Net Profits

3 Things Successful Jewelry Designers Have in Common

Cathleen McCarthy — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:39:00 GMT

Winners of the Future of Design Business Incubator Contest for Jewelry Designers were announced in March. Entering required budding jewelry designers to answer a 77-question application. Jewelry business experts Cindy Edelstein and Andrea Hill of StrategyWerx spent countless hours poring over the applications and providing feedback. Here's what they've learned about successful jewelry designers in the process:

▪ Very few people understand what they're trying to accomplish beyond designing or making jewelry.

"If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there, right?" says Andrea Hill. "That's somebody's quote, not mine! The problem is they're all driving around on all these roads, floundering.

"That's not just true of the jewelry business, by the way, that's true of entrepreneurs in general. The typical entrepreneur has something they can make, something they know how to sell, and they think that's all they need. That's why the failure rate for small business is over 77 percent."

▪ All big-name designers were jewelry artists who sat down, at some point, and did some serious planning.

Six semi-finalists in the contest win a mentoring meeting with one of the Future of Design's Dream Team, designers Gurhan, Erica Courtney, Todd Reed, Penny Preville, Lisa Jenks, and Robert Lee Morris - all of whom work from a detailed business plan.

"Todd's a good example," says Hill. "His business plan is thoroughly documented and so is his brand book. Long before I started working with him, Todd was very focused and steady and knew what he wanted to accomplish. He's one of the more disciplined people I know. He's constantly thinking about what he has to do now to accomplish the next set of goals."

▪ Successful jewelry designers start by asking the right questions.

"All the finalists we've chosen were very capable of defining what their business was about right now, why they had defined their business this way, where they wanted to go in the future, and the kinds of questions they were trying to answer now to get there," Hill says. "Sometimes it's not just about whether you have the answers, these designers were asking all the right questions.

CATHLEEN MCCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on design, travel and business have appeared in AmericanStyle, Art & Antiques, Town & Country, Washington Post, and her own site, TheJewelryLoupe.com.

NET PROFITS is a regular feature about using the Internet for jewelry selling of special interest to those with a home-based jewelry business that appears in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about the importance of knowing what you want in "Do You Need a Business Plan?" May/June 2013.

Tips for Tracking Google Trends

Cathleen McCarthy — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:11:00 GMT

If you haven't played with the revamped Google Trends lately, you're missing out on an awesome free tool for analyzing both your site and the demand for your jewelry. In the April issue of Lapidary Journal

Jewelry Artist, I talked about how to use Google's free keyword tool to tweak the keywords on your site and online shop to come up higher in searches, and how to use Google Trends to analyze the demand for your jewelry -- specifically, the keywords you use to describe it.

Defining Terms
I used skull jewelry as an example and discovered a trend on the rise, so let's use that to demonstrate. If you plug in "skull jewelry" under Google Trends, a line graph pops up showing the demand for skull jewelry has been rising steadily since 2010. This keyword is getting more searches than ever. Beneath the graph you'll see a list of related terms, showing that skull rings in particular are the big draw. Add "skull ring" to your graph search terms and you can see that's what is really trending.

But you can go even deeper. Beneath the graph, you'll see all the search terms you plugged into your graph. If you click on "skull ring" (on the left) a new list of related terms pops up. Now you see that "skull rings" rates 100, while "skull ring jewelry" or "skull jewelry" gets half that. Gold skull ring only rates 35 on average. If you sell skull rings, make sure the term "skull rings" is in both title and text of the web page where you feature it. (And if you're selling skull jewelry but not skull rings, get on it!)

Tracking Trends
But there's more. Click on "Rising" under Related Terms and you'll find the "breakout" trend is for black skull ring, gold skull ring, halo ring skull, Keith Richards ring, and mens skull ring.

I wonder if this is why Manhattan-based designer Wendy Brandes, a wizard at self-marketing, shows a gold ring set with a black skull on her blog banner? Maybe she was just way ahead of the curve. It also explains why my posts on skull jewelry, jewelry like a rock star and skulls like a rock star still get so much traffic. (There's even a shot of Keith Richards wearing a skull ring.)

Tweaking Your Site -- and Your Inventory
It looks like what we're seeing here is primarily jewelry searches by men. Guys may not account for most jewelry searches, but apparently they're all over skull rings. If you've been making skull rings for women only, you're missing out on a hot demand.

You can do the same analysis for "flower rings," by the way -- apparently that's even hotter! -- or anything else you make. These free Google tools not only help you tweak your site or online shop to attract more traffic to existing inventory. They can also help you analyze demand for the jewelry itself. It's quite possible there's something you can add to an existing collection to meet that demand.

CATHLEEN MCCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories appear in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, Art & Antiques, and her own site, The Jewelry Loupe. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

NET PROFITS is a regular feature of Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist about using the Internet for jewelry selling of special interest to those with a home-based jewelry business. Learn more about inventory-tracking software in "Your Google Toolkit," April 2013, Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist.

Is Inventory Tracking Software for You?

Cathleen McCarthy — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:40:00 GMT

By Cathleen McCarthy

Whether you hope to sell your jewelry to national chains, local boutiques or friends of friends, inventory-tracking software can help you stay organized and grow your jewelry-making business. It's not for everybody, but it might be worth a try. Even the most basic version can help you keep track of parts, price your work effectively, and pay your business taxes.

• PC or Mac? Two affordable inventory-tracking systems designed specifically for jewelry are Jewelry Designer Manager (JDM) and Bead Manager Pro. Bead Manager Pro is Mac-compatible. Jennifer of the Etsy shop StudioSeventyFive used Bead Manager Pro for a while. "I really liked it," she says. "But then I started experiencing problems with my computer and went back to doing inventory the old-fashioned way."

Jewelry Designer Manager (JDM) is Windows-based so works best on a PC, but Laurie Wetterschneider of Laurie and Lisa Designs stuck with it even after she switched from PC to Mac a few years ago, partly because the customer service is "so spectacular." She installed VMware ($49) on her MacBook, which allows her to run JDM in its own window.

• Volume. Are you making a piece a month or aiming at department stores? Carleton offers three versions of JDM, starting with the $129 standard version. "I recommend standard for somebody in the hobby stage or selling to a small number of people, but who wants to keep track of parts," she says. "The deluxe version costs $259 and is definitely for somebody selling on consignment, who wants to print tags, link to Quikbooks, have all the reports and the bells and whistles to make them look really professional."

For all versions, she provides a year of text support for free. After that, it costs an optional $30 per year.

• Necessary? How important inventory control is to you depends to some degree on how big you plan to grow. Barbara Carleton developed JDM software when she started her own jewelry business with hopes of selling her jewelry to Neiman Marcus one day. Laurie Wetterschneider, who swears by it, was doing more than a quarter million in sales at one point, but says it helped even when she and her sister had a tiny startup. "I think that software is the best investment we ever made," she says.

By contrast, Jennifer of StudioSeventyFive decided tracking software wasn't for her. "I now keep track of everything by hand, and have every bead marked with its price," she says. "I don't find it too difficult pricing my pieces and keeping track of inventory because I am a very small operation. "

Using tracking software taught her the value of staying organized. "I label everything and keep it neatly stowed in my newly purchased bead organizer desk. Everything from chain to findings has its own drawer," she says. "My beads are separated by color."

"It's really easy to price my pieces now, because everything is so neatly labeled. Inventory takes a bit longer - maybe a few days of counting everything. But that's okay. As an artist I enjoy looking, at touching and sorting all of my beads, and not spending time entering everything into the computer."

CATHLEEN McCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories appear in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, Art & Antiques, and her own site, The Jewelry Loupe. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

NET PROFITS is a regular feature of Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist about using the Internet for jewelry selling of special interest to those with a home-based jewelry business. Learn more about inventory-tracking software in "Track Your Inventory," March 2013, Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist.

Using Share Sites for Instagram Photos

Cathleen McCarthy — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 05:00:00 GMT

When Facebook paid a billion dollars to acquire Instagram last spring, the message was clear: This photo-sharing app is going to be the next Big Thing for visual social media. How can you get in on the buzz?

For one thing, you'll get more mileage out of your Instagram images if you park them on a website that allows you to share your Instagram stream on other social media. Examples of these sites include:

To make sure you reach the widest audience possible, try to choose one favored by others you follow. A couple examples of how jewelry people with social-media savvy are using Instagram share sites:

Wendy Brandes uses INK361 to park and share her Instagram images. INK361 publishes galleries of the most popular Instagram images posted on their site, an urban-hip mix, heavy on street fashion - perfect for Brandes. INK361 also offers various tools to "share about your awesome Instagram photos at different places on the Net," such as Facebook, Twitter, G+, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

Webstagram is another popular share site for Instagram photos - less slick, less hipster - that emphasizes the comments and "likes" (a heart icon) pictures elicit, posted as Twitter-style conversations next to each image. Dan Gordon, owner of Samuel Gordon Jewelers in Oklahoma City, uses Webstagram to post his Instagram photos.

Most of Gordon's shots feature jewelry from his store. The rest are fun glimpses of his life - a bowl of brownie mix he's getting ready to cook, a digitally manipulated sunset, a Milky Way bar "as seen from Mars." Gordon has become well known in the jewelry industry for being on the cutting edge of social media, so his enthusiastic use of Instagram is significant.

According to his page on Webstagram, Gordon appears to be posting Instagram images every two to three hours. When he posts a photo of an amethyst ring, he adds hashtags in his caption description that appear below the image as #diamond, #gemstones, #purple, #lavender, #rosedefrance, #amethyst. Long after the tweet has come and gone, this image remains archived here and shows 35 hearts. An aquamarine ring posted earlier has 64.

Like INK361, Webstagram allows you to check out the most "popular" images shared on the site. When I last checked, the most popular Instagram shot on Webstagram was an ethereal backlit portrait of a woman, viewed from behind, half-submerged in the ocean. She wears jewelry, although it's not the primary appeal. This image had elicited 271 comments and the "popular photos" page itself had 203,000 Facebook likes and 9,000 G+1 shares.

Instagram is obviously inspiring competition among amateur photographers - no expensive equipment required, just a mobile device, the right app, and a good visual sense. Perfect for a jewelry artist, right?

CATHLEEN McCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on design, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, Art & Antiques, Washington Post, and her own site, The Jewelry Loupe.

NET PROFITS is a regular feature about using the Internet for jewelry selling of special interest to those with a home based jewelry business that appears in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about ways to take and use photos in "Instagram for Fun and Promo," January/February 2013.

How to Hire a Virtual Assistant for the Holidays

Cathleen McCarthy — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:24:00 GMT

If you've never hired a virtual assistant before, you're not going to want to go hog wild a couple weeks before Christmas. You have enough on your hands! But this may be a good time to try one out on some of the tasks you're having a hard time keeping up with right now. By next year's holiday season, you'll know just how to utilize this tool - and hopefully have a well-trained virtual assistant you can use in a pinch.

• Figure out what you can delegate. Take a few minutes to list all the things you have to do between now and Christmas. Now consider what you could delegate if you had to, including administrative tasks and

social media marketing.

Taylor McCoy, who runs the handmade jewelry business Native by Designz, has hired virtual assistants and worked as one herself for other artists, mainly marketing jewelry and crafts online. At one point, McCoy was promoting products for 15 different clients, as well as her own jewelry, on Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and Tumblr.

• Find someone who knows your product. Successfully marketing someone else's jewelry takes a certain touch. It requires trust, genuine understanding, passion for the products, and a strict schedule. "It doesn't matter if it's a stretch bracelet or a Swarovski crystal necklace, every product gets promoted," McCoy says. "It's no more or less than what advertising does for a car: I have to sell you this product in two sentences or less, or 140 characters."

• Look online. McCoy knows many people who have had luck finding virtual assistants on odesk. But she recommends starting with the people you network with online. Consider approaching another jewelry artist who's good at promoting his or her own work. "Look around and see who's advertising on social media and does it in a way that makes you want to buy something," she says. "Maybe they would like to work for you. With the economy, people often need a few extra dollars." It doesn't hurt to ask.

"At the very least, you need to find someone who already knows about products in your selling venue," McCoy advises. "I wouldn't suggest using someone who paints to advertise handmade jewelry, but someone who makes the jewelry, has an interest in it, can distinguish the beads from the rocks from the plastic from the paper - that can work."

• Put the word out on Facebook and Twitter. If you're looking for someone to promote your jewelry on social media, look for them there. McCoy found her own virtual assistant on the Facebook forum of a business group she participates in - but went through four people before she found one who understood how to push her products.

• Audition before you commit. McCoy interviewed each candidate to get an idea of their timeframe, professionalism, accessibility, and how interested they were in the pieces. She paid each one to promote a list of products for two weeks, and then observed.

"Were they just posting my stuff on Facebook and not saying anything about it? Just doing shortcut tweets? If it wasn't getting me any sales and views after two weeks, I tried someone else," McCoy says. "In two weeks you should be seeing some type of number rise."

CATHLEEN MCCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on design, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, Art & Antiques, Washington Post, and her own site, The Jewelry Loupe.

NET PROFITS appears regularly in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist and focusing on using the Internet for jewelry selling and is of special interest to those with a home based jewelry business. Learn more about marketing during the holiday season in "Tips for the Holidays," December 2012, Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist.

Safeguard Your Online Marketing from Hackers

Cathleen McCarthy — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:55:00 GMT

It happens to the best of us. You wake up one morning to a barrage of e-mails from people saying they've been getting bogus messages from you, encouraging them to click on a link. Often these are innocuous, like, "Hey, check this out." A common spoof on Twitter involves a message like "Someone is posting nasty rumors about you."

For anyone trying to establish a home-based jewelry business, this kind of thing can be even more damaging. You don't want customers thinking you're unreliable and unprofessional - and you really don't want to be known as the person who caused their spam attack.

In the November 2012 issue of Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist, I write about hacking, spoofing, and related issues that can affect online aspects of jewelry business. Here are some additional tips to keep the hackers at bay - or what to do if they've already made themselves unwelcome intruders.

Some spoofs are easy to spot, but new ones keep cropping up, making it harder to recognize a scam. After all, text and e-mail communication is typically brief. It's not unusual for close friends to skip the

formalities and send one sentence with a link.

So, how do you avoid the land mine of bad links - where hackers can access your contact info and use it to send out spoof messages - or, worse, to share your sensitive information with a hacker?

Change your password. This won't stop the bogus messages from going out if the hacker has copied your e-mail contact list, but it will stop them from logging into your account.

Produce hack-proof passwords. If you really want to make your passwords virtually impossible to hack, don't use your own formulas, use a password generator such as http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/.

Use an application to keep track of passwords. The easier your passwords are to memorize, the easier they are to hack. If you start using the gibberish passwords created by generators, you can forget about memorizing according to formula. Fortunately, there are password management applications, such as 1password, that will do this for you.

If you are hacked or spoofed: Contact the site where you have the account. Most social media sites have a contact set up for this so they can do whatever is necessary on their end to safeguard your account and track down the intruder. They will probably offer some guidelines for next steps as well.

Alert followers immediately. When you're spoofed, those bad links are going out under your name. So send out a quick email to all followers warning them not to click on those links. If you don't catch it fast, this can become a vicious circle, where friends of friends click on the bad links and start sending out the same spam messages.

NET PROFITS is a regular feature about using the Internet for jewelry selling of special interest to those with a home based jewelry business that appears in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about ways to keep control of your online messaging in "Dodge Those Hackers!"; November 2012.

There’s an App for That: Assembling a Jewelry Maker’s Toolbox

Cathleen McCarthy — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 07:30:00 GMT

Whether it's budgeting for precious metal or dealing with customers, your shiny new mobile device offers many handy ways to make and sell jewelry on the fly. Here are a few apps you can easily (and cheaply!) add to your iPhone or iPad that will help you get your jewelry-making business into full gear.

iMakeJewelry and Metalsmith Suite are mobile toolkits for jewelry makers. Both are priced at $3.99 and either will come in handy when you're estimating costs for a new project or shopping for supplies. Produced by jewelry artist and educator Victoria Lansford, iMakeJewelry allows you to check precious metal prices (via Kitco.com), convert to metric, Celcius to Fahrenheit, and calculate drill bit sizes.

Metalsmith Suite is the nicely-designed app version of Tim McKreight's much-loved jewelry-making books. Like iMakeJewelry, it will help you calculate sheet, wire, and wax weights, convert weight between precious metals, and look up the Mohs scale of an unfamiliar gem material. McKreight's app lists 51 gemstones with a few paragraphs description for each. Lansford's app lists an extra dozen stones but links to Wikipedia entries.

Etsy text will automatically text you whenever you make a sale from your Etsy shop.

Diamond 4Cs Guide from GIA includes a little video demo on judging a diamond's value and the Lazare Diamond 4C's app released an updated version in May with more in-depth information on color variations and carat weight. Both are beautifully produced and free--handy tools if you're working directly with customers on, say, customized engagement rings.

DocStoc Documents and Templates is one of 30 free apps designed for early-stage home-based entrepreneurs and includes video tutorials on how to: build your own website, use subscription to boost product sales, generate traffic for ecommerce sites, work with a virtual assistant. There are tips on SEO and video marketing, using Twitter more effectively, an advertising contract, various bills of sale, even an auction agreement. It's like having your own personal business consultant--free of charge.

CATHLEEN MCCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on design, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, Art & Antiques, Washington Post, and her own site, TheJewelryLoupe.com.

NET PROFITS appears regularly in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about promoting your jewelry in "Best Apps for Jewelry Makers," September/October 2012.

Using Email Marketing to Increase Your Jewelry Selling Business

Cathleen McCarthy — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:51:00 GMT

Announcing a new line, promotion or sale on Facebook, Twitter, or your own blog is a great idea, and will get the attention of your most loyal and web-savvy followers. But sometimes you need a more direct approach. That's where email marketing comes in. I discussed how to compile a list for email blasts in the August 2012 issue of Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Here are a few programs to look into for polishing up your presentation:

• Use MailChimp [http://mailchimp.com/]. I've heard good things about this service from a variety of independent artists and entrepreneurs. After a few early glitches with the design templates, friends tell me it's now quite user-friendly. If you have the patience or inclination, MailChimp offers all kinds of customizable email templates so you - or a tech-savvy pal - can set up an email presentation that looks more like a slick newsletter, complete with logo and branding integration.

If that's a little too fancy and time-consuming for your purposes, you can opt for a simple format and take advantage of services such as email tracking (who clicked to your site from the email, for instance), social sharing, and list management. You can have all that for free as long as your email list is smaller than 2,000 and you don't send out more than 12,000 emails per month. More sophisticated options with added bells and whistles start at $10 per month for unlimited emails to 500 people.

• Vertical Response [http://www.verticalresponse.com/312fhp] is the program jewelry artist Danielle Miller uses to send professional-looking emails. The most popular pricing plan is the pay-as-you-go option where you buy credits for the number of emails you need to send. At 1.5 cents per email, sending 1,000 emails costs her $15. All plans include image hosting, customizable opt-in forms, list management tools, return on investment (ROI) reporting, and social sharing with Twitter and Facebook.

• Aweber [http://www.aweber.com/] and FeedBlitz [http://www.feedblitz.com/] offer similar services and pricing plans. I know folks who swear by both. It's worth looking them over to see if their templates, pricing, and options appeal. Everyone is different and it's important to find a service that fits your needs and aesthetic.

• Install an email sign-up form on your site. EmailMeForm [www.emailmeform.com] is a free online form generator service that allows you to create HTML forms for your website without tricky coding. Jewelry designer Beth Cyr installed this on her blog [http://bcyrjewelry.blogspot.com/] with the message, "Add yourself to my mailing list to receive emails on sales or extra special new products." When you click on "subscribe" it takes you to the sign-up form.

CATHLEEN McCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on design, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, Art & Antiques, Washington Post, and her own site, http://TheJewelryLoupe.com.

NET PROFITS appears regularly in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about promoting your jewelry in "Effective Email Marketing," August 2012.

Using the Cloud to Save Info for Your Jewelry Selling Business

Cathleen McCarthy — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 12:04:00 GMT

Ever come across some useful piece of information you want to refer to later? Your best bet may be to store it electronically, in the cloud.

In the current issue of Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist, I write about remote backups and cloud-based storage systems like Dropbox and Evernote - the idea of storing info so it syncs automatically with all your devices.

Assuming you've followed my advice and downloaded these free tools, here are a couple ways to use them to save time and maximize your productivity.

Grab and stash a screenshot. Let's say you're surfing on your iPad while sitting in a waiting room and you come across an amazing online shop or tutorial. You don't have time to dive in, but you want to access it later.

If you use a Mac, a free app called GrabBox [http://grabbox.devsoft.no/] will take a screenshot of the web page you're on. Then you can drag it to your Dropbox folder [https://www.Dropbox.com/].

If you use Windows, the Dropbox Screen Grabber will store it there automatically. Either method allows you to take a quick snapshot and stash it, along with the page's web address (or URL). You can access it later from your smartphone, laptop, tablet, or any other device where you've set up Dropbox.

You can take a similar screenshot with Skitch [http://skitch.com/], then stash it in your Evernote filing system. This makes more sense if you find Evernote [http://www.evernote.com/] becoming your fall back organizing system. It makes a good one.

Store business cards electronically. If you've ever returned home from a craft show with a bag full of business cards, you know how elusive those little buggers can be. Just try to find that gem cutter's card when you need it two months later. You can create a paper folder for the show and add it to your bulging file cabinet.

Or, you can take a snapshot of the card with your iPhone using the Evernote mobile app [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/evernote/id281796108?mt=8] and stash it, automatically, in the Evernote cloud - perhaps in a file you've labeled "Gems." Later, when you need those cabs, you won't have to dig through your paper piles to find your cutter contact. In fact, you won't even have to be home. You can pull his card up on your phone or iPad.

CATHLEEN MCCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on jewelry, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, and Washington Post. Follow her at http://TheJewelryLoupe.com, https://www.facebook.com/TheJewelryLoupe, and http://twitter.com/thejewelryloupe.

NET PROFITS appears regularly in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about using the cloud for your jewelry business in "Living in the Cloud," July, 2012.

Jewelry Business: 3 Ways for Jewelry Artists to Get More from Pinterest

Cathleen McCarthy — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:10:00 GMT

Pinterest is the hottest new share site and jewelry is particularly popular. Here are a few ways to take advantage of the 11 million visits (mostly by women) this peer-sourced virtual pinboard is attracting each week--and get your jewelry business noticed.

Pinterest is perfect for visual learners, which most of us are, and that makes it a great place to post a tutorial. You can make a DIY jewelry pinboard and connect to a project on your site, showing how to do something you're known for. I've written here before about posting tutorials on Flickr. They're catching on at Pinterest as well. To give you an example, a simple, visual tutorial on how to make a pearl cluster necklace was pinned from the blog Smitten Kitten and then repinned dozens of times over the next few days.
Add a "follow me on Pinterest" button -- similar to the ones most bloggers use for Facebook and Twitter -- to your website so people can find you on Pinterest. You can also add a "Pin It" button, to the "share" widgets that run at the bottom of posts. Because Pinterest is relatively new, many share plugins have not yet incorporated the Pinterest icon. No worries. The site makes it easy to upload your own.
Hold a "pin to win" contest. Samuel Gordon Jewelers did this in early December, offering $500 gift certificate as a prize. To enter, people had to pin photos of jewelry from SamuelGordons.com onto their Pinterest boards. Because Pinterest incorporates Twitter and Facebook, the contest grabbed the spotlight over three social media channels. You can do the same thing on a smaller scale by hosting a giveaway, then promoting it via Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. (It's easy to integrate these three.) Choose a piece of jewelry that gets pinned often, pick a date, and alert your loyal fans and followers what you're giving away. Post simple instructions that let people know they have to pin to win.

Jewelry Making Daily is on Pinterest too!

CATHLEEN MCCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on jewelry, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, and Washington Post. Follow her at TheJewelryLoupe.com, Facebook.com/TheJewelryLoupe, and @thejewelryloupe on Twitter.

NET PROFITS appears regularly in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about using Pinterest to promote your jewelry in "Pinning, Stumbling, and Learning to Share," May/June 2012.

Jewelry Business: Setting Up Your Own Handmade Jewelry Website

Cathleen McCarthy — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:57:00 GMT

How much will a website cost you? It really depends on how complicated you want to get, how much functionality you need, and how much time and patience you have for web-based puzzles. Your options include:

Setting up a DIY site. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that putting up a basic site on Wordpress is not complicated. I set up my site by myself and it didn't cost a dime. If I can do it, anyone can. However, I wasn't really trying to establish a brand or appeal to a specific market (in your case, a customer base). If you already have a presence on Etsy or other marketplaces, it may be worth paying a bit to have someone develop a consistent look and logo.

If you go it alone, you'll need to have your site hosted. Many people opt for GoDaddy, the popular one-stop shop for buying and parking domains. But if you're in it for the long haul, you'll find a more user-friendly interface and better customer service with Blue Host or HostGator. I host The Jewelry Loupe through my husband, but I'm in the process of setting up my own hosting through HostGator. They're pretty easy to reach by phone and don't make me feel like an idiot when I ask dumb questions.

After you have your domain hosted, log into your control panel and ask it to recognize the platform you're using. After I registered with Wordpress, for example, I logged in to my control panel, clicked on Wordpress, and followed the steps. (If you use Wordpress and plan to add E-commerce to your site, by the way, make sure the to establish your site on Wordpress.org, not the original Wordpress.com, which does not allow commercial use.)

Adding a shopping cart. Adding a shopping cart function to your jewelry business site can be as simple as installing a plug-in and setting up PayPal, but you might want a little help with integration. If you know from the get-go that your main objective is to sell jewelry directly from your site and you can't afford to have an e-shop designed from scratch, consider starting with a ready-made template designed for that purpose. There are free templates (or themes as Wordpress calls them) available, but some "premium themes" can be had for the cost of a dinner out. As an example, $39 buys you access to all the Elegant themes, including this lovely eStore.

Hiring a pro. If you want a simple online portfolio, you can probably find someone to put it together for you for $700 to $2,000. A full-fledged E-commerce site design can get a lot more expensive, depending on your requirements and the designer's experience. An E-commerce site by boutique web designer Lisa Bacon of Moxie Pear costs about $2,200, for example, but she will create a basic informational site for $1,500. For $95, Moxie Pear will set up shop for you on Etsy, designing a shop avatar and banner.

Want to test the web design waters? Try placing a request on oDesk, Guru, or Elance. It doesn't cost anything to invite bids and proposals, and it will give you an idea of the available options and price range. (Web design is something that can done electronically and remotely--you don't necessarily need to meet or even speak in person.)

If you just need help with graphics or logo, try Fiverr. Many graphic designers on the site sell their services affordably. A custom logo with three concepts and unlimited revisions, or even an entire site design, can cost a fraction of what you'd pay a conventional designer.

Figuring out what you want first. Whether or not you hire a designer or do it all yourself, take some time to look through online portfolios and ready-made templates. Many web designers--especially more affordable ones--do minimal or no coding. They simply tweak existing templates. Increasingly, you'll find designers who work only with Wordpress, for example, and often a specific set of themes. If you find a theme you like, try doing a web search for a designer who specializes in that theme. Check out the sites of jewelry artists you know. When you find something you like, ask where they had it designed. Just make sure you don't end up with a carbon copy. Individual branding is key.

As with any commission, the clearer you are about what you want ahead of time, the easier (and cheaper) it will be to get the job done.

CATHLEEN MCCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on design, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, Art & Antiques, Washington Post, and her own site, The Jewelry Loupe.

NET PROFITS appears regularly in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about promoting your jewelry with your own website in "A Site of Your Own," March 2012.

Best Forums for Jewelry Makers

Cathleen McCarthy — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:54:00 GMT

If you feel sometimes like you're working in isolation and wasting too much time trying to find answers through trial and error, joining an online discussion board for jewelry makers might be just the solution. In addition to Jewelry Making Daily (where you've obviously found your way!), here are five others worth looking into:

ORCHID
If you've been making jewelry a while, you're probably familiar with Orchid, the discussion forum connected to the jewelers' website, Ganoksin.com. Launched in 1996, this was the first serious attempt to give jewelers and jewelry makers a place to exchange ideas. You'll find many established names here and plenty of experts and talented metalsmiths willing to answer questions or engage in debate. This is the most mature discussion board on the web for jewelers and skews oldest. The site itself is loaded with useful information and online resources.

ETSY
Etsy has the liveliest virtual water cooler any exiled jewelry maker could ask for. The problem is that getting a drink of water here--or a useful answer--can be like shoving your way through a crowded train station at rush hour. Start by perusing the how-to-sell articles and video library so you come to the discussion with a decent understanding of how this system works. Then do some searches on the main forum to see who is talking about what interests you.

Etsy's discussion boards have evolved over time, spawning splinter groups that may help you hone in on what you need. Along with being able to talk shop here, these groups often provide extra marketing cloud, with their own blogs and Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr pages, which members are encouraged to post to. Here are a few examples, both juried and open:

Etsy Metal (100+ members), an established group of studio metalsmiths. You can get a feel for their agenda from their blog [http://etsymetal.blogspot.com/]. Members are juried in twice a year. If you're interested in joining, apply here:
The Lonely Jewelers - a new group that requires a successful Etsy shop for acceptance offers shop critiques and promotional events. Members are expected to post a "treasury" each month that includes three other members besides yourself, the goal being to make it onto Etsy's front page.
Lapidarium Bar and Grille (200 members), an open, unmoderated group that anyone can join. This group has no social media presence or blog, it's just a place to talk rocks. Discussions take place in single-thread style like the original Etsy forum.

ARTFIRE. Artfire has a forum more in keeping with its size, which is a fraction of Etsy's. If you sell jewelry here or plan to, you'll find discussions about how to sell jewelry effectively, taking advantage of the site's sophisticated SEO and marketing tools. You'll also find some discussion about jewelry making--particularly beadwork--on the handmade section of Artfire's Chatterbox Forums.

CATHLEEN MCCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on jewelry, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, and Washington Post. Follow her at TheJewelryLoupe.com, www.facebook.com/TheJewelryLoupe, and on Twitter at @thejewelryloupe.

NET PROFITS appears regularly in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about using oneline forums to promote your jewelry in "Join the Online Discussion," April 2012.

5 Tips and Mistakes to Avoid When Blogging About Your Jewelry

Cathleen McCarthy — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:26:00 GMT

Broken links. If you want to alert readers (and potential jewelry customers) that your jewelry business is appearing at an upcoming craft show, you won an award, or had your jewelry featured on a blog, adding a link to that site is a good way to let readers find out more details. But links can go bad quickly, as soon as the other site takes down a page or changes their site design. On my blog, broken links appear with a red line through them--really not attractive. I try to remember to scan old posts occasionally and fix or delete broken links. There are plug-ins you can add to help with that.
Posting without credit. Sometimes images show up uncredited and appear to be in the public domain, but if you know who took the photo and/or owns the rights, include that in your caption. Never post text or images tagged with a copyright symbol or photo credit without asking permission. You can actually get in trouble for that, even though it's harder to bring a case against online copyright infringement than print media, especially with a small blog.
Stealing vs. cross-promoting. When in doubt, ask yourself whether posting something you found elsewhere on the web will help the source (driving traffic to their site or business) or hurt them (send their traffic to yours instead). If the latter is true, ask permission and offer to credit the source. If you want to use a photo from someone else's blog, contact the blogger and offer to credit her/him and link to their blog when you post it. I've done this and have never been turned down.
Being overly possessive. On the other hand, don't protest someone else's use of your work until you've analyzed the situation. Another blogger once reposted a photo that I took of a famous piece of jewelry on my own hand, which made me both photographer and model, clearly indicated in the caption I gave this image. The blogger mentioned my blog in her caption but not my name and didn't give me a photo credit. Getting this picture was a coup and, for that reason, it draws a lot of traffic to my site (mainly via Google Image searches). Having it reprinted on another site threatens my search rank. A few years ago, I might have requested removal or at least proper credit. Instead, I let it go. Why? Because the blogger posted a link to my site on her homepage and in other posts, which drives traffic my way. I'm sure she didn't mean to steal my thunder and I have way more to lose than gain by getting all copy-righteous with her.
Remember: It's all about building community. Your blog doesn't always have to be about you and your jewelry. Include occasional plugs for fellow jewelry artists and bloggers and they will do the same for you.

NET PROFITS appears regularly in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about how blogging can help your business and ways to get started in "Join the Blogging Club," January/February 2012.

CATHLEEN MCCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on design, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, and Washington Post. Follow her at The Jewelry Loupe and @thejewelryloupe on Twitter.

NET PROFITS appears regularly in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about promoting your jewelry through blogging in "Join the Blogging Club," January/February 2012.

Get Visual: Share Your Jewelry on Twitter

Cathleen McCarthy — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 12:09:00 GMT

by Cathleen McCarthy

One thing Facebook has always had over Twitter is the visual element. Photos are easily integrated into anything you post on Facebook. But it's getting easier to post photos and video on Twitter--which is a good thing for jewelry makers and other visual artists. Your options for posting photos on Twitter now include:

Clicking the camera icon. Easiest way to post a photo to Twitter is to use their recently introduced image icon. When you tweet--click the window on your home page under "What's happening?"--a little camera icon appears just below, on the left. Hold your cursor over it and it will say "Add an image." Click that and a window pops up allowing you to browse and upload images from your computer, just as you would on Facebook. Add a comment and your tweet will appear with a link that begins with pic.twitter.com. When someone clicks that, your pic and comment appear in their right panel.
Using TwitPic or yfrog. These are both pretty easy to set up on an iPhone, so you can take pictures on the road and then post them immediately on Twitter. Nice way to share adventures as they're happening. I've had issues with TwitPic. I posted some pictures from my iPhone in April, for example, and they failed to appear until three months later, when they all popped up at once on my Twitter profile. I have friends who've used both TwitPic and yfrog without a hitch, however, so your mileage may vary.
Tweeting video. For posting video, YouTube is still the leader, but there's also TwitVid and Vimeo. If you make a jewelry-making video tutorial and post it to one of these sites, you simply link to the URL on Twitter. Here's a nicely produced promo video on jewelry designer Kate Jones for inspiration.
Streaming live. Feeling isolated? A web cam is the easiest way to show people exactly what you're doing at the bench, as you're doing it--no editing required. Of course, you have to be cool with the idea of unseen strangers watching you work. No staring out the window or picking your nose! If you find the idea of sharing your work with an invisible audience invigorating, your options include USTREAM and Justin.TV. You can always turn the web cam off when you want privacy. Metalsmith Dana Ruth streams her work at the bench. (Since it's live streaming video, you'll only see her if she's actually at work and online.)

Other options to consider: You can also link to images to sell handmade jewelry from DailyBooth, DeviantART, Etsy Jewelry, Flickr, TwitGoo, and Kickstarter .

Learn more about Twitter's New Twists in the December 2011 issue of Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. too.

CATHLEEN McCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on design, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, and Washington Post.

NET PROFITS appears regularly in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about using Twitter to promote your jewelry in "New Twists on Twitter," December 2011.

5 Easy No-Cash Ways to Sell Your Handmade Jewelry Face to Face

Cathleen McCarthy — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:57:00 GMT

By Cathleen McCarthy

There are plenty of options you can offer potential customers who don't have cash in hand to buy your handmade jewelry designs. Here are 5 Easy No-Cash Ways to Sell Your Handmade Jewelry Face to Face: It helps to have a smartphone or iPad ready to sync up with whatever mobile payment option your customer uses. If you want to be ready for anything, you should have a few different apps preloaded before you hit the road. Most of them are free or almost free and take only a few minutes to load.

If you and your jewelry customers both have PayPal accounts set up, the customer can send a payment from her smartphone to yours on the spot. If she has a PayPal account but not a smartphone, she can do the same using your device. An iPad or other tablet can make this transaction easier and more official. Many small shops are foregoing credit card processors now and simply setting up an iPad on a revolving stand attached to their counters. This gives customers easy access to their own mobile payment accounts, whether PayPal or Google.

Gadgets like Square that connect to an iPad, or a smartphone like the iPhone or Android, are one way to take a payment on the fly, but you have to sign up and download their software first.

If you plan to take payments on Apple devices, you can download the Square app. As of June, you can also connect the Square to an Android, using this app from the Android Marketplace. Another recent addition is Square Register, an app that allows you to skip credit cards altogether by letting customers put their purchase on your "tab," using Google-style analytics to keep track of payments, receipts, and buying trends.

Another clever way to transfer funds is Bump, a free iPhone app that lets two iPhone users tap their phones together to transfer cash from one PayPal account to another. You can also use iPads or iPods, or any variation of these devices.

Xipwire is a free app that lets people make purchases or do peer-to-peer fund transfers via texting. You can download Xipwire from the iTunes app store. When customers want to buy your jewelry, you text them and they reply with their personal security code.

FaceCash is an app that works with iPhone, iPod, Android and Blackberry, using a barcode technology. If customers have this one loaded on their phones, they may request that they make their payment using it, so you'd better have it as well. It's free to sign up, but customers will have to shell out $2.99 for identity verification if they use a free email account.

Once this is set up, you can use FaceCash instead of a written signature to verify that the customer's real face matches a digital image linked to their account. A barcode and photo ID is displayed on their cell phone screens, which they hold to the barcode reader on yours. Once authenticated, the purchase is debited directly from a bank account. Repeat customers can even add their credit card account numbers to a keychain for your jewelry business, so they're conveniently stored on your phone. Then they can buy jewelry from you as easily as ordering a book on Amazon. Now there's a habit you want to encourage!

NET PROFITS is regular feature about jewelry business and selling jewelry online that appears in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. Learn more about ways to accept payments on the go in "Mobile Payments," November 2011.

CATHLEEN McCARTHY is a freelance writer whose stories on design, travel and business have appeared in Town & Country, AmericanStyle, Art & Antiques, Washington Post, and her own site, TheJewelryLoupe.com