Hey guys!
Now, go get up, pour yourself a big glass of water (or wine… your liking!), grab that throw pillow and sit comfortably in your favorite chair. Yep. This is going to be a looooong post! Are you ready for the ride?!
Still trying to figure out where to start with all this…
Ok, let’s try with my Facebook fan page….
Back 2 months or 2 1/2 months ago, my fan page was sitting there with its lucky 295 fans. everything was smooth and cool. My friend Mélissa over at Rizada asked on her fan page (over 2000 fans!!) for people with a crafty page to link up in the comments so we could discover new talents… which i did! and then, with that link, reached the 340 fans. Next thing I know? Facebook is sending me (?) an email congratulating me to reaching over 300 fans along with 50$ coupon for advertisement (?) I was like.. really???
Ok, if you have been wondering if Facebook advertisement is working.. the answer is: HELL YEAH! I made the advertisement only for Québec and went to 340 something to over 840 fans in less than a month… WOAH! can we say c.r.a.z.y here?! I was kind of overwhelmed with that. And not prepare a bit to received that overflowing of custom orders that went with it! I got about 15 custom requests in less than 2 weeks and was having anxiety over them since I was trying to figure out how to keep track of everything! My small dry erase picture frame wasn’t gonna make it… actually I think I heard it agonizing…
Enter superman: aka hubby. Did I ever say that accountants are boring? Scratch that. He just snapped his magic and easily made me an awesome google doc with many boards to follow my sales, production and orders! (ok, they can still be boring sometimes… ha!) That helped me a lot to stay organized and keep track of everything (with even the numbers adding to themselves… told you! Magic!) even my Facebook email links are there so I don’t have to sift through all emails to find the one that request that special order.
Now back to that facebook page… (you still there??) Many people asked if they could drive and get their custom order themselves instead of me shipping it out… that wasn’t a problem but on my page I had listed that my small business was in Montréal since I thought it would be easier to discover if I listed the big city instead of my small south-shore town. Being tired of explaining to every and single one that I wasn’t exactly on the island I got up and changed it to my real city on my page. Next morning?? there was a journalist sending an email to ask if he could interview me for the local paper (with photograph and all!) WHAT THE….???? I jumped up and down said yes, of course!! So, i spend more than 2 hours with that nice journalist (with him even dolling out tips!) had the photograph in and 2 weeks later I was feature in the local papers! ( the net version, in french, and please, just skip the picture…) It’s kind of weird going to the grocery store and having people say to you: Hey, I saw you in the paper! That was an experience!! It made some people call to request more custom orders… ( have you heard me whisper: panicking! here?)
All that while preparing for a big craft fair that I was helping to make it happens… (ok, maybe, I said, maybe I wasn’t whispering… i might have cry Panicking out loud!)
and then, that nice journalist told me, since he’s from the old generation, he would have like my phone number to be on my fan page because he would have prefer to call me instead of typing out an email. Since I’m a good girl (?) i followed his tip and went and added it to the page.
Three days later? I had a well known (but for me!) Lady calling in to ask if they could feature me on the weekly well knwon magazine we have here in Québec (it’s called Le Lundi).. I was listening to the lady while looking at my hubby wondering if it was a prank or something… here’s the proof it wasn’t….
Sooooooo, I had my big craft fair (everything went well, thank you very much!), still working my way out of my custom request list (being out of it should happen sometimes in the upcoming year!), and still trying to adjust myself to the busy schedule and feeling of craziness… (that may or may not subdued in the following months…)! I do have lots of stuff to share here since I haven’t written much in the last months 😉 And glad that I’m back to read all the wonderful stories and projects you shared. I’ve missed you. More than I can say!
Cul de Sac 