trying to do things on my own! So this course is going to be good for me on different levels. Anyone reading this who can help me find the 'Blackboard' please get in touch.

Have already started researching online jewellery shops to see who is using social media. I can't believe how interesting I found it and how much I learnt in just 30 minutes! It turns out that one of the Social Media platforms highlighted on last weeks course - Pinterest - is used by a couple of the sites I looked at. This was so useful as on the course I could not get my head round how Pinterest works. Having seen how Pia and Links of London use it to display their latest collections I can't wait to set one up for myself. Also in this first search I found two web sites through which I can sell my jewellery and so increase my reach - great!

So to sum up my reflections I am already learning how to use a new social media platforms - Google+, have thoughts and plans on some I can learn more about and use in my business - Pinterest & You Tube and most importantly I am really enjoying this!