Artfire Daily Collection

"Spiraling Up" by Primal Painter

I've felt strangely verbally stifled for the past few days.   I think it has to do with the creative process kicking in and that seems to negate the desire to do computer related left brain kind of things.  Creativity is very nonverbal for me, it's abstract and in my head,  my eyes, and my hands and doesn't have much of anything to do with words and certainly not links and other crapola. Actually, when I'm embroiled in a creative frenzy, the computer seems like a chore and me no likey chores. 

Also, it's spring for cryin' out loud!  I have a garden to get ready to plant, phlox to transplant, red tipped photinias and Heavenly Bamboo to plant, yard to mow, flower beds to clean up.....Bizzeee bizzeee bizzeee.

I love my tall purple phlox.  They get green early, stay green late, have beautiful aromatic flowers that last a long time, and spread like crazy.  I transplant some every year to different parts of the yard.  I may have to name my place Phloxville....Welcome to Phloxville, Where Purple Rules....  (Wow, strange mental meanderings, maybe I should have stuck with the verbal stiflement! lol)  Did I mention the smell of the lilac bushes that's permeating everything right now?  How could I possibly focus on computer stuff with that wonderful aroma in the air?

 

Have you heard about Artfire's Daily Collection email they're sending out....daily?  It's pretty cool, actually.  You have to sign up to receive it (there's a button at the top right of this post where you can do that) and you'll be assigned a number.  With each Daily Collection, they're awarding the person with the matching number a $100 gift certificate to spend in any Pro shop of their choice.  It's pretty good odds, I'm thinking

If you're a collection maker, now would be the time to get one made.  Think of the exposure if yours got chosen for the daily email.  Wow!  With Artfire, there's nothing saying you can't include your own items as opposed to Etsy where it's frowned on.  I haven't been there long enough to know if people actually include their own things very often, but I think it's a great idea.

Here's a cool Artfire Collection put together by Richard from Prankearts.  It's called 'Blue Dreams"

Blue Dreams

Curated By: Prankearts

ArtFire.com

Indie Design

Pretty isn't it!  I love blue!  Thanks to Richard from Prankearts.  Be sure to check out his Artfire Studio, he does some really beautiful impressionistic style paintings.

Later,

Laurie

Artfire's 45 Day Success Guide - Days 11 and 12

"Metamorphosis" by Primal Painter

I'm still  working on Artfire's 45 Day Success Guide. I've gotten several energy art prints listed in my Artfire Studio,  and also in my Etsy Shop, but I'm still short of having the recommended number of 40 things listed according to day nine of the guide .......40!!! Holy cow, that's alot.  I'm starting to think that a big key for success is having a high number of things  listed.

I've managed to get 21 things listed, so that'll have to be good enough for now.  It takes quite a bit of time to list things I've noticed, even on Artfire.  Having duplicate listings on Etsy requires that the titles and descriptions be 30% different from each other or google will ignore one or the other of the listings.  So for those of us who have shops in both places, give one of those duplicate listings a different title, and write a new first paragraph.  30% is quite a bit more than I was expecting to have to change. Gah!

Also, something else I discovered, on Artfire if applicable, list multiples for your items.  Apparently, when you re-list an item, all of those links and SEO that have built up over time disappear and  you have to start over from scratch.  So listing multiples will keep your links alive for a long time, and that's a good thing. I'm wondering if frequent re-listing on Etsy loses your links and that's why google search percentages can be lower on Etsy. Re-listing helps with on-site category searches, though, but I'm starting to be suspicious that the Etsy re-listing strategy isn't google friendly. 

I'm on day 12 now, although I groan loudly at the requirements for social media and may not do it.  For me, twitter is easier than facebook, just a quick little blurb and you're out.  Artfire and Etsy both make it easy to do. Facebook seems like a popularity contest that I'm losing......and I don't like to lose! 

At first when I was doing the facebook thing, I was spending way too much time on there, commenting, shout outs, link love, and I got a ridiculously high number of shop views and hearts.  No sales, though, and I was spending quite a bit of time there for no sales....time that I should have spent in the studio.  Plus, you have to keep up the effort or you'll lose people's interest.  It can turn into an addiction, I think.   I understand how it would be beneficial though, and I'll probably try it again at some point.  

Now Etsy is starting to be more like facebook every day!  Have you noticed that now there are "like" buttons on your etsy pages? Geeze..... 

Here's a little summary of days 11 and 12:

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Day 11


Your Daily Checklist

Five New Products listed in your ArtFire Studio  (good grief!)
Three Posts on the ArtFire community Forums   (I'll try....)
Three Tweets sent from your Twitter Account   (I can do that.....)
Two Posts on your Facebook Fanpage Wall    (Oh maaaannn, nobody will even notice)
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Day 12
Social Media Day Two

We encourage every seller to maintain both their ArtFire blog and an offsite blog (with different material). While this may seem overwhelming, but committing to two blog posts a week (one on each blog), will provide you with the benefits of being an active blogger and keep your readers coming back as long as you post regularly.

(Two blog posts a week, one on each,  that doesn't sound too bad......)
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Your Daily Checklist

Three Posts on the ArtFire community Forums (We'll see...)
Five Tweets sent from your Twitter Account   (5 tweets now?  Gah!)
Two Posts on your Facebook Fanpage Wall   (noooooo)
One Blog post on your offsite Blog  (Done!)
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If you go to the Success Guide  there are all kinds of helpful links for each day plus more in depth  suggestions.

Well I'm off to tweet something,  maybe I'll post something in the forums, (I'm not sure about that), and I may drag myself kicking and screaming to facebook.  I think I'm nervous about getting addicted to the popularity aspect and then feeling up or down based on the number of comments, impressions, likes....  I even read somewhere that some people are getting facebook depression because they aren't getting noticed like some of their peers.  That saddens me.....

My success at following the success guide doesn't seem to be too successful so far!

Have an awesome day!

Laurie