Online Marketing – Building Relationships

Glass Lampwork Bead of Celadon and Gaia

I have a tip about Flickr or any social network site; as obvious as it sounds – try and interact directly with people – especially new people. This is hard for me (even online) because I tend to be withdrawn.

Find people and give them a sincere compliment. Potential customers (such as jewelry makers in my case) are good, since you would be pretty sure that you have something in common, but it could be anybody.  From a business selfish point of view, that person may have a friend that would in interested in your product. Also in the online world, you never know who (read potential customer) could be perusing that person’s messages. It could start up a conversation and eventually build a business relationship. At the very least, it made someone feel good.

I accidentally discovered this when I sent a message to someone about her avatar. I don’t recall if she had contacted me first – it does not matter.  Her avatar was her dog, and the dog’s expression was truly priceless to me. (It was a plus that her work is fabulous!)  I messaged her, she replied, and now she is a great online friend and one of my best customers. Not only that, I am aware of 2 other customers of mine that found me because of her – all because I thought that her dog was cute.

I don’t know if you read my blog, but you know who you are.  You taught me a great lesson.

So, I actively seek out things (jewelry, paintings, photgraphs) that I like and leave positive messages. I am careful to be sincere and specific about what it is that I like.  (For example, I don’t go around spamming a general “I like this” all over the place.)   If only 1% turn out, so what?  It’s cheap, and it makes me feel good about making someone else feel good.

Expanding my Vocabulary – not in a good way

Today,  there is another funeral service that I should attend.  This time it is for a member of our church named Chris Cole.  We often sat with him and his wife at the high school football games; we had children the same age.  He was my daughter’s Sunday School teacher at the beginning of the year – before he had a relapse of cancer.  I think that my daughter should go to the service too.

Here are words that I have learned.

• Interment – burial
• Internment – imprisonment
• Inurnment – placement of cremation ashes into an urn; burial or placement of an urn

Finding Your Voice Workshop – Week 1 – Bead Experiments

I am currently participating in an online workshop run by Sylvie Lansdowne on Facebook.  It is kind of funny, because I’m learning my way around Facebook at the same time I’m learning in the workshop.

For our first assignment, each of us that are participating in the workshop were assigned a unique photo and color scheme. My grayscale photo seemed to be a flower bud with large, graceful sepals, and my color scheme was purple, bright yellow, and pink.  From this inspiration, we were each to make a bead.  The rule was: one and only one bead!  Then we had to post a photo of the bead that we had made.  Sylvie had jokingly promised us that we would not like the bead that we had made.  I believe that her prediction is spot on, at least for me.

The colors in my bead did not turn out like I intended. The purple ended up being a little more blue than expected, and the pink turned purple on the yellow!  That was really weird to me;  it was a Reichenbach color that I’m sure that I’ve used quite reliably before.  I wonder if I grabbed the wrong color.  Not only that, there was a color reaction on the yellow itself around the bottom (in the picture anyway) part of the bead.  It is all the way around the bead, but only at the bottom.  I have to think about that one.

Now that we have all made the bead, each of us are to give suggestions on where to proceed to expand on this basic bead.  Without comment, here is my bead.  Where do you think this could go?

The Weird Bead

Rosemarie Hanus makes many beads (weird an otherwise) in her home studio. Take a look at these beads at Etsy,  Art Fire, or my Spawn of Flame website.

The Flag at Half Staff

When at the funeral service the other day, we noticed that the flag was flying at half staff. We wondered if it was always at half staff at the National Cemeteries.

I found my answer at the website for the Nashville National Cemetery.  The flag is flown at half staff on the morning of Memorial day and during interment services.

So, apparently the flag that day was in honor of Mr. Mapes.  What a respectful thing that is.

Random Thoughts at a Funeral Service

Yesterday, I attended a service at the Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery, a local burial grounds for the US Military in Rittman Ohio. I’ve heard that it was a beautiful facility, but had never been there before.

Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery

It was indeed lovely, but as we drove into the front entrance, this thought popped into my head: “Oh this is really nice, Daniel (my son) could be buried here.” This thought upset me of course, and I was on a good start at being emotionally unbalanced for the service itself.

Incidentally, the photo is from the cemetery website.  This time of year, the grounds are snow covered.  I did take a photo, but somehow my camera ate it before I got home.

The service was for the elderly brother of a friend; although I had met him once, I certainly did not know him, so unfortunately I cannot tell you much about him except that he had been in the Army. His name was Gerald Mapes.

The service was outdoors; the temperature was around 12 degrees Fahrenheit. We were warned that it was going to be outdoors, so we were prepared with warm coats. What we were not prepared for was the fact that we had to sit on metal benches which had been out in this cold all winter. For about 20 minutes. I have to admit that my mind wandered sometimes during the service, when I wondered if my backside was still attached, because I could no longer feel it – it was so cold.

The weather itself was beautiful, at least during the service. It was sunny for that short time and there was a very light snow falling. The snowflakes truly sparkled in the rare winter Ohio sunlight, and I have to admit that I was mesmerized by the sparkling. I felt a great peace watching it.

Jewelry Give Away!

I’m beginning to put together a series of posts about some artisan friends that I have “met” in my online world. In the meantime, go add a comment at Mana Moon Studios to get a chance at winning a bracelet. Check it out here!

In the News

I was contacted a while ago to be interviewed for an article about Etsy artisans to be published in the Bath Country Journal, our local community magazine. I had not heard anything until this week, when a photographer called and said that the pictures for the article had to be done by Thursday.  Well, that was a surprise!

The photographer wanted a photo with me holding my beads, so to display as many beads as I could, I came up with the idea of using some cigar bead boxes that I had purchase a long time ago from The Bead Box Man.  I like how the beads look, but we’ll see how I look trying to hold them in the photo.  I was really worried that I was going to dump them all during my photo shoot!  They stayed in the boxes – what a relief!

Spawn of Flame Beads - in a Box

Rosemarie Hanus makes many beads in her home studio. Take a look at these beads at Etsy,  Art Fire, or my Spawn of Flame website.

West Side Market – Fueling for the Hunt

Over the weekend, we decided to go to the West Side Market in Cleveland.  This is one of those places that I’ve intended to visit for years, but just never got around to going.  I was reading some tweets on Twitter, and one of my fellow Etsy Cleveland Team members, LazyTCrochet, mentioned it.  The idea was born, we got directions from their website,  jumped into the car, and went there.

I’ll write more about the market itself in a later post, but our plan was to eat lunch at the market before actually beginning to shop.  There is a little cafe there; I knew this not because of my great intuition, but because of the great website that the market has.

Cafe at West Side Market in Cleveland

We really had a good time there, and great cafe food.  Some onion rings – yum!

Onion Rings

Part of a huge Italian sub sandwich.

Half of an Italian Sub Sandwich

A pulled pork sandwich.

Pulled Pork Sandwich

Oops!  You’ll have to take my word on this one, I guess.

It was a fun start to a great day.

I Survived the Rotavirus

I picked up what was apparently the Rotavirus that seems to be making the rounds this year, and I believe that I have survived.  I don’t know how I got it, because I could almost characterize myself as anal about hand washing (sorry, could not resist).

I am not used to being sick, but when I get sick, it is with a respiratory illness.  I therefore have little experience with the Rotavirus. – which affects the digestive system.  (Oh, what an understatement that is) Here are some things that I have learned:

• Imodium actually works.  Use it sooner rather than later – like before the third day.
• The term “chaps my behind” or any equivalent, is no longer funny to me.
• When recovery is imminent, do not let anyone convince you that a bean burrito (because it is soft) is a good thing to eat.  You do not, repeat, do NOT want to add bubbles to the mix.
• While replenishing your electrolytes may be a good goal, do not use a sports drink with sucrolose.  Sucrolose seems to have a laxative effect – at least on me.  Need I say more?

I hope that this is somewhat humorous, at least that was my intent. If you should be so horribly unfortunate that you contract this malaise… maybe my experience could be of assistance. Especially the Imodium part. Seriously.