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O Pixelr, how I do Love Thee,
Trendhunter – I want to try something different t to get “Likers” on my Facebook Page from this blog. I guess I could harass peeps that like my blog posts, inviting them to “Like” my Facebook. Did you know it takes 7 attempts before someone will notice your ad or Etsy link or post… It’s one of the lessons from my marketing mentor Andreea Ayers.
Purple and Blue Charmed Ice Ring by Glamour Twinkles, available on Etsy
In other news, I’ve been reading a great little magazine from the people who bring us Trendhunter, called “Exploiting the Chaos” that you can download for the handsome price of ONE TWEET – giving you a doc-chock full of people who made it against the odds. Did you know that Fortune mag came on the market during the Depression? Me either. It’s full of info and factoids that made me go: hmmm, things that make you go hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm – got that song in ya head now, doncha?
Chained Heart Earrings by Glamour Twinkles available from Etsy
So, back to Likers vs potential customers. Yes, that’s what I was getting to in the opening paragraph. I don’t want to offer free jewelry if you Like Glamour Twinkles Jewelry, I want something quirky, kitschy and more Me-Like (pun most certainly intended). Something’ll come to me.
I’d been feeling a bit guilty because I thought I’d been in new business rethink mode for the past 2 years but I realised it’s only been since last September – I found an old Fishpond book purchase receipt in my old emails. It was for my Fishpond order of How to Make Money on Etsy by Timothy Adams, and it was dated 15 September 2011. Not that bad – knowing how S L O W L Y I generally work on any Glamour Twinklesy related tasks that I loathe doing (FB, I’m talking to you now).
In keeping with my new media-mindedness (have you seen my media friendly photos?) I’ve decided to do something somewhat creepy, in a market savvy way. I don’t know about you but I have some Twitter people who have become TwitStars to me. They are all creative people, living the dream of spending much of their working time creative fantastic jewelry, modelling the coolest of street wear, and are generally pretty cool people (to me). But I want to know how they made it this far. What does a typical week in the life of one of my TwitStars involve? Brilliant Idea#253 stalk their businesses online (see, creepy behaviour).
- Do they blog, how often.
- Do they Tweet/Facebook/Tumblr? How often?
- Where do they advertise? How many sales do they have?
- What’s their ratio of “Likers” to sales?
It’s all very interesting to me and I will enjoy learning about their business ventures online. Yeah, its kinda creepy.
ANZAC Day, it’s a day of remembrance, a day where soldiers proudly wear their medals. I actually find medals interesting. I recently learned that they must be in a specific order on a uniform, and that the colours have great significance. Also, during the Anzac parade you are allowed to wear the medals of your relative if they have slipped this mortal coil. My apartment building is actually on a flight path and every year I hear the air force jets fly over. Actually, this is New Zealand, we don’t really have much in the way of “jets” so our military helicopters fly over my building for the dawn service. What does all this random history have to do with Glamour Twinkles? A lot… well, a little bit actually.
Not so nice bracelet, chock full of potential Glamour Twinkles Jewelry pieces
I had done my Equip and Diva pilgrimage and purchased the above (yucky) bracelet. But, looking past at its ordinary blandness, I could see great potential. I snapped up two bracelets and went home to pull them apart.
Attaching chains to the top and bottom of the hearts I was struck with the “emblemness” of the earrings. At first I’d made the earrings using the same gold plated chains. Yawn. They looked nice but the world is full of “nice” jewelry pieces. I wanted “interesting” earrings. Rummaging through my stock I found thin silver plated chains and, affixing them to the bottom of the medals I had created Emblem Earrings.
The name has caused me confusion. Whenever I make a new piece I generally have a name in mind, and no matter what, I always remember it. Until these earrings came into being. In my mind they’re called emblem earrings or medallion earrings. I always get the names mixed up. But I’ve got to think about names that potential customers would search for on Etsy. I don’t like my chances of someone jumping on Etsy to search for medallion earrings. Not that emblem earrings is any more likely to be searched for, but I have to call them something. They remind me of medals so the medal name stays.
I’ve hit 100 items in my Etsy shop! Happy Hundreds Day, Glamour Twinkles.
Nothing viewably exciting to report to my little fan base. I’ve been chipping away at my mountain of To Do Tasks this week. It’s all boring behind the scenes stuff – updating Etsy tags, uploading some new photos for random items and editing my fabulous new media friendly photos for my e-course. I know, I know, I started the marketing e-course in January (damned blog making my procrastination a public concern).
Work in progress, getting that white background...
I’m not completely happy with the first lot of media photos I took last week, so I’ve spent some of this lovely long weekend shooting more photos. I will have high res white background photographs on my media page if it kills me.
Trialled a flash for this shot. Kinda like the look of it...
Actually, I’m rather enjoying shooting the photos. I even dug out the instruction manual for by beloved Pentax I-10. I’m definitely NOT enjoying trying to “style” or “pose” necklaces and bracelets for their portrait. I ‘m looking for photos tat scream “oh wow”. At the moment my photos say “meh”. Ands I don’t want to use filters and showbiz effects on the finished product. I want to do as little photo editing as possible to achieve a plain white background.
It makes me appreciate a great jewelry photo. I used to look at photo of a diamond ring and say “so?” Now I look at a photo of a diamond ring and say: how the heck does that not have any shadow, no reflection of the photographer, even, crisp white background and on and on and on.
Behind the Twinkle – Tattoo Necklaces
Sadness is when something previously “alternative” becomes main stream. Like tattoos. Now every man and woman and their dog, sport tattoos*. In fact it’s weird seeing someone who doesn’t have tattoos. But, they’re not for everyone. And quite rightly so. Imagine having a removable tattoo… hey doesn’t some Kiwi girl have something like that in an Etsy shop?
Why yes, yes she does.
Being the owner of 10 rat-a-tattoos (that’s tat-speak) I also have a number of tattoo magazines. Not the naked chick sprawled on a motorbike kind of magazine but the respected Inked Magazine, Tattoos Down Under, et al.
Tattoo Necklace by Glamour Twinkles Jewelry, available from Etsy
Reading through said tattoo mags, noticed a recurring theme: butterflies, diamonds, hearts, sparrows, and skulls are popular images and just so happen to be jewelry charm staples as well. Well, they are in my wacky world. So I hit upon a charmingly ingenious jewelry idea: remove able tattoo jewelry.
Alas, the sparrow is a rare jeweled pendant charm and only having 10 sparrows in my NEST I could only make 10 necklaces. And one for myself, natch.
My Tattoo Necklace
They were a hit at the last fair I attended and I only have 3 necklaces left – in the entire wide world.
Tattoo Necklace - Rose Heart by Glamour Twinkles Jewelry available from Etsy
So above you see all that is left in the Tattoo Necklaces by Glamour Twinkles Jewelry range.
*Not advocating animal tattooing ever!!
Tattoo Necklace Butterfly Padlock - Media ready
Heavenly weekend dear reader. Why? I hear you ask. Because my wonderful, brilliant photography lights arrived on Friday. Due to the fact that Miss Buster cat refused to open the door when the courier called around on Tuesday, I had to get the lights delivered to work.
Lights - One of the Twins
Then they took a day longer to reach me because the courier didn’t give me the right code number on the delivery card. After some phone calls, and a hunt around the courier storage area, my package was located, delivered and enthusiastically ripped open by yours truly.
Early morning set up with lightbox
When I get home I can’t wait to use them. I’m a bit paranoid about blowing a fuse in my apartment but one of the guys at work assured me I wouldn’t be blowing any fuses with my lights.
Lights and Tripod in Action, my snug little set up
Gingerly, I plug them in, set up my little studio and marvel at the perfect white, crisp photos of my jewelry. Perfection – thy name is …. well , the lights don’t actually have a brand name on ‘em. Who cares! They do the job and I am hap-hap-happy.
Now I can start creating a press page. New plans afoot, dear reader. New plans a foot!!
Truth time: I’ve had these necklaces in my jewelry stable for a while but I love them. I love the juxtaposition of the dainty black chain against the big chain. Hey, what poet laureate hijacked by blog!?
I’m back. These necklaces are actually secretly named after Biggie Smalls. Yep, that is the original true life Behind the Twinkle story to the Gangster in Lil Gangster Necklaces. Now I know the “g” word has negative connotations (dang laureate’s back again) but that is the honest truth behind the gangster label – in this case. One day/night, I was watching some video show, a Biggie vid comes on, he’s wearing humongous (undoubtedly genuine) gold chains. Thus was born the first incantation of the Lil Gangster Necklace.
Lil Gangster Diamante Filigree Heart - Original OG
But it was a little ordinary for me. I found a bunch of black thinner chains that I draped all across the original necklace to “goth it up”, making it look a little bit more like something I want to convey to my market (bugger off business plan girl, being back the laureate).
The ones you see on my Etsy shop are the only ones in the whole world. So you better snap ‘em up before they all gone (sic). Chuckles, oh laureate, you jokester, you.
Winging their brilliant way to me are two brand new daylight 5500 watt photography lights. Here’s hoping they have lightbulbs in ‘em. They are real photography lights too. Not the fabled 100 watt lamp that seems to be more urban legend than actual fact. I’m not going to get too excited about them until they arrive at my house, I’ve plugged em in and they don’t cause me to blow a fuse because a) they aren’t right; b) not bright enough; 3) they actually blow the electricity in my house.
Timeline Time
I visited my Facebook page to trial their new timeline system. Yuck. But I guess we’ll all get used to it. Still – YUCK! Cannot get into being active on Facebook. But I’m changing my thinking. I know I have to make it worth reading and visiting and, more importantly, “Liking” it. Begging for Likes just seems so High School, “Hey there cool kids, pleeeeeese like me……”
Last weekend I did some confounding research on the link between popular Etsy shops and their Like rating. D-Pressing. And non-sensical. I visit a shop where very cool little hearts are made. But I note 1K Likes but not nearly as many Etsy sales. How do they relate? Being liked on FB didn’t seem to equate with actual hard cold cashola. Are Likes more important than sales? Not to me. Popularity may be important to people like the geek that invented Facebook but how does one translate that into money.
“Sorry I can’t pay my rent this week Mr Landlord. But 25 people liked my Facebook page.”
“Oh Twinkles, don’t worry about the money. Knowing you’re liked makes up for the cancelled mortgage payment to my bank…” Yes, that would be an interesting conversation.
In keeping with the FB revamp I’m having my own little revamping. I’ve started taking some refresher photos for Etsy. I’ve been scheduling tweets and attaching the same pictures for the past few weeks. Handmadology advised a revamp using different photos can do wonders for shops in a rut so I’m unrutting my shop.
Show Business
I’m still working on my dream future business plan which is rather enjoyable. I wish I’d known about working backwards years ago. It’s part of the reason for my renewed (slight) interest in getting my Facebook page updated. You see, in the future I’m on it All. The. Time. And my 1000′s of future Likers are also on it. I haven’t got to the part where I know what you guys are all Liking about my page but, trust me, it will be worth it.
Paisley Flower Earrings made from the ugly necklace I bought
One day I bought this pretty (ugly) necklace – sorry if anyonereading this acyually has this necklace…because I loved the paisley pendants on it.
While scouring Etsy for popular items I came across a shop that had pretty little earrings and I’m ashmed to say, I tried to copy them hoping I too, would sell them in my little electonic shop.
Paisley Flower Earring
Alas. They didn’t sell. Alas, even more, I didn’t really like them that much either. They didn’t really fit with my overall “aesthetic” of slightly kitchy goth inspired jewelry. So I played around with some uber lightweight silver chain I had laying around my fantastic imaginary castle, and came up with the Filigree Key Chained Heart Earrings – the vision you see before you.
Chained Heart Earrings - available from my Etsy shop
From something plagerised came something Glamour Twinkley…
Rushing off to the hair salon on Wednesday after my 9-5 office job I wished I was rushing away from something Glamour Twinkles Jewelry related. Something like a jewelry photo shoot for my latest range; or dashing off in the middle of the launch of my new online shop. Then another thought hit me: starting from the finish, write down my ultimate business dream (reality based) and then work backwards on how I will achieve it. It’s called the Backwards Planning Method.
It’s actually been surprisingly fun writing down how fabulous I’d like to eventually be. I mean my fabulous business. Of course, I’m a little perturbed to be using a method that the military use but, hey, they’ve been around since forever and it can’t be all bad, right? Right? Right! I’ll just have to incorporate million dollar jets for travel and basic training every morning for my future Twinkle employees and I am SET TO GO!! That was a joke. Please don’t write me nasty comments about jets and basic training and the military.
Early draft of my Gold Emblem Hearts Earrings - another Flickr-bound pic
I’m not going to post my plan just yet, for there is much to do, but fear not, it will appear in various stages. That way when I unveil my uber plan I’ll have blogger’s proof of my contingency scattered all over the interweb.
To think, all this came about through a lack of exciting conversation with my hairdresser. Oh and if you’re wondering, my hair looks fabulous. Even if no one at my corporate jungle job has mentioned my hairological coolness. At least I know my future Twinkle employees would mention my hair. Because of the clause I’ll put in their employment contracts – BA-ZING!
I’m spinning my wheels. My big scheduling plans are waning, with me doing random stuff without a plan. Its the very epitome of spinning my wheels. It looks like I’m going to have to do the thing I hate – making a …. gagging here …. plan. (Wow, it actually took three tries just to spell that correctly…) I hate planning. At work this week they had us attend the second part of our Myers Briggs course. If you’re wondering I am a Sensor first, Introverted personality type, with a high Judgement score. My main weakness is not looking at the Big Picture, the “where are we going” crap, “hovering up high in a helicopter” as the tutors kept harping on about. No, that is negative thinking, Twinkle, Fly high in that danged helicopter. This thinking also applies to my personal like, But who cares about the future? It never happens, right? I like the here and now, the “where I am”ness of this minute. However, I am willing to take some baby steps. I found a couple of websites on writing a jewelry business plan, and setting realistic goals. Sure I’ve read their electronic words but my Sensor is on overload! It’s saying: What About Now? Well, actually my head is literally aching. Yep, I’ve had a painful headache since Saturday morning. Not a hangover. Probably goal fear(?!), which has pretty much made me waste my entire weekend doing something close to nothing (to quote Prince’s Raspberry Beret).
I had PLANNED on revamping my Etsy listings after looking at my very failed Media Ready photos. Looks like I’ll be getting out the old light box and shoot my stuff properly. I simply refuse to spend hours photoshopping my grey background pix to a mor presentable white background. In fact I’d rather work on my yucky business plan than sit here moving lighting increments on Picnik for the next few weeks until they shut up shop on 19 April.
Yellow Adjustable Bauble Ring by Glamour Twinkles Jewelry available on Etsy
I found and added a couple of unpublished Beaded Bauble rings in my Etsy shop and “planned” on updating some of the current listings. As of Sunday 4.56pm I’d only updated my Yellow Beaded Bauble Ring. You can play the game of: What has she done to the Listing? Compare Yellow to Blue Beaded Bauble Ring and see what changes I made. This has turned into a rather boring unfunny post as my dumb headache is not buggering off. Oh,but in good news I’m getting my hair cut on Wednesday so you know I’ll make some excuse to post a picture of the results here wearing something shiny I’ve made for myself.
Related articles
- Behind the Twinkle – Beaded Bauble Rings (glamourtwinkles.com)
