It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not.
In February I concentrated most of my marketing efforts in the Social Media arena. A few reasons for this include:
- I like Social Media. I'm already on Facebook and Pinterest so they are a natural fit for me. I enjoy being on these two platforms on a personal level, so expanding it to my business made sense.
- It's cheap! I'm a small business owner and advertising is not an expense I can justify at this point. These two sites allow me to showcase my products, interact with potential customers, and market my brand for free.
- My products (jewelry) are very visual, so Facebook and Pinterest are good fits for me. There are limits on how I can show my jewelry on Etsy, so this allows me to show my jewelry in a variety of ways I'm not able to on Etsy.
- I noticed from January's data that Pinterest seems to be working for me so I wanted to continue growing that market.
February Social Media Campaigns
I tried a few new strategies for raising my followers and referrals.
- Monthly Giveaway Contest - I started my monthly giveaway contests again. Different ways to enter included following me on Facebook and Pinterest. I gained a lot of new followers during the contest time frame. I expect some of those will unfollow in the days to come, but the main goal was to increase my brand awareness.
- Hosted a special sale just for Facebook Fans and Newsletter subscribers - I advertised a sale just on Facebook and in my newsletter. Quite a few people took advantage of this sale and I plan on doing this more often.
- Re-organizing my Pinterest boards - I am starting (slowly) to reorganize my boards so they are categorized by specific product lines. I also have started adding hashtags and pinning on a more regular basis.
Social Media Followers for 2014
Tracking my follower data is so valuable. It lets me know if I'm on the right track. While Facebook and Pinterest are my two main sites, I'm also on Twitter but haven't delved into it much yet. I'm including it in my monthly follower graph because it could become a bigger player later.
While my numbers are still fairly small in the scheme of things, I'm starting to see a lot of movement and expansion. I've increased my Facebook by 26% in two months and increased my Pinterest following by 354%!
Social Media Referral Data 2014
Determining how many visits came from these two sites is a little more tricky since my Google Analytics data is vastly different from the Etsy Stats data. I've decided to use the Etsy data because each data point is a direct link - each number represents a direct referral to my shop, not the Etsy site in general (which Google Analytics includes).
As you can see, my Pinterest referrals have grown substantially, while my Facebook referrals have stayed flat.
Overall, I'm happy with the growth I'm starting to see with Pinterest. Facebook is not seeing the increase in numbers that I was hoping for at this point. While I'm gaining followers, it's not necessarily translating into direct visits to my site.
I look forward to continuing my efforts in March - I'll share those results at the end of the month.
