Tweet A Long!

Want to participate? Have your items retweeted over and over? Well, this is a two way street, buddy! You have to help, too! (just kidding!). Here is how it works-

Comment and add your link to your item you have entered into the Pursuit of Handmade

Others will click on your link and then SHARE it with a share button or you can copy and cut the URL and add it to your twitter

Before you post, add #POH at the end of the tweet

Whenever you or others go to twitter, they can do a search for #POH and then all of the other posts that related to Pursuit of Handmade will come up! Just click the retweet link! Simple, easy, and helps one another, right? Well, get busy then!

May's Pursuit of Handmade

Announcing May's Pursuit of Handmade-

For some Mother's Day is a wonderful moment of sharing and appreciating your family- for other's it can be a painful, lonely day... Families are blended and full of so many different caregivers, that Mothers and Fathers day may not apply in the Hallmark meaning, but in so many other ways that are just as meaningful! So, I wanted to go beyond Mother's Day for May and find "To give someone you love..." That is pretty open, and can mean anything you want it to! So, list your item link here by commenting! Than hop over to Mishaps of Mommy at http://mishapsofmommy.blogspot.com and sign up for the Pursuit of Handmade Tweet Along- share your link again, and if you want- a story of inspiration about the item, about you, or what this theme means to you! We will show you and your fab. item off here!



Add your link, a story about your item, and then start sharing everyone else's entries! Just click on the links in the comments and then Share, Share, Share!
Remember, whenever you post your Pursuit of Handmade item, or another person's who is participating here- add #POH at the end so we can all just search and Retweet!

I am so glad you came to join in the fun! Dont forget to add yourself to the Tweet Along, too!

Take A New Turn

Well, I have decided to make some changes with this blog... Unfortunately there just are not enough hours in the day to do everything I want to... I have spent the last year sharing ways to grab traffic, promote your biz, etc. here at Mishaps! Now, I am going to focus on promoting, uniting, and working together with other sellers or biz's who are to break into the world...

With that in mind, hop over to Mommy's Reviews at http://mommysreviewsyoucanuse.blogspot.com This will be the blog for promoting and exposing all of my new friends, and future friends! This blog, however, will focus on the information, nuts and bolts of getting ourselves out there and noticed! Everyone is moving into the handmade arena (which is fantastic!) but, sometimes we get lost in the crowd! Often, we don't have a sale for a while, we started doubting ourselves, and we lean towards throwing in the crochet hook! Don't do it! You just need a pick me up, and here is where you will get it!

Every month I try to do a "Pursuit of Handmade" which exposes or shows off sellers who create products in a chosen theme line... Well, I am going to broaden those themes, and then do a little publicity for one another when we participate!

Here are the things I think we could do to help each other-

1. Participate in the announced Pursuit of Handmade (that is the anchor to the entire operation!)

2. List your link at Mommy's Reviews (http://mommysreviewsyoucanuse.blogspot.com), thus you get immediate linkback and exposure- no waiting for you to be featured! You just add your link to the item that you think meets the theme.

3. Here (Mishaps of Mommy http://mishapsofmommy.blogspot.com) again list your link to the item in the comments section, AND share a little something about the item, the inspiration, the theme, whatever... I will expose each participant individually on the blog

4. Whomever is being featured that particular day, share it! We need to share each other on twitter, facebook, digg, all the social networks and sites. It is very easy, just go to the upper left corner of the blog and hit share or you can use the share button I have added to the bottom of the postings at http://mommysreviewsyoucanuse.blogspot.com

5. Click on all the links to the items under the comments and share them with twitter, facebook, etc. For example, if it links to an Etsy item, just click the share button to the bottom right of the page and you can share it with twitter, digg, facebook, all of the great sites! Share your items, share others items. It is all about promoting and exposing one another- A team effort, so to speak!

6. Finally, I will have a post below the pursuit for that month here at Mishaps of Mommy http://mishapsofmommy.blogspot.com You can add your link to the "Tweet A Long" We will all tweet each other followed by the hash mark #POH which stands for Pursuit of Handmade. This will increase exposure and seems to be a great tool many groups and teams are using! Whenever you are on twitter you can do a quick search for #POH and all the tweets will pop up, then just click "re tweet" and we can promote each other some more! It is a group effort, a combined force!

Make sense? We will just work on it as we go along... if you have ideas- share them and we can promote, expose, show off, and learn from one another-

The jist of the entire post is, this blog will focus on ideas, sharing and helping one another, while the Mommy's Review blog will focus on finding new customers, linking customers with sellers, and getting our names/products out there!

So, are your ready? See the above two posts for the Tweet along and the Pursuit of Handmade announcement for May!

Good luck and happy sharing!

Earn and advertise for Free!

Earn money and advertising for your products! Program is free, and I have been very happy with it! What do you think? Check it out and then discuss with us...

Promote your shop

I wanted to share this social network with you- A great opportunity to promote your links, your badges, stores and more...





Visit Cross Promotion

Get More Sales Series - RSS Feeds

Well, as promised a few weeks ago, we are going to discuss RSS feeds. These feeds allow you to track new information from specific sites, or to post your information from one site to another. Because your info is getting around on the web, it increases the keyword hits and your google/yahoo rankings, plus it brings that customer who may never have found your original site but found your RSS feed on another site. I will try to give you some more information on the "techy" stuff related to feeds and how they benefit you, but for now, let's get started on creating them.

First, just to get the hang of it... Let's place an RSS feed on your social network.

So, here it is broke down into simple steps-
1. Choose which social network you want to place your feeds on
2. Go to the social network site, go to my page, and then click on add apps under your avatar on the left column
3. In the search box for Applications- type RSS feeds
4. An RSS feed application will pop up, click on add to my page.
5. Once it is added it will direct you back to your page or allow you to add the settings or feeds directly from there. Either way, click settings/edit and several empty URL boxes should appear. This is where you will add your feeds. Keep this screen open.
6. Choose what feeds you want to add. Since this blog is for online sellers, lets add the feeds from one of your selling sites. I will use Artfire as an example, but all selling sites will have an RSS feeds icon somewhere on their page- if you can't find it, type RSS in the search box. It looks like:


7. As an example, go to my artfire page at http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=Shop&op=listing&product_id=276101 Go to the RSS feeds icon in the left column and click it (orange and diagonal white striped box, see example above).
8. Once you click on the icon, it will take you to your google or yahoo page and ask you how you want to save it. On Google, you do not have to actually save it, just look up at the left hand corner and the feed will be highlighted there. You can right click, copy and then go to your social network RSS feeds and past it there. See the example of my Artfire feed at the following URL: http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.artfire.com%2Frss%2Fstudio.php%3Fid%3D37556

You can add several feeds to your page, and set how many feeds you want displayed through the tools on the RSS feed application. Once you have set this up, click save. Your feeds will then be shown on your My page of your social network. You can move this RSS box by clicking and dragging it to a different spot on your My Page.

That is it. Now you have added RSS feeds to your My Page of your favorite social network. Your latest items added to your store will also be updated on your My Page of your social network site.



I would love to hear from anyone who has done this? Did it help your sales? Were the instructions easy to follow? Share your experience with us here.