Jewelry-Making Articles
Grow a Name for Your Jewelry Online
by Barbara van Look, Content Development Group, Exclusively for Fire Mountain Gems and Beads®
For the designer-artist who is growing a passion for jewelry-making into a business, one of the most important parts of that growth is name recognition, also called branding, especially online. There is a community of jewelry designers online, exchanging ideas and suggestions, listening and sharing with each other. That online world is a great place to get your name, your ideas and, most importantly, your creative designs out where people can find them.
Here are a few online social networking tips to get you started on building brand recognition:
Jewelry-making and beading contests have been the launching point for a number of successful careers of designer-artists. Learn how to submit your own original designs in the current Fire Mountain Gems contest and see the other perks of winning on our jewelry-making contests homepage.
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The easiest way to start making a name for your jewelry business is on popular social networking sites such as Etsy, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For the best coverage, create an account on each platform. Be sure to use the same name on all of them, and create links from each profile to all the others. This will make you easier to find on search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo! and others.
If your jewelry business name is the same as your name, you can create both personal and business accounts (for Facebook, you can make a FanPage for your business), or integrate them together. If your business name (your ''brand'') is different from your personal name, create a profile for your brand. |
If you don't have a jewelry blog or online journal, create one. You need a place to send people who see your work at a bead show, a bazaar, the grocery store or wherever. This will help your friends and family, too. They'll want to show off your work, so they need somewhere online to send their friends. A blog is the best place to catch and hold the interest generated by a contest award, as well as other accomplishments you'll earn.
Here's a short list of blogging sites you can use (there are many more). Different sites work for different artists.
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Blogger/Blogspot
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LiveJournal
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WordPress
Be sure to include a mini biography, a picture of your smiling face, links to all your profiles on social networking sites and your designs on other websites, such as the Fire Mountain Gems and Beads' Gallery of Designs. If you have a profile in the Jewelry Artists section of our website, include a link there as well. If you don't have a profile yet, be sure to submit one.
Les Fleurs de Fez
Fire Mountain Gems and Beads
2008 Jewelry-Making Contest
Category: Kato Polyclay™
Bronze Medal Prize Winner |
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Celebrate your accomplishments. Tell a story about your piece: talk about the inspirations, the techniques and the components. Let everyone know where it came from. Cover your whole process, from start to finish, in multiple blog postings and social media posts. In every post that you talk about the process of your design, link to your piece on the contest website.
Part of getting your name and your designs out there is enthusiastically sharing. You can only do that by mentioning what you've learned, what you're still learning and celebrating where your passion for jewelry-making has already taken you.
Incorporate your design and any awards into your blog header or into the permanent navigation area of your blog. Mention your success on your blog, then follow up with a quick post on any of your social networking profiles (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.), with a direct link to your blog posting. You can also include your design and its URL on any informational or promotional materials, such as business cards, postcards, artist's bio and more. |
You can grow your business by growing your presence on the web via reaching out to others. You don't have to (and shouldn't!) go it alone. Ask your friends to blog about your accomplishments, retweet you on Twitter, mention you on Etsy, follow you on Instagram or become a Fan on Facebook. Notify any local beading clubs and beading stores that you're affiliated with so they can mention your success in their own promotional materials. Be sure to include any service organizations or local press outlets, too.
Your success is happy news--be sure to share!
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We would like to share some of the customer comments we received in response to the article, "Grow a Name for Your Jewelry... Online," featured in a newsletter. Please keep in mind that the comments expressed below are those of our customers and do not reflect the views of Fire Mountain Gems and Beads. |
"Hi team, Great article - as this is exactly where I am at with my beaded jewellery business down here in New Zealand. I have my own blog page with domain names I own, a Facebook fan page which holds all my albums and have listed my business with nearly every free web listing place we can think of. I have also been exchanging links with different firms so that we advertise on each others' webpages. I have also started to sell pieces on TradeMe which is our equivalent of an Ebay-type site. Next is to send you guys a blurb to your Jewelry Artists section. Thanks for everything beading. Kind regards,"
- Claudine
"Thanks for the newsletter, I found the article on getting your things online very helpful, ended up printing it out. It is such a little thing, but everyone has to start somewhere, so thanks a lot! I am 75 but God has put creativity in my head, and I am a lampworker working hard each day! I just can't stop! Thanks,"
- Helen
"Since reading this article, I now have some idea of how a business can be promoted on the various social sites and how a blog might be used for that purpose also. I've been seeing mentions of these ideas from time to time, but could never figure out how to actually use them. I might actually be able to do something with those ideas now. Thanks,"
- Terry
"Always love to read about Business Development ideas, keep them coming."
- Sarah
"Loved this article. It is just what I needed at this point in the growth of my business. Great idea to link all of the social growth of my business. Great idea to link all of the social networking sites. I can also put some of this information on my business card for people to find me and spread the word about me. Thanks for the resource!"
- Jill
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