Hollywood, Here I Come!

I have always loved the annual Hollywood awards season. I love watching the red carpets - all that glamour! Just fabulous. It's so much fun to see what the top movie and TV stars are wearing, what will be trends and what, um, may not... This weekend brings the Primetime Emmys.

A big part of the awards season revolves around fashion - so many top media professionals are there, from mainstream outlets to the coolest fashion bloggers - they all turn out in force. An important piece of the awards process are the gift lounges. They attract both stars and press and are an amazing opportunity for businesses to show off their products. The Artisan Group works in conjunction with GBK Productions - exclusive, invitation-only lounges for celebrities and press during the awards events.

This year I get to be a little part of the process. I have been with The Artisan Group for a little while now. It offers handcrafted businesses the opportunity to gift their unique products for use on various TV shows, to celebrities, to charity and to movie costume departments. It also offers the opportunity to gift products for press and celebrity swag bags that form part of the annual Hollywood awards season collection of events.

So - I'm sure you're thinking "who wouldn't love to get free stuff - how is this a good deal?". Well, here's the deal - for a small business, it's financially cost prohibitive for this kind of exposure.
There are several gifting groups out there - but, when you look into them, they're absurdly expensive - thousands of dollars for an entry-level gifting opportunity. That's where The Artisan Group (TAG) are different. They offer the opportunities to participate in events from just $50, which is much cheaper than even print adverts and actually gets your business in front of a great group of industry professionals. I am so excited for the opportunity it grants.
Not only that, but, GBK Lounges are top-notch. What a great partnership!

So, I actually get to say -

Dragon Glass is participating in an exclusive celebrity Gift Lounge event, hosted by GBK Productions in Beverly Hills, California, leading up to the Primetime Emmy Awards telecast!

How amazing is that?!!

I opted for a small press gifting option for this event - where I send 10 items for distribution amongst media attendees to the gift lounge. I chose my dichroic studs - they are some of my biggest sellers and are always popular at the events I attend. They fit a variety of ages and add just a little bit of sparkle without being overwhelming. They are perfect for day wear, from running errands to being in the office, but they easily transition to night, offering a touch of glamour for all manner of events.
I hope they're a big hit!

Want to hear more about this event? Please see the official press release.

Want to see the gifting guide produced by TAG for this event? Right here!

* Dragon Glass is not in any way affiliated with The Primetime Emmy Awards, or The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Coming Soon!

As a native Brit living in the US, I take advantage of the very long American summer school holiday and head back across the pond for a little time with family and friends.

This time is always wonderful, but it’s also a great opportunity to both take a break and to allow the creative juices to flow.

The UK seems to get fashion trends ahead of the US and it’s always lovely to see what the colours of the upcoming season are going to be. I’ve noticed lots of ochre and camel so far this year and it’s always good to have complimentary pieces in stock.

I also have a bunch of larger events this fall, which I’m super excited about, but it means I have a lot of work to do in order to have sufficient variety and stock levels, in addition to my Etsy-listed items.

One of my events has specifically asked for me to bring additional stained glass pieces in order to add this as an offering to their fair and I have some great ideas for small wall hanging pieces. I’m excited to get started on these and it will give me an opportunity to try out my glass saw that I bought a while ago and am yet to use. As I work on them, they’ll be posted to Instagram.

I’ve created a selection of small pendant necklaces. Sometimes a larger pendant might not work with a neckline and in this case, a smaller one works perfectly – giving just the right amount of sparkle to an outfit.

I also want to expand my offerings beyond pendant necklaces and the couple of chainmaille necklaces with glass accents that I have done to date. My sister particularly always has lovely layered necklaces, so I am going to try and create some that incorporate some glass pieces. I also love natural beads and this seems a great opportunity to create unique longer pieces and diversify from pendants.

I’ve had great feedback about the little heart keyrings I started making this spring, so these will also feature in the fall and winter selections available. I’ve also made a new little display just for them!

Also available this fall, which weren’t last, are an expanded selection of earrings with sterling silver findings. My dichroic studs in particular have sold very well with sterling silver posts and I want to be able to offer these in person at my events.

As always, my in person events are a great opportunity to connect with some of the local customers I’ve met in the past few years and show the new items in person. Dichroic glass is one of those materials that is very difficult to photograph well and although I feel I’ve made great strides in this, I still regularly get feedback and reviews that the items look so much nicer in person versus in a photograph. This of course is great for a customer, when their purchase is even better than they thought, but, it’s lovely to be able to show the full lovely, sparkliness in all its glory in person!

How To Be Found On Etsy

When you sell on an online platform such as Etsy, your biggest challenge is being found. When people search for products, are your items showing up in those searches?

Whilst good photography is key to someone actually clicking on your item, the more important concept is showing up in searches, and, realistically, you want to appear in the first 8-10 pages of items, because, that's the point at which most people stop scrolling and move onto another search term, assuming they didn't find what they liked.

For very crowded categories like jewelry, it is vital to review your listings and try and improve where they appear on Etsy. Ideally, you're aiming for the first 3 pages.

People talk a lot about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, and here are a few tips for this.

Firstly, you will need to think in terms of 'tags', or short descriptors of key points of your items.

For example -

Autism Pendant - https://www.etsy.com/listing/217857480/autism-awareness-fused-dichroic-glass?ref=shop_home_active_6

If you were searching for this item on Etsy, which terms would you use?
Autism Jewelry? Autism Pendant? Puzzle Piece Necklace?

That is exactly what I'm talking about! You want to think about the terms you would use in order to FIND the item and those are the terms you will use to describe it.

There are several places that the Etsy search engine looks when trying to figure out which items to show to someone looking to buy a specific item.
It looks in the description, the materials, the title and the actual tags section. You are going to want to make sure that your descriptors are in these sections, as much as you are able.

Luckily, there are some really talented people out there who have created nifty little tools for you to do this without having to spend hours searching on Etsy itself. My favourite site right now is Tools For Etsy.

On this site is a page called WALL-E, that when you click on it, it gives you the options "Am I Trending" and "Are My Listings Relevant". The "Am I Trending" one is, in my opinion, for those sellers who are so well connected, that they get hundreds of 'favourites' on their items within minutes of listing them. I like the other option "Are my Listings Relevant". Here is the screenshot for how this looks...

In the shop name, you enter your own. In the keyword or phrase box, you enter the search term you would use to find your item. So, for mine, I will search my own store and "autism jewelry"and I will select 10 pages, because that's realistically when people will likely give up looking and search for another term, or will have found what they're looking for. Enter your terms and wait for the page to work its magic!
Here are the results -

So, firstly, it shows that when these terms are searched, there are 4584 listings that were found and in the first 10 pages of search results, 8 of them are mine.

Now, that particular item appears on page 4 of the search results, which, in my opinion, is pretty good! It also shows where my tags were that helped the search function find them. One place I really overlooked tags in the past was in the title. I never even considered that I should max out the title characters of my listing, but, as you can see, I managed to fit 6 tags into my title and those help an item be found in searches. Keep in mind that you will rarely get more than one item per page of search results. The Etsy search algorithm is supposed to prevent that (it's called 'bunching') so that a buyer gets a good variety of sellers and items in their search and one seller does not get preferential treatment, although, that has been a criticism of recent changes, that some bugs exist that are causing bunching in results. I personally have not seen this in any of the searches that I have done, but, the forums on Etsy are regularly updated with complaints and updates to this.

So, what do you do if your item doesn't come up in any searches? Well, this tool has a nifty feature that it will show you what tags the top listings are using. It will give you the top 100 tags - for this search, here they are -

Of course, this is not a guarantee, but, if you ensure your listing has some of these top tags in both your title and in your description, then the chances are, you will improve your item's search position. Remember that of course, optimizing for just one search term will not help your item for other search terms, but, it can certainly help.
I have still not figured out a way to get my items to show up in the basic search terms for words like "Pendant", but, that is where I consider what I'm aiming for. If I am more specific, I am more likely to feature in search results and if I am less specific, I am less likely to feature. Although for a smaller store like mine, I am happy to do that.
Remember too that it's not just tags that will improve your standing. Etsy does consider other factors in where it features particular listings, including how many items you have in your store, how active you are on Etsy, how many sales you have, how many views and favourites your items and store has.

After working through this tool with a bunch of my listings, I am seeing more traffic and sales by a considerable margin, so, it's been a great tool for me.

There is one thing for certain though, if you don't come up in searches, it doesn't matter how good your pictures are - no-one will know you are there....

Have you tried this? I'd love to hear your experience!

A HUGE thank you to tools4etsy.com, they're amazing. What a great site!