Product Photography On A Budget – Part 2
Having social media pages are a great start to get the word out about your products. They are an essential part of having an online presence with your crafting business. Social media pages are also the ideal stepping stone into online selling if you don’t have your own website, or are not ready to commit to an online selling platform. But your name as the page title is not enough to direct people to your page. It is essential that you also have a social media handle as well. This blog explains why you need to use your social media username, and how to create one for Facebook. It will also touch on when to use it to the best advantage to attract more customers, and spread the word about your products.
The Problem With Sharing Your Page Name
You have set up your Facebook page. You have added content and lovely photos. Now you need to tell the world and their dog about all the delightful creations that you make. You could let people know your page name by word of mouth and present the URL address on your business cards, but those methods come with their own issues. You see there will be lots of other pages with similar names to yours, particularly if you just use your own name. Remember, social media is a worldwide entity, and when someone types in your name, they will be presented with a huge list of possible page suggestions that they have to sift through to find your page. There is nothing more time consuming that clicking on multiple pages to see if it is the correct one. More often than not, if someone doesn’t find your page within the first few minutes they will give up.
The Issue Of Sharing The URL
The URL (short for Uniform Resource Locator) of your page is the address that appears in the search bar. For example, our URL for The Crafty Boater social media Facebook page is:
Facebook The Crafty Boater: https://www.facebook.com/thecraftyboater/
You could give that out to people instead, this would take them directly to your page. There would be no mistaking it for someone else’s page, as each page created has its own unique URL. But if you are like us, and have multiple social media channels imagine writing this each time you wanted to direct someone to your pages! Other problems are also apparent, it would be easy to make a mistake writing it out. It is difficult to read, and you would need a very small font to add it to a business card.
Creating A Social Media Handle or Username
We have established the issue with sharing a page name and its URL, so how can you get rounnd it? You need something short and punchy that is easy to read and write. This is where the social media username also known as a social media handle comes in. You have probably seen these on the internet or onn social media channels they are written with the @ (‘at’) sign in front of it. Ours is @thecraftyboater and our Crafty Boaters Markets handle is @craftyboatersmarkets You can see how much easier these usernames are to read, write down, or add to a business card. With this in mind, how do you go about creating one?
First you need to decide on a name. The best name to use is your business name, so make a list of names that are variations your business name. The reason to make a list is that if your chosen name has already been taken then you have a number of others to try. For example, our list of names included the following for The Crafty Boater
@thecraftyboater
@the.crafty.boater @the_crafty_boater
@thecraftyboater1
Do you get the idea? If you have a very long business name, then it is a good idea to break it up with underscores or full stops to make it more readable, or come up with a shortened version of your name to use. If your business contains a number then consider using the written version or if written, the numerical version instead. You will be surprised with how many variations you can come up with.
Once you have your list, you can go ahead and create your username. For Facebook, you can find the instructions to create your username here at Create A Usernname For Your Facebook Page. Somme social media channels are slightly different in that you will create your username when you create your account with them. If you are active on more than one social media channel, you should try where possible to have the same username for all of your channels, but it is not always possible. If you can’t match one username to all the channels you want to use then you need to choose another variation from the list you made. Try not to have too many though, and if you end up with lots of different names, then you may want to rethink your chosen name. The best thing to do is to check whether you can have your chosen name on each channel you want to use before committing to creating the accounts. That way you can find a name that suits all of them. However, you may be lucky, and like us, find a name that nobody else had used across all channels.
Where should I use my new username?
There are many places that your username will be useful. As mentioned earlier, it is a good idea to add your username to your business cards. The recipient of your card can now easily find you on the internet. They don’t even have to navigate to the social media channel either. All they have to do is type it into google and it should come up within the search results on the first page. When they click the link it will take them straight to your page.
As a craft market organiser, I often share photos of sellers products on our social media pages, to inform buyers of small businesses coming to the market. If I include the sellers username within my post or tag them in the post, it creates the opportunity for two things. First the seller will be notified and they can share it on their page. Second, the potential buyer has a way of navigating to the sellers page too check out their products before coming to the market.
Social media usernames are great news for event organisers, because it makes it easy for the organiser to alert participants to social media content for an event. In turn, the participant can easily share that content to others who follow their page who might be interested to come to the event. In essence, it spreads the word far beyond the organisers immediate circle. In addition, the sharing of content by participants helps to keep the cost of paid advertising to a minimum, and thus keeping the event fees such as stall prices from increasing too much year on year. It also contributes to greater footfall for the event. Therefore, both organiser and participant will benefit. You can learn more about tagging on social platforms in this blog post by Marketing by Minal What is social media tagging and why should you use it
As you can see, the username or social media handle can play a significant role in helping customers to find you, and increase your business sales, as well as spread the word about your craft business, and where your next market stall will be. We hope this blog has given you a little more insight into why you need to use your social media username and how to create one for Facebook.