Social Media Marketing Update

Here's an update on my social media marketing marathon. I am gaining momentum. For DenisesDelectables, I have received a great deal of interest, a few orders and now a large 4th of July party order. I need to track where the orders were generated from, so I can keep a log of the marketing source. I have also had a great deal of exposure on Etsy.com. Like I said before, their different marketing tools within their website make it easier for any seller to be seen. I have had 5 people add me to their Treasury list, which is a 12 item page that a user creates of their favorite, or themed items. Some of these treasury pages are very well thought out and aesthetically beautiful. Etsy has featured me on their front page twice, and I've had 3 people feature me on their blog with links. I still have not had a bid accepted from my MiNeeds profile for event photography, but it is another way to get all of my businesses seen. I created another MiNeeds account for my fine art.  

I started a new wine consulting business last week, of which I also found in the social media marketplace. To promote my wine consulting business, I created a web page that was used like a newsletter, letting friends know of my new wine consultant business. I also started, through Meetups.com, a Central Coast Wine & Foodies group, where people can meet to learn about wine and food pairings. We meet bi-weekly and we will have a dinner at a restaurant along the Central Coast once a month. It's a good way to continue to network and build future business relationships. If you are on the Central CA Coast, join us and attend the 1st meeting in Ventura, on June 28th. More details are at the Central Coast Wine & Foodies website.  I also started the same group on Facebook to garner more exposure.

I am gearing up to start my fondant creations and cupcakes for DenisesDelectables. I am debating whether to start a new blog for that business, as I want to start creating custom design fondant cakes too. For the 4th of July, I am creating fondant cake and cupcake toppers in the shapes of hot dogs, flags, pies, stars and stripes and I am going to try a fireworks design too. I will list these fondant creations at DenisesDelectables tomorrow.

So things are moving along. The social media marketing experience has been beneficial so far.

The BIG Conversion Project

So I have put off this large project of converting my website from dark ages, FrontPage, to Dreamweaver. I have had many ideas of how I want to redesign my website, and have finally zeroed in on a final design. I always cringe when I open the site because it is not compatible with Safari or Firefox, so the thumbnail preview doesn't look good. And I don't want to tell people they should open Explorer in order to view my photos. 

I have also found a problem in that the photos are missing metadata. I've only had Aperture for 2 yrs. and over 1/2 of the 500+ photos I posted were before that. I think I will have to copy those images back to Aperture and add the metadata. All I do know is that this conversion is going to take a long time to finish. But I'm tired of looking at a mediocre website.

I did have another marketing idea for when I do finish the conversion. So stay tuned, as you could win a very nice prize.

P.S. For those hard to shop for guys, I have a great Father's Day gift. See my DenisesDelectables listing below with the photo of the Grand Marnier bottle titled "The Ultimate Father..."

The Marathon continues

So I told you that I began my marketing marathon a little while ago. I have now joined Facebook and haven't decided yet if I'm going to join Twitter. I watched a Social Media Marketing webcast 2 weeks ago and it was beneficial, but in the end, they wanted people to buy their service of updating all your social media sites for you. Now I have a problem with that, because they obviously are not you, so they may write something that is not representative of you.

Another problem that I have with the idea that people actually do use their service, is that, unless you are a super duper busy business person, you should have time to post a quick blurb on what you are working on, or have someone that works for you, to do that. I just see it as a big waste of money to pay someone else to post your status for you. Their costs were $395 per month to manage 5 or 6 social media sites and a whopping $195 for managing one. Spending that kind of money on something like that is totally ridiculous to me. Anyway, I'm glad they offered their knowledge on social media marketing to people, for free. I did learn some things.

I took notes on the webcast to share, but I haven't made time to format them for viewing - so stay tuned. In the marketing update, I have added a couple of new web business listings on yellow page like websites. I am getting ready to post my fine art photos on my social media sites. I have joined photography groups on LinkedIn, so I am more up to date with current trends and events, as well as contests, which is another important marketing component that I have not talked about. Over the last few years I have been entering many photo contests, especially for National Geographic and their affiliates. I have entered some others and had my work chosen for a contest at an online gallery called Caladan Gallery. I am getting ready to enter a few more with pending deadlines. I have also recently added a MiNeeds profile to gain more exposure. I definitely have noticed my web standings have gone up. I am on the front page of all searches for my name, and sometimes, I am first, which was not the case 6 months ago. I'll keep you posted, as the marathon continues.