Week 14/Blog 3: time spent on social media

The first thing I would do is create an email specifically for the business.  I would write on my blog and Facebook and add photos and post to Pinterest also.  Since Twitter is still very new to me, I am not sure how much time I would be on Twitter.  I would check my blog and Facebook every day and I think I would post on each on opposite days.  For example, Monday, Wednesday and Friday I would write on my blog and Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I would post to Facebook.  At the beginning, I would invite all my personal contacts to check out my new business (via email, text messages, my personal Facebook page).   

I have to view this realistically, and realize that I must keep my 40 hour/week job, especially while trying to start up this craft item business.  I will need to do research regarding craft fairs and markets; places on the internet which could help get my business name out there also, besides Pinterest.  So my time will be limited and it will be hard to identify exactly how much time I could spend on creating my small business, getting the sites up and running and basically, just getting it out there, but still be able to work to pay the bills, feed my family, etc.

Before I could start this business, my daughter and I would need to create some actual items for sale.  This could take a few months what with our actual jobs, school schedules, my one night a week teaching job (including the preparation time for classes) and other responsibilities.  Since we are the only employees it will take both of us to build the business, though I might be able to con my son into helping create the website (he has done this as a hobby in the past).

I would need to create an actual website for my business in which to showcase our product and include a way for customers to order and pay for the purchase.  PayPal would also be a good system to use, so I would need to create that system.    Next I would need to create photographs and put them on both the website and on Facebook.  I’m considering creating a postcard containing a series of photographs on one side and information about our business on the other so we could do a mass mailing via “snail” mail.  A similar type of email could be prepared to send out to my contacts.  I would include some type of a coupon offer in both the mail ad and the email ad and include a code on my Facebook and blog sites which would enable customers to receive a discount or free shipping and handling within the United States.

Google Analytics would be used on my blog and Facebook in order to help me uncover how people are finding my site and how I am obtaining customers.  From this I could learn how to create AdWords and such to build up my customer base.  At the same time, we would need to keep a spreadsheet/database of what items are popular, what colors are most preferred and so on.

I realize it will take a lot of time and effort to create this business and get it off the ground and initial costs will most likely inhibit how much advertising we can do at the beginning.  To start we will need to stay with the free social media sites and keep other advertising costs to a minimum.  However, as the business grows, we will be able to increase what we can do.