Weekly update. . .I'm sick, again

This has been a sucky and repetitive flu season, I am sick again 😒 sore throat, sinus issues, fever off and on and so tired. 😞 

My husband has been rather prolific in this 3D printing, he has ordered several colors of filament and is learning his way along. 

There are now multiple versions of rainbows along with blue and white. I need to shoot some more photos and update the listing options, but I am considering making the rainbow its' own listing. I'll end up with 2 listings for the same product but one will be solid colors with choice for base and lid and the other will be multi-color and just come with the lids that were printed with each base. 

In spite of getting sick again, I have managed to stay on track with my social media posting and have successfully completed 3 weeks in a row. 😎 This little streak may not last much longer I have noticed that each week the number of posts increases, so I may not be able to keep up. The first week it only wanted 1 insta story and 6 posts each, but now this upcoming week it's like 3-4 stories and 10-13 posts and that's too much, I think. 

Yes posting "daily" was my original goal but this is multiple posts a day, so I seriously doubt I'll keep going even though I love the green checkmarks, and I did feel like I was accomplishing something, and my stats have been increasing. 😏 So in a way I was correct by playing along facebook has in fact been showing my posts to more people regularly, the numbers don't lie, more "reach" and more engagement. However, with the continuous increases I don't really want to end up doing 2-3 posts every day, I will run out of things to post. 😅 Or it'll just end up being the cats.

I have applied for an event, my first application of the year. 😇 The event is not until April and I doubt I'll get in; it's a juried event and I was rejected last year so I do not have high hopes this year. But you never know if you don't try and I've decided I will just keep applying every year and eventually they will let me in, right?! 😏 Or not and after 4 or 5 years I'll give up. 😆

Weekly update. . .I love green checkmarks

I love green checkmarks, something in my OCD list-making-self genuinely loves checking things off, even when it's just electronically and I'm not physically marking paper. 😇

I actually met my posting goals for facebook and instagram this week. 😎 Posting daily has been a struggle for me in the past but I have decided this year to really try to prioritize growing my social media. I have found the planner function to be helpful because I can pre-schedule 2-3 days at a time, so I don't have to actually do it daily. I was not a fan of the "meta business suite" and various weird pages for a long time and they have changed so much over the years it was always confusing, I am still not an expert, but I am learning. 

My husband bought himself a 3D printer for Christmas and as some may have noticed my social media has kind of been all about it lately. 😅 He started making me stuff and some of it has been pretty cool and I'm not the only one who says so either. When he bought the printer, it was not his plan to sell the stuff he made, he just wanted to play with the new tech. 

First there were cats!

Then lots of other things, penguin bookmarks, various fidget toys, rain covers for the security cameras, etc.

 

Then the dumpster for my workbench, which he made because I had commented that the kitten kept trying to eat things on my bench. 😅 Several people commented on the cool-ness or the cute-ness or even the actual usefulness, some even said they'd like one. . . so he made more, and I've been assembling them and now they are for sale in my shop. 😇 

 

One actually sold the day I announced the listing was live 😲 which is a total first for me. My husband was pleasantly surprised and admitted he kind of liked hearing about the likes and comments, not being a social media guy himself.  

If you would like a mini dumpster for your desktop or workbench, click here.  

 
In other news: the annual Valentine Sale has started, so there is 15% off selected items now thru Valentine's Day. 

Weekly update. . .I'm not "Star" material

So, if you read my last post you will already know that I'm talking about facebook "stars" but for those that didn't see the last post, facebook has been making some changes. 😏 I noticed a glitch with the comment filter on posts not doing what I had my settings set to and clicking around I found a list of expanded options, one of those new options was comments "sent with stars". This led to a "what the heck stars are they talkin' about?!" moment, which led to more questions, a helpful answer from a goimagine founder leading me to the right backside pages in the meta suite. . . only to discover that I'm not star eligible. 😐 

Oh, I'm good with the community standards, I'm compliant with policies, I'm over 18 and in an eligible country. What I don't have is over 500 followers, I currently only have 372 followers on the facebook business page. 😞 Anyone have 200-ish friends and family they can send my way? 😅😅

This sort of reminds me of etsy's star seller program which I almost never qualify for, if I get the minimum # of orders they don't meet the minimum $, or if I get both of those then I don't have fresh enough reviews, by the time the people leave reviews the other things have reset. 😒 I feel like I need some sort of miracle star-alignment blessing or something. The things I can control like message replies and shipping are always 100% but I have zero control over when people order or if they leave reviews, it's always just out of reach. 😔 

Oh well, I guess I'm just not star material, yet. 😎 I guess I'll have to just keep plugging along making new stuff, posting more regularly, sharing, trying.  I got a new phone over the holidays, so maybe I'll figure out the camera(s) and start getting better photos, or maybe I'll just get around to re-doing all the old photos finally.  😇 In my mind I have "big plans"(for me) for 2024 but I admit that many of the things I'd like to accomplish may not happen, for instance, there is a local market I've been told about that I'd love to get into, but I've also been told that there is a waiting list and it's very hard to get in.  

Some days tech is not so savvy

It is a whole new year and for me personally, it is not off to the greatest start, family loss, crazy weather, and this week questionable technology issues. 😅 Now I am normally pretty competent with my technology. I've been online since the 90's, I've had standalone websites and used dozens of platforms, dare I say I'm tech-savvy. But these days it seems the tech itself is not always so savvy. 😎

I have known for years that etsy's stats are not really exactly accurate, but I have seen a couple of things in mine this week that really have me shaking my head.  😐 First, was the traffic source the other day, I was shocked it actually gave one because it next to Never actually provides a source in the "Direct & other" category. Then there is the source itself which is weird to me, it says yahoo mail and I do not use yahoo, I do not have a newsletter set up. 😐

So, did someone else include the link to my etsy listing in their own newsletter?! Again, weird.! On the other hand, I'm pretty used to the standard inaccuracies of numbers that don't match, views that never show, the app giving different numbers than the website. 😏 Yesterday, the 10th the app says I had 9 views from 4 visits, but the website says 4 views and 4 visits, although it only shows 2 listings as viewed. 😅

This type of conflicting information used to drive me nutz, now I just laugh and shake my head and wonder why so many people are still convinced that etsy is so great. 😂

Now on to the second tech company that everyone thinks is so great but I personally kind of hate, facebook, it glitches way more than most people will admit. For the last couple of days, I have noticed that my "all comments" setting is not what fb is actually showing me. I have double checked my settings, and group settings and yet. . .

I have to keep changing it on every post, in order to actually see all the comments. And after I posted about it this morning, something new showed up and I'm pretty sure the change is what is causing the settings to not actually function properly. 

We have gone from 3 options to 5 and I kind of hate the sound of the last one. "Sent with stars" ?!?! really?! I don't even know what that means, what stars? 😟 Man, I really hate when they make changes like this and I have no idea what's going on. 😅 

Happy New Year

Well, the holidays are over and I'm still recovering, although I have done some work on the online shops not a lot but some. 😎 I started the keyword editing to remove the "Christmas" and "stocking stuffer" tags and change it over to Valentine's and Mother's day, seasonal keywords are a good idea but a bit of a P.I.T.A in that you have to manually edit lots, regularly. 

I am working very slowly on transferring listings to MakerPlace, I'm over 50 and I just added Valentine rosette bracelets, which is nice because they are right at the top making my shop look all freshly updated for Valentine's. I've only added the 3 main rose bracelets so far, but I have updated my goimagine shop's featured listings and I have 9 rosette based listings over there. I think I need to add a row of art on the goimagine page to make it an even dozen features. 

In the meantime, I have resumed social media posting, I've joined nextdoor, and I have started looking to plan events for the year. 

Weekly update. . .Merry Christmas and Happy new Year!

Well, I've been looking at the calendar and because I normally post my "Weekly updates" on Sundays, this will be the last one for this year. 😇 Seriously, next Sunday is Christmas eve and the one after that is New Years' eve so this is the final update of 2023. 

I would normally post about my etsy "year in review" and while they did still do the shop personalized "y-i-r" thing I found no joy in my incredibly sad low numbers. 😏 

 I have never really liked the "splashy" graphics and contrasting colors they use for these things most of the time it is just tacky.

This was my favorite and best review of 2023, so at least they pulled something right. 😏

But like I said it was a very pathetic year otherwise, I am not surprised by it really. I sort of expected some decline because I let most of my listings expire and moved all the paintings and wire trees to other platforms.  I turned off all etsy ads and changed all my social media links to goimagine too. So again, I am not surprised by the decline in my etsy numbers, I literally gave up on it. 😅 However, if etsy was so great and had so much built-in traffic then my changing my links should not have had this effect. Plus looking at my etsy stats historically the art had very little in consistent views or purchases so removing the art should not have tanked every metric either. 😐 

The year-end total books won't be as bad as last year, no thanks to etsy, because I have 3 platforms and did multiple in person events. I have already started on the year-end books, it's basically lists and a little math. 😉 I only have one more monthly sales tax report, maybe next year Georgia will allow me to move to a quarterly or annual filing instead of monthly, I doubt it but it's worth asking. 

Weekly update. . . well that was fun!

My final scheduled vending event of the season was here in my new hometown, and I really enjoyed it. 😊 After weeks of being sick and being disappointed in the previous event it was really nice to arrive at a well-organized event and have a great space. 😇 I do love a good corner and this is my favorite corner in town, literally that's the Library on the left (which I love).  Also, I was on the end, which can be good or bad depending on the event but in this case, it was great it made load-in and out easy, plus with the parking over there even this end was an entry-point. 😉 

My biggest disappointment of the day was my own forgetting of my RainbowMaille sign 😅 which I could have gone home for (it was a mile from my house) but I chose to just use one of the abstract flags. The business name is still on the front of the art crates and with the short 3' racks I didn't have a good place for the large, framed piece anyway. 😉 I was pretty happy with my booth set-up, my tent my be a 10'x10' but the spaces were 12'x12' and with the fabulous weather it meant the racks and magnet board could hang outside the tent.  

I passed out many goimagine info cards. 😎 I had multiple people take my business card for various reasons, possible custom orders later, to show a friend, to get me to vend at their event next year. The good thing about that is even my own RainbowMaille business cards have goimagine info on the back now. 😉 I am hopeful that doing this event will open up more local events, now that I've met the organizer and she has seen my work. My husband has suggested that next year RainbowMaille should have a small float in the town Christmas Parade. 😅 I am not sure about that plan, but I will definitely be back at the Mistletoe Market next year. I am thinking about having a professional fancy banner made for my booth but I hate spending money on such things. I know it is "an investment" but I'm not sure it will pay for itself, I mean it's just a sign even if it's pretty and you can see it from space, I'm not convinced it will generate more sales. 😏 

Today I get to unpack and restore my shop. Last night I did my inventory reconciliation and deactivated the wire trees that sold. 😁 Later I get to assess my chainmaille inventory and make a list of things to remake.