A few weeks back, I featured a cactus on the Wednesday doodle. I'm back this week with even more - a trio of cacti!
Our own Happy Cactus has been thriving this summer. What once was a tiny little cactus has turned into a huge Happy Cactus that can't stop growing. It loves the Texas sun! To read the store behind the Happy Cactus, click here.
Happy Cactus (on the right) and its sidekick
One of the best parts about my job is getting to play around with different color combinations. I could spend all day pairing colors! New York Fashion Week is in full force and Pantone just released its spring 2013 color report.
image via Pantone
I'm loving these color choices - a mix of muted pastels and eye-popping bolds. I'm a little surprised to not see any pinks in the mix here. Here are some of my favorite looks from the runway mixing up these spring colors.
Diane von Furstenburg
Tracy Reese
Marc by Marc Jacobs
Vera Wang
Reem Acra
Donna Karan
Monique Lhuillier
All images via Style.com
This week's card of the week is one of Happy Cactus' bestsellers and a personal favorite of mine - "Welcome Baby Elephants" in blue and pink.
A simple little elephant drawing turned into such a cheerful and fun baby card. Elephants with their trunks pointing up are good luck, too! You can check out both version in the store here.
I've used this same pattern for personalized flat note cards which make for a perfect baby gift. Recently, I've been working on some other animal designs that I hope to share with you soon!
Preparing for any tradeshow, let alone the National Stationery Show, is no easy feat. As I've mentioned here before, participating in Tradeshow Bootcamp was one of the best decisions I made prior to NSS. I went into my first tradeshow feeling confident and prepared directly because of the knowledge I gained in TSBC sessions.
Kelp Designs' Katie Hunt launched Tradeshow Bootcamp as a way to help newbies learn the ins and outs of participating in a show like NSS. The workshops cover topics like planning your booth layout, learning the lingo of selling wholesale to retailers, and how to pitch your product at the show.
Katie just announced the Fall 2012 workshops. She has an amazing lineup of industry insiders and veterans participating in the series. If you are a stationery designer even considering NSS for 2013, I highly recommend checking out TSBC!
- Create a bio. I keep my bio short and sweet - "Owner/Designer behind Happy Cactus Designs - Hand Drawn Paper Goods - Stationery & Greeting Cards" and include the URL to my website. In the weeks leading up to the National Stationery Show, many designers include their booth number in their bio.
- Be authentic. It's great to use Twitter to promote your own business and share updates on new products and other relevant company news. At the same time, none of your followers wants to read tweets that are only about you. Just like Facebook, it's best to balance self-promotion with sharing other content.
- Don't be afraid to join the conversation! Part of what makes Twitter fun is you can quickly correspond with others. A lot of people use Twitter to crowdsource requests for information. Before the National Stationery Show, I ended up meeting and tweeting with a number of other stationery designers. It was so fun to finally meet in person! I've even been able to use Twitter to network with journalists which resulted in press mentions.
- Use a management app. I rarely use the actual Twitter web interface to post tweets and read my stream. I prefer Tweetdeck, a social media dashboard that lets you send and read tweets, view profiles, and search hashtags. It's also integrated with Facebook, so I can manage and follow what's happening on both platforms from one dashboard. I've heard Hootsuite is also a great service.
- Use hashtags strategically. Hashtags are words or phrases preceded by the hash symbol (#) and can add context to your tweets. Many events these days have their own hashtags, as well. Around May, you'll start seeing a slew of #NSS hashtags relating to the National Stationery Show.
How do you like to use Twitter?
As I previously mentioned, LinkedIn, the professional social networking site, is a great place for connecting with industry colleagues and learning more about companies. Like other social networking sites, when you join LinkedIn, you create a profile with pertinent professional information. I make sure that my professional information is kept up to date and that I link to the Happy Cactus Designs website in my profile. A person viewing your profile on LinkedIn cares about where you've been, who you know, and how a potential connection between the two of you could add value to their own business pursuits.
LinkedIn also hosts industry discussion groups. I was surprised (and delighted) by the number of groups related to the stationery industry!
Greeting Card, Stationery & Gift Industry Gurus is the best of the stationery-related LinkedIn Groups that I have come across. It's well managed, and the discussions are usually informative. Members tend to post questions about manufacturing resources, printing, and packaging, as well as to request general feedback about their lines. Card & Gift Manufacturer & Sales Rep Exchange is good as well. I also belong to Greeting Card Network Group and Stationery Designers. In my opinion, the discussions in these two groups are hit or miss. There tends to be a lot of self-promotion and spammers posting random job announcements.
In the weeks leading up to the National Stationery Show, the show management has also hosts a private LinkedIn group for new exhibitors. I participated in the group last spring and discussions in the group tended to be sporadic. I heard from others in the industry that the group has been more active in years past.
Some groups are private and you must request to join; others are open. I've found that private groups with a good moderator, like the Greeting Card, Stationery & Gift Industry Gurus, tend to have better discussions and are not bogged down by spammers. I highly recommend electing to receive a daily digest of discussions for each group you join so you are not receiving emails all day long from group members.
Update: This doodle was used on one of our most popular greeting cards, Thinking of You Lavender. Find it in the shop here.
Happy Wednesday! This week, I worked on drawing of a bunch of lavender. I love the crisp and clean smell of lavender.
It reminds me of a trip I took to the south of France a number of years ago and the lavender growing all over Provence. I came across a few pics that helped jog my memory of this beautiful place!
We're thrilled to be featured in the September issue of Modern Luxury Dallas magazine!
I love reading Modern Luxury Dallas to know where to shop/play/dine when I am visiting family and friends in the city where I grew up. The write-up also mentions our two fabulous Dallas retailers, The Write Selection and The St. Michael's Woman's Exchange. You can read the entire magazine online here or pick one up in the Big D!
This week's card of the week is our "Thanks a Bunch!" thank you note card. We released this design at the National Stationery Show in May and it instantly became one of our bestsellers.
It's probably one of my favorite designs, too, with its cheerful bouquet of flowers. While many of the thank you notes in the collection are very floral-driven, this card is perhaps the simplest.
You can purchase "Thanks a Bunch!" in our shop as a single card or boxed set of 10 cards!
In this edition of my Small Business Resources series, I want to briefly look at how to use Facebook to promote your business and build brand awareness (check out last week's post for a general overview of the social media tools I use). These days, having a presence on Facebook is as important as having your own website. In fact, many companies are opting to eliminate the company website altogether and only have a Facebook page.
Here are some key tips when it comes to managing your business' Facebook page:
- Interact with your fans and be authentic. Technology has given us the opportunity to get to know our customer base better and learn more about what draws them to a particular brand. It's important to view your Facebook posts as conversations with potential and existing customers. Don't be afraid to ask questions or elicit feedback on new products or events. Think about what types of posts you would like to read. Also, make sure you respond to what fans post on your page. I've definitely come across companies' pages where customers post questions, praise, or complaints and the page moderator never takes the time to respond to them. No one likes being ignored!
- Make your status updates interesting. I've found my most successful posts have been when I share sneak peeks of new products, invite fans to upcoming events, or ask questions. Photos tend to elicit the highest response rate.
- Don't over-post. No one wants their Facebook news feed to be bombarded with posts from one company or person. The quickest way to lose Facebook followers is to overtake their feeds and annoy them. I prefer to post just once a day.
- Timing is important. There has been endless analysis about the best time of day to share updates on Facebook. Consensus seems to be that lunchtime (around noon) and early evening on weekdays tend to be optimal times for capturing the most views.
- Take advantage of Facebook Insights. What's the point of using Facebook to promote your business if you don't know how people are engaging with your page? Use Insights, Facebook's analytics tool, to see if all of your hard work is paying off.
- Pay attention to Facebook's changes. Facebook is always changing its policies and updating its tools, and it's important to stay on top of the news so you can keep your page looking its best. For example, when Facebook changed to the timeline layout, I knew I needed to add an eye-catching cover photo. I also learned how to highlight important posts so they appear more prominently on my page. Mashable is a great source for keeping up to speed with social media news.
- Make sure you have a Facebook widget on your company's website. One of the best ways to promote your Facebook page is to feature a link to that page on your company's website. Promote your Facebook page on email newsletters and add a link to your page in your email signature.
Do you have any tips for using Facebook to promote your business?