The Magpie Nest

Morning everyone!

Just a quick post today, to announce the opening of our Folksy shop! There's only a few items on there at the moment, but many more to come later, so stay tuned!

I'll hopefully be blogging Folksy Fridays too, whenever I can, so keep your eyes peeled for those!

You can find us at http://www.folksy.com/shops/themagpienest - pop in, take a look and let us know what you think!

After my recent blog about promotion, I carried on looking for ways to increase our web presence and get our website and designs seen.  As promised, here's what I came up with...


Get Clicky and Google Analytics
Both of these sites have similar features, and they provide you with a small section of code which you can paste into your blog, website or anywhere that gives you the option of using html.  They will then measure how many visitors you get to your site every day, as well as a load of other facts and figures including how long they spend on your site, which pages are viewed the most and where they have been referred from.  Google Analytics also gives you a unique tracker code which you can use on certain sites such as Artfire and Folksy, instead of the html code.  I find Get Clicky a little easier to get around, but Google Analytics is more widely used.


Twitterfeed
This is a great little time saver, which lets you automatically update Twitter and Facebook every time you update your blog, calendar or anything else which has a live RSS feed.  Twitterfeed also tells you how many times each of your updates has been viewed. As well as Facebook and Twitter, it also allows you to automatically update Hellotxt, Ping.fm and Laconica, though I have no idea what any of these are for!!  Any ideas?


Wibiya Toolbar
Wibiya allows your visitors to share pages and links from your site without leaving your page.  It adds a little toolbar at the bottom of your page, which is really easy to set up and can be customised to blend in with your colour scheme.  I've added one at the bottom of our blog - what do you think? Keep it or ditch it?



Facebook-to-Twitter App, Selective Tweets and Twitter-to-Facebook
These are more time saving apps which link your Facebook and Twitter accounts.  The Facebook-to-Twitter app posts updates on Twitter when you update events, photos, status etc on your facebook profile.  Twitter-to-facebook posts all of your tweets as status updates on facebook, while Selective Tweets only sends tweets tagged with #fb to your facebook status. There's also a plugin which lets you paste your Tweets automatically to myspace, but does anyone use myspace these days?


Hope some of those tips are useful, and if you have any others, please do share!

I've been eagerly awaiting their arrival, and finally they're here! Hooray!!

What do you think?

If you've been following this blog, you may know that our website and online shop is still in its infancy, having been set up only a few months ago. To begin with, we spent most of our time making stock to put in our shop, but now that we have the stock, I seem to spend most of my time trying to get it seen by as many people as I possibly can! I had no idea quite how time and effort consuming this would be!

So, I thought I'd write a quick post about the places I've found and the things I'm trying to get The Magpie Nest noticed online, apart from the usual twittering, facebooking and blogging...


1. Flavors.me
I stumbled across this site quite recently, and really wish I'd found it earlier. It's fantastic! It allows you create an elegant website which collates all of your online content in one place, by linking to popular services such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Tumblr, Flickr, and a load of others, as well as any other page with a working RSS feed. The beauty of Flavors.me is that it allows you to personalise your page, and seamlessly integrate all of your content, in a matter of minutes. And it's free! There is also a very reasonably priced premium option, which allows you to pick your own URL, and provides you with usage stats.

I've gone for the basic option for now, as it's ideal for our needs. Take a look at our Flavors.me page to get an idea of what you can do with it - http://flavors.me/themagpienest


2. UK handmade
UK Handmade is a design led online magazine committed to showcasing and promoting the best creative talent the UK has to offer. Artists and designers from across all of the art disciplines have a place here including photography, feltmaking, jewellery, fashion and art.

They also have a very active community page, where UK crafters share ideas, tips and inspiration, as well as contributing to discussions and forums. You can create and customise your own profile page, add blogs photos and status updates. Here's our profile page: http://ukhandmade.ning.com/profile/TheMagpieNest


3. Zibbet
Zibbet is a new and rapidly growing online marketplace, similar to Etsy, Folksy and Artfire. The best thing about it is that it's free! There is no listing fee commision on any items sold. On a basic account, it is completely free to list and sell up to 25 active items. There is also an option for a premium account, which is $8 per month, at the moment, for a limited time, after which it will go up to $9.

In addition, when you sign up for wither type of account, you'll get a unique referral link. For every person that signs up for a premium account using your referral link, you will get $1 off your monthly subscription, for life. There seems to be a lot of interest in Zibbet at the moment, and if it carries on growing as it is, it's set to be huge... so now is the time to join!
Take a look at our Zibbet shop, and if you'd like to sign up (even if it's just for a basic account), please use my referral link!

There is also a friendly and informative community page for Zibbet sellers to discuss Zibbet-related issues, and we've also set up a group for UK-based Zibbeters - so pop in and say hello, or if you'd like any more info just ask!


4. Hubze
This one is still a bit of a mystery - but it sounds pretty interesting. It's a business social networking site, which promises to make it easier to network and promote your shop or website by linking all your networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook in one place, and saving you valuable time. It hasn't gone live yet, and at the moment new members can join for free, but by referral only. If you'd like to find out a bit more, or join ('cos what have you got to lose?), then you can use this link.


I'll keep looking out for new ways and places to promote ourselves, and will keep you all posted! And if anyone has any other tips or suggestions, we'd love to hear them!

Happy promoting! :D x

Creative Boom is a national e-zine designed to celebrate, inspire and support the creative industries, and it has several regional sites all over the country.

Their Cardiff branch cover the creative industries in Cardiff and the rest of Wales - everything from fashion, music, film and photography to art, design, animation and marketing, and they have written an article about us!

Check it out here!

Just a quick update - we've got a stall this Saturday (27th Feb) at Vintage Pretty. It will be at Buffalo Bar on Windsor Place in Cardiff, 11am-5pm.

The organisers have been working really hard for the last few months to arrange the event, so it promises to be a jam-packed market with lots of handmade and vintage goodies.

So, we've had a busy few months here at The Magpie Nest. Since December, we have set up and launched our website and online shop, had several stalls, facebooked, tweeted, flickred and blogged, and still managed to make a load of new products for our website...

...but what now?

We're trying to find new ways to spread the word, and get our website noticed by as many people as we can, so thought we'd pick the brains of our fellow crafters. Has anyone got any tips on how they got their crafts site up and running, and how they promoted and marketed their sites to get them noticed?

We always get a great response at the markets and fairs we've been to, and our products go down really well... but our original plan was to be a more web-based shop and publicising the website has proved more difficult.

We'd love to hear about all of the hurdles and success stories that our fellow crafters faced when they were starting out...

The third Buffalo Boutique will be held on Tuesday 1st of December, and The Magpie Nest will have a stall there! There will be all sorts of handmade and vintage gifts available, with stalls on both floors of the popular Cardiff venue - a great place to pick up some unique gifts for Christmas, or just to treat yourself!

If you're in the area, pop in and say hello - 7.30pm, Buffalo Bar, Windsor Place, Cardiff.

Hope to see you there! x

Another of our favourite products... especially now that winter is here, and it's getting a little chilly.

This beautiful scarf is made up of individually hand-crocheted circles, joined up to make a fab vintage-style winter warmer.