Squidoo Lens

So I was looking around in the Etsy Forums this morning, I and I stumbled across a post that talked about "Squidoo Lens." I had never heard of this before, so I clicked on the link and found a new promotion tool before that I am just DYING to try!! Here is the link to the tutorial http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-use-the-etsy-module#module106749681

The intro of the tutorial says this:

A lot of people with shops on Etsy complain about lack of traffic to their stores. There is the mis-conception that by opening a store one is guaranteed sales. That is not how things happen. Most of the people with an Etsy shop are looking for quick, easy, and cheap answers to this problem.

While many people know about Face Book and Twitter and how they work, few on Etsy seemed to have heard about Squidoo. And Squidoo is the perfect answer. On Squidoo one can make a web page that can be as simple or complex as one wishes. And it is free.

Squidoo itself is a complex entity with many different parts to explore. But, starting at the beginning...

What is Squidoo? Squidoo is a web site, set up for sharing information. On it one can build a web page, called a lens, using a variety of different modules. And with these web pages one can gather views and direct traffic.

Has anyone tried this? I'll be putting mine together today. Anyone with some tips on this, please let me know!!!

Cool New Widget for Your Etsy Shop!

I just added the Craftcult Etsy Widget to my blog (see top right). You can choose from a bunch of different styles and animations. It's pretty slick. Try it for yourself, and see how cool it is! You can also get one of your own at http://www.craftcult.com/shop_widget.php?userid=

Enjoy!!

YAY!! 100 Fans on Facebook! Now What??

I DID IT!

I finally got 100 Facebook Fans on my Fuzzington Fan Page!! I now have the power to add a username to my facebook url and make it easy to type in! My link is now http://facebook.com/fuzzingtonfuzz. It was a bit of a bummer because "Fuzzington" had already been taken as a user name (booooooooo...) but this name is fine.

I do have to admit, however, that setting up your user name is not an intuitive process. I had to look it up in the Etsy forums, and I found this SUPER helpful thread by StarGlowStudio: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6238241

From her thread:

Congrats on getting your 100 fans!
I've had a few people emailing asking if I know where to go to get a custom URL. Here's the link...
http://www.facebook.com/username/
Below the blue box, click on "Set a username for your Pages."
Remember, choose your name carefully - you can't change it later. Make sure it's spelled correctly!

Super helpful, right?? By the way, StarGlowStudio makes some amazing pet portraits, so make sure you check out thier shop (StarglowStudio.etsy.com). This one reminds me of my little Maggie when she has hair:

Thanks to everyone who helped me get to 100 Fans! I'd especially like to mention my 100th Fan, chrissymaciel, a talented young artist that just started her shop not too long ago. She's got some really trendy knitted hats and scarves that are just wonderful!

Give Chrissy's shop some love ( crissymaciel.etsy.com)! Chrissy, we can't wait to see more of those stylish items!!

Customizing Your Facebook Widget

I put my Facebook Fan Box widget on my blog a couple of days ago (see right hand column and scroll down), and I love how it looks! Rather than the text link to my Facebook fan page that I have under the "Important Links" section, I now have an attractive Fan Box that shows my fans on facebook, and hopefully entices others to click and join! Have you gotten yours yet?


Of course, as I did with the Etsy Minis on my blog, the code for the Facebook Fan Box had to be modified a little to make it fit correctly. If you have a blog on blogspot, the Fan Box may be too big initially.

Here is how I got the code for my Fan Box from Facebook, and how I implemented it to fit correctly in my blog:

1) Go to your fan page in facebook.

2) Click on Add Fan Box to your site

3) This will take you to a page where you can set up your widget. I chose to check "Include Fans" only. The streaming version takes up too much room in my opinion, but you can check it if you like.

4) Copy the code generated and add it to your blog layout (this would be a gadget in blogspot).

Now take a close look at the default widget that is produced in Step 3 (sorry for the bad resolution). Do you see how it is wider and has more fans listed than the widget that is in my blog? There are a couple of parameters that you can change in the code to get the same results as mine. Or you can play around with the numbers and see what suits your blog best.

In the code that is generated, the default number of fans listed is 10, and the width of the box is 300 pixels. I changed these two parameters to make my widget fit better:

- To change the number of fans, look for the text in the code that says connections="10" Simply change the number 10 to the number of fans you want to display. In my case, I changed it from 10 to 6.

- To change the width of the widget, find the text in the code that says width="300" (which should be right next to the "connections" text) and change the 300 to a smaller number to make the box narrower, or a larger number to make the box wider. In my case, I changed the number to 200. Depending on your blog layout, this number can vary.

And there you go! I hope this helps you all put a nice Facebook Fan Box on your blog!! Good luck, and convo me if you need help!

Etsy Mini Custom Code For Your Blog

I've decided to start featuring my favorite shops on my blog using Etsy minis for those shops and posting them on the right side of my blog (scroll down on the right).

The only problem is that I wanted to put a 1x1 Gallery Etsy Mini for each store, but I didn't like how Etsy did theirs. This is what theirs looks like if you take several Etsy-generated 1x1 minis and post them to your blog:


See how it looks if I post multiple shops this way? I see all that text that says "Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade, Fuzzington.etsy.com" under every listing, and it just seems seems so repetitive and takes up a lot of room on my blog. So I decided to remove it so that it looks like this:


I love how it looks a lot less cluttered! It may not make a huge difference with only two shops, but with 5 or more, it sure can!

How did I do this? I generated an Etsy mini for my store in Etsy to play with, and edited the flash code that is generated (guess my Engineeering and Computer Science degree finally paid off!). I tried to post the code at the end of this blog entry, but blogger actually uses the code and you can't see the code. I've posted the code in the Etsy forums at this thread: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6206975

Now, here's another trick. Rather than asking people to send you their Etsy minis, you can just change any references to the user ID and name of the Etsy shop that you need an Etsy mini for. When you look at the code for your Etsy mini, look for text like that shown below, and the fields that I've highlighted in red:

object data="http://www.etsy.com/flash/spots/etsy_mini.swf?user_id=6289001&user_name=fuzzington&item_source=shop&item_size=gallery&rows=1&columns=1

So, for example, the code that I posted in this blog entry is for my store. To change it to an Etsy mini for MyDadsHands' Etsy shop, I would replace my user ID, 6289001, with hers, 7220882, and my Etsy account name "Fuzzington" to "mydadshands.' As far as I know, there are only two places in the code that looks like this, so you should be changing the user name and IDs twice each in any Etsy mini code. Make sure you type in the name of the shop exactly as it is shown in the Etsy user name, and make replacements for all id's and usernames in the code. You can use this trick with any code that you get for your Etsy Mini, regardless of the dimensions of your mini.

I think any Etsy seller would be ecstatic if y ou went ahead and made a mini-Etsy for your blog, but as usual, make sure you let them know you did as a courtesy. I'm sure they would love to know!

For those of you who would like to try this for Etsy minis larger than 1x1, the same kinds of modifications that I made to my code apply. If you need some help, feel free to convo me.

Hope this comes in handy for your blogs!!!