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Resources for Etsy Teams
Why blogs are important?
Blogs can be a vital role in marketing your craft on the internet. Part of the reason many people choose to buy handmade is to support the individual artist, and blogging gives your customer base a little glimpse into the life of the artist they're supporting. Networking is another great reason to blog - you can discuss and promote your colleagues easily with a blog, post simple tutorials about things you've learned through your experiences and share tips and tricks.
Should I blog?
It's true that blogging won't come naturally to everyone. Some people are more private about their lives, some people don't feel they have much of interest to say to the general population and others feel they're just too busy to have a fantastic blog. There's no harm in starting a blog to see how natural posting feels to you.
How to become a blogger:
- What would you like to blog about? Pick a topic (or a few topics) that you feel comfortable and knowledgable enough about to talk about every day. Your craft, a hobby, a relationship with the place you live, something that makes your life unique. Remember, you won't want to be too personal (no gossip, etc.) if this is a professional blog that is ultimately to benefit your Etsy shop. You want to connect with a specific group of people (your readers and your customers) by making the blog fairly specific, but keeping it broad enough that you can eventually have a pretty large readership.
- Find your tone. What type of voice would you like the blog to have? For example, you can have an instructional blog, you can adopt a professional voice or you can really be yourself. Setting a tone and being consistent makes a blog easy to read.
- Blog often. Blogs are an interesting medium because they can literally be up-to-the-minute information. No one wants to read a stale blog.
- A wise blogger once told me that no one cares what you had for lunch today (unless your blog is all about food, I suppose...)
- Include great photos! A photo of your studio or little snapshots into your everyday life make a blog-reader feel they're being treated to a behind-the-scenes tour.
- Have actual content. It's not hard to distinguish between an interesting blog you'd like to revisit and a series of advertisements upon first visiting a blog.
- Blog often. This is the most important tip.
- Use widgets! Etsy, Twitter, Flickr, Amazon and other sites all have applications you can include in your blog's side bars to keep the page dynamic even when you can't update it. Etsy Minis are a great tool to get your work and the work of people you admire noticed without writing dull posts about your own shop over and over again.
- Blog often! The more often you blog, the more people will check into your blog.
- If you find it's not working, don't let your blog sit around decaying! Remove your blog from the web - there's nothing sillier than a blog that hasn't been updated in eight or nine months...
Helpful Links:
Here are some helpful places to get started:
Enjoy!
Blogging should actually be an enjoyable task. It's a way to let people get to know you better and should highlight positive aspects of what you're doing and the things you learn along the way. Exchange links with other bloggers, read and comment on other blogs to increase your readership. Have fun!
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