Great topic and great info on this thread as I am reasonably new to FB and Instagram but plan to start using them shortly to promote my work.
Thanks to everyone for their input.
Cheers
Barry
Great topic and great input from everybody.
Instagram is the backbone of my sales. We don't get many sales through FB, and very few via Twitter, but I have had a store page on my website using Shopify's software for about a year now, and we have made a nice profit through what amounts to an afternoon's work building the site with their drag and drop tools. Shopify isn't free–I think I pay about $9 per month–but they make it as simple as copy and paste to add a knife for sale on your website with a polished buy button and shopping cart experience. It's easy for the customers, you can manage inventory if you want, and you don't have to learn to code. I would recommend considering it. I use WordPress, and they work with Shopify via the Themify template to provide the tools to make a very attractive site with a reasonably easy learning curve.
You guys are great. I've learned a lot from listening to you and hope this was helpful.
I'm not big into social media. I don't have any kind of personal account on any. This might be a limiting factor for me, but I do like the freedom it provides.
That being said, my wife and I have a combined business. I have my bladesmithing and she sews and creates her own hand dyed tie dye..pretty spectacular stuff..but anyway. We have a "business" facebook page, Instagram, twitter. We also have a blog on wordpress. She takes care of all of the social media, and I handle the blog.
For sales of both types of our items, we use Etsy. It can take a while to get a decent following there and get yourself established, but once you do it can be a good way to sell your knives. If you want to see how we set up the blog, or our Etsy shop you are welcome to. It's called "No Harm In Farmin" on all venues. Facebook, twitter, instagram, wordpress, and Etsy..
I can't really handle the true social media stuff, but the blog is my favorite.
