Guild Officers

[Barbsdesigns]

As part of the new guild facelift Artfire has done, we now have a few extra things on the guild pages including featured collections which are curated by guild members (chosen randomly), guild forums that seem to actually work, and the option for me to promote members to officer positions. At least, I think that's what that 'promote' button does. Maybe it makes you a co-master... *shrug*

Anywho, I thought this was a good opportunity to bring up the need for guild officers. We are a small guild, obviously, with only 35 members. I would love for all 35 of us to be active in the forums and social networks, but it probably won't happen. I know everyone has different circumstances. I'm a stay at home mom, so I have a lot of free time. However, I'm about as bad as it gets at promoting and SEO. Just take a look at my item descriptions.

So, here we are. I am open to taking nominations for various members to become officers. I would prefer members who are active, but once Haffina stepped down, and a little before, this guild dropped in activity.

Here is what I'm thinking for positions:

Twitter - someone who can promote the guild, it's members, and whatnot on Twitter. I know some people are whizzes with the 140 characters. This would be the perfect position for you.

Facebook - someone who can promote the guild and it's members on Facebook. It doesn't have to be just the guild members who are fans of us on Facebook. Having one person dedicated to bringing our items to the vast world of Facebook is a good idea.

Twitter and Facebook are the only social networks I am really familiar with. I know there are more, so along with your nominations (or just volunteer yourself, this isn't like the presidential primaries or anything) please feel free to suggest other outlets for promotion. Preferably outlets that don't actually cost anything.

I guess that's it for now.

[artwire]

I would suggest using Penterest as a forum for promoting guild members. The rules there discourage "self-promotion" but there's no indication you can't promote your colleagues. I pinned all the rings I featured in a recent collection and got quite a few "likes" and "re-pins" on some of the guild members' rings. Don't know if it will lead to any sales but more and more people are using that venue to surf and shop, so you never know. I would be happy to volunteer to be in charge of promoting there. Just let me know what you think.

Additionally, I know my facebook page is connected to my Twitter page so everytime I post to fb, it also shows up on Twitter. Is there anyway to do that with the guild facebook page? I'm a real Twitter novice so I don't even know if you can have an account there for an organization or if it's only for individuals. In any event, will try to post fellow members' listings on my fb business page so it carries over to Twitter.

Sometimes it seems like I have more time invested in trying to get sales than I do in creating; which is very frustrating and annoying for me but if we could pool our time, maybe it would cut down on marketing time for all of us and possibly generate some income. I'm out of a full-time job so I have the dubious luxury of being able to spend a little more time on it then maybe others have....so please let me know what I can do. I'm just "trying out" Artfire right now...signed up for their first 30 days free deal...and so far I'm not impressed. Hoping that things will pick up because, frankly, I would really regret having to leave this guild and forum and assume I would have to do so if I were no longer with Artfire.

Jeez, didn't mean to go into all that. Forgive the extended post!

[Barbsdesigns]

I haven't started a Guild Pinterest, but maybe I should... That is a good idea. Then I can just go in an pin things from people's shops.

I'm not positive that the FB page is hooked to the Twitter account. I really don't like Twitter, even though I have an account and I have access to the Guild account. I think they're connected, but I'm not positive.

Getting sales online is extremely difficult for me. I'm also not employed (being a stay at home mom apparently doesn't count toward an actual full time job, meh) and on a single income (the hubs works) I can't afford to take out all the ads and stuff.

I was lucky enough to get onto Artfire in October 2010. They were running a promotion that had pro shops for $5.95/month. It's the only reason I quit Etsy and moved to Artfire. I was actually spending more than the $6/month on Etsy renewing and listing things all the time. But both markets are completely inundated with jewelry and everything else. I have had so much more luck selling at local venues and shows than I have had online, but everybody wants to know if you have an online shop that they can point their friends to. Artfire for me was the best option at the time.