Sunday 18 December 2011

We need a new tagline...

We love the Handmade Monday blog http://www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk/blog/ as we get to promote both Jeeberella's Craft Castle and Dragonfly-Jersey's blogs but also our own. Do go and check it out we've read some fab blogs over the past few weeks!

Crafty-Bitz needs a new tagline for 2012 that's short and snappy that can go on our website, facebook, twitter, blog etc so... we're hoping some of our crafty members and followers are also good with words!

We want to promote the fact that we're here for our members, helping us to help them, open and honest approach, no favouritism everything's done either fairly or randomly, showcasing people's products as well as their businesses and the people behind them, all handmade items etc.

What we'll then do is post all the entries into a facebook album and ask people to like their favourite, the one with the most likes becomes our new tagline and receives a months worth of free promotion on our website.

So if you want to join in, drop an email to natasha@crafty-bitz.com with your suggestions.

Whilst you don't need to be a member to join in, it would be great if the winning person was a member so we can promote them both on the website, in our meet our member feature and share some of their work which they upload in our photo gallery!

Any questions, just let us know :)

Saturday 17 December 2011

Free promotion on the website...

Evening all

How would you like some free promotion on our website for a whole MONTH???

If you take a look on the website www.crafty-bitz.com you'll notice that Sarah and I have our logos for our businesses on the right hand side of every page


What we're going to do is offer one member each month the opportunity to have their business logo which has a link to their chosen site.

To be in with a chance of having your logo on EVERY page of the website for a month all you need to do is promote Crafty-Bitz where you see fit. Whether it's our website, our facebook page, your work in our photo albums or other people's work is entirely up to you. Also where you choose to promote is up to you too, facebook, twitter, forums, websites etc, just make sure you let us know how and when you're doing it so we know what you're up to.

We will then pick a member each month to be on the website. Kind of we'll scratch your back if you scratch ours!

We will be starting this from 1st January and already have a few people in mind, but it's not too late to get started!

Thanks again to everyone who has become a member, is sharing their brilliant work in our photo gallery, tweeting and contributing to our facebook page we really do appreciate it. Please continue to help us help you into 2012 with our meet our member facebook feature as well as featured member blogs. Take a look at Kokokelli's to see what brilliant feedback she got!

Thanks again

Natasha and Sarah
xxx

Thursday 8 December 2011

Featured member: Kokokelli

So, here's Kokokelli to kick off our first featured member blog interview! If anyone can think of a snappier title, I'm all ears!




Why did you chose your business name, when did you start the business, how you got started and what was your inspiration? 

It took me ages to think of a business name to use and I was struggling really bad to come up with something. Then one day I came across a pendant with a cool design on called Kokopelli, then while I was researching more about it I had a 'light bulb' moment and thought why not call myself Kokokelli?! lol. I then started designing my logo and thought I would incorporate Kokopelli into it (hence the Kokopelli style hair coming out of the swirl) 
I started crafting in January 2010 doing bits and bobs for myself and friends, alot of people loved my stuff and said why not try and sell some to make extra money?! Kokokelli was then born in June 2010 when I opened my shop on Folksy :o) So what inspired me to start? I saw a few things a friend had made at a jewellery making workshop and thought to myself "That's nice, I bet I could do something like that" so I bought myself a little beginner jewellery making set off ebay and it went from there lol



What it is you do, how do you do it and why do you do it? 

I make handmade jewellery & greeting cards because I love to create! I love the designing process as well as creating the final products. Sometimes it can take hours as I'm abit of a perfectionist and it all takes place in my little bedroom. I spread out my stuff on my bed and get cracking lol





How can people find you and how can people buy from you? Links to your shops, blog, facebook, twitter 

You can find me on the internet and I now have a shop on my website as I'm closing my Folksy shop in the New Year.
Website
http://www.kokokelli.co.uk

Facebook
And to round off...A weird and wonderful fact about yourself (not the business) 

I have different coloured eyes lol ones green and the other is hazel





Our commitments to you

There have been some recent events that have come to our attention over the last week whereby pages / groups etc that have been set up to support handmade / promote handmade businesses have either disbanded or made to disband due to issues with those pages / groups.

We thought this would be a good opportunity to let everyone know what our commitments to you as members / likers of the facebook page / twitter followers / blog followers are:

1. Free
Crafty-Bitz has been and always will be a free site. You will never have to pay to become a member. We do have a donate button but that is completely optional, in fact we only got our first donation recently. Any money that we do receive will go into improving the site i.e. removing adverts etc. When we have arranged the logistics of how the showcases will work we will be asking all members whether they would prefer to have a small charge for them to make changes to the website or to keep them free. We are here for our members after all.

2. Quantity vs Quality
We don't believe in marches / silent tagging / ladder things or anything else that just generates a huge quantity of likers. We believe in quality over quantity every time. We have already made you aware of our plans for showcases which we think are much more beneficial to potential customers as they get to see your products and what you have to offer. As above we will gain your feedback regarding costs for these. We are also regularly posting earlier albums that have been shared on our website to remind people of your products

3. Fair
As you know, we both have our own businesses (and full time jobs) that we run alongside Crafty-Bitz and while we will take opportunities to advertise our businesses i.e. offers we have, adverts on the website and the blog, we will never bombard you with info or use it as a platform just for ourselves. Likewise, we have no favouritism amongst our members and everything we do we do fairly. For example our member of the day is a random draw from an envelope and only once everyone's had their turn will all names be put back into the envelope to start again!

4. Member feedback
Everything we do, we believe is in our members best interests, if for any reason you don't agree with something we're doing, please email us and let us know. Or write on our facebook page, we will never block anyone from our facebook pages or anywhere else for voicing their opinions. We have nothing to hide and want our members to feel they can have honest communications with us.

As always if you have any suggestions on other things we can be doing to help promote the facebook page, the website and you, do let us know

Thanks

Sarah@crafty-bitz.com
Natasha@crafty-bitz.com


Collaboration!

If you didn't see it earlier this week then we're both very pleased to announce that in 2012 we're going to be working with The Craft Network!
Like Crafty-Bitz, The Craft Network is free to join and we think we can compliment each other really well rather than seeing each other as competition.

I've had personal experience with both The Craft Network and the lovely ladies who run it. They did a Spirit of Christmas on-line fair a few weeks ago which did really well (I sold a few bits and pieces) and they've got another Winter Wonderland fair on today and tomorrow with lots more scheduled in. At just £2 for 1 and 2 days of advertising it's a bargain as well.

So if you haven't registered with them yet, please do pop on over as we're going to working with these guys a lot next year. At the moment we're not sure what that looks like yet but we've already said that we'll ensure our showcases are on different dates so that they don't clash and we'll cross advertise anything new and exciting that we're doing for our members.

You can visit The Craft Network:
Website - http://www.thecraftnetwork.org/
Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/thecraftnetwork

We're always looking at ways of improving visibility for our members and think working with The Craft Network is a perfect opportunity to do this.

Thanks again

Natasha and of course Sarah

Sunday 4 December 2011

January promotions blog?



With Christmas only 21 days away (where on earth has the year gone?) everyone must be super busy with craft fairs, online showcases, buying, wrapping and delivering presents.

But after the Christmas tree has been taken down and the copious amounts of wrapping paper and empty boxes are a distant memory January tends to be a quiet month.

To help our members during January, we want to run a January Promotions Blog, so if you're planning on having a promotion, whether it's a sale, discounted items, free postage and packing etc we'd like to know about it.

Then starting 2nd week of January we'll run your promotions on our blog to share with everyone else.

All our members need to do is email natasha@crafty-bitz.com with:

  • A photo to represent their business - logo, item, stall picture etc
  • Details of their promotion - including timescales
We appreciate how busy you all are so we'll be sending some reminders out this throughout December and the first few days in January.

There won't be any final cut off as we can run a number of blogs throughout the month, as always we need your input so please do take advantage of some free publicity!

Thanks again
Natasha and Sarah @ Crafty-Bitz




Friday 2 December 2011

Welcome to Crafty-Bitz

To compliment the website and the facebook page, Crafty-Bitz now has a blog too!

So what is Crafty-Bitz?

It's a FREE online gallery for crafters and artists everywhere to showcase their talents and an opportunity to find unusual handcrafted gifts.

Think of us as an 24/7 online craft fair!

How do you get involved?


Simply register on the website using either your facebook or an email address, create your profile and start uploading photos of your choice. Simply put contact details as a description on each photo so people can contact you if they're interested in purchasing one of your items.

Once you have done that, if you email us with links to your facebook page, twitter account, blog, website, online shops etc the we can add you to our member directory too. Member benefits are described below.

How can you contact us?


You can either email us:
Sarah@crafty-bitz.com
Natasha@crafty-bitz.com

Or come on over to our facebook page and contact us there

What will Crafty-Bitz do for me?


In return for uploading your photos onto our site and sharing our fab facebook page, we have the following to help you too:

1. Member of the day - all members who submit links to their facebook, twitter, blog, website, shops etc go into a lucky dip draw. Once a day a member is picked at random and they're advertised on our website and facebook page

2. Themed showcases - A bit like an online craft fair, but more of a showcase which will be available all year round on our facebook page. First one isn't planned yet but looking like end of January for our first one, with a Valentine's day theme, which will be FREE!

3. Meet our members feature - This will be an on-going feature so all members submit a photo of their choice and a short paragraph about them, their business and what they do.

4. Do you have a sale, giveaway, discount, local fair coming up? Let us know and we'll advertise it for you.

You need to be a member to do this so we can point people in your direction, so don't forget to submit your links once you've registered!

And what can members do for Crafty-Bitz?


All we ask from our members is to actively upload photos onto the website, get involved on our facebook page and spread the word. Crafty-Bitz can't be a success without you and your input.

So that's Crafty-Bitz in a nutshell. We hope you join us on our journey to put handmade crafts on the map!