Social Media's are My New Best Selling Friends

OK, so as you can see by some of my past post and pictures and links I have a shop on Etsy and sell jewelry http://obtp.etsy.com/ (Originals by Terri Pezzullo). Well with the Internet being what it is I've taken a few steps in the direction of social media, as you can reach so many more people than just having an online shop and waiting for people to find you.

I first started with this blog about 4yrs ago. I posted once in a while, but really never promoted it much (ok not at all). To be honest I felt a little embarrassed and intimidated by the WWW to talk about myself to so many people out there so I just posted pictures of my jewelry with prices again sitting back hoping someone would find me. Then I started poking around at other blogs and got a feel for it. I deleted all my old post and pictures and started fresh. This is the first post i posted when I started fresh http://originals-by-terri.blogspot.com/2008/07/little-something-about-myself.html

It took me a while to get just the right look with a heading, color and fonts, but I love my blog now. I've had well over 5000 visits and some wonderful comments from my visitors. I love doing Featured Artist, and my own free earring blog giveaways. My blog has also brought many people to my Etsy shop. This is a picture of the first piece of jewelry I sold on Etsy and I have now sold 204 items to date. This is more than I ever thought I would!!

I signed up for Etsy in December of 2007 but didn't become a seller until February 2008. I started hanging out in the forums making friends, and let me tell you , some very nice friends!!

I learned a lot in the Etsy forums one thing was net working with a face book account http://www.facebook.com/pages/OBTP-Jewelry/100850840297. I have had face book since November of 2007 but never used it (another story for another time). Again a little uncomfortable talking about myself. Then my previous manager (Marjorie) found me on face book and friended me (so excited to have a friend), then my brother, some relatives and people I went to school with and so on and so on.... After only 2 weeks of Face Book I made 2 sales and a few more after that! You can have a personal and business Face Book.

I also have a Flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/obtp/ . This is a great place to upload your pics and join different groups to show them off, unfortunately you can't sell there but you can put a link to your shop, blog, face book or whatever social media you use.

Then I found Twitter!! https://twitter.com/OBTPJewelry The social network that only allows you up to 140 characters at a time to say what you want. I can follow people and they can follow me back. I can comment on there comments, post links to something I just listed in my shop but not to often as it's frowned upon, you don't want to spam everyone with your items. But I'm happy to say I have made some new friend there also and even a few sales!

I love GMA (Good Morning America) I have watched it just about everyday for the last 15 yrs or so. The other day I got a return tweet from no other than ..............

GMA's Tori Johnson work guru and GMA's weather man!!..........How cool is that!!..........It truly made my day!!..........Now go online and socialize!!..........

Feel free to click on any of my links and follow me..........