Disclaimer! This blog post is longer than usual. It contains: A story ripe with trepidation (did I use that expression right?), actual numbers and figures of my current status updates on Facebook, Pinterest and Redbubble, and my next steps action plan. Hang in there, I think it’s worth the wait! Also, if you’re on a similar journey as me, there are a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way as well.
Right, so I woke up and saw 300 friend requests on my personal profile. So cool, I thought! Amazing! I thought. This was the big break I had been waiting and working for! So with my excitement boiling, and with trepid anticipation, I started clicking the “Accept button”. Then I stopped, and Googled “how to mass accept friend requests in FB” because I realized it was going to take a very long time to accept all of these one at a time. Then a short time later I gave up and went back to accepting one by one, because I found all of the workarounds suggested online for this to be very annoying.
I got through 20, 30, maybe even 50! Then it happened. Like a shot to the heart! A blast of sound heard around the world!…Sorry, I got a bit carried away there, this really is very emotional! That sound… my Facebook messenger ringing through my laptop. Then the next one, then the next one. “Oh”, “My”, “God”, What have I done?! Within minutes, over and over I had random people with names written in Arabic calling me through Messenger. I would quickly hit END and hang up. They called right back. Ok, I need to block them then. But do you know how hard it is to get to the block option when they just keep redialing you over and over?
My heart sank, I was filled with disappointment. I now had over 30 messages and/or missed calls. The messages were mainly filled with things like “Hey sexy” or “You’re so beautiful”…some of them even sent me old pictures of me that had been posted to my FB profile 14 years ago! My disappointment was then combined with being both grossed out and very creeped out. What I thought was my big break had turned into a giant creepy spamming scam. Turns out some of them get a little angry when you keep hanging up on them too. Filled with discouragement and a very gross feeling, the rest of the day pretty much sucked.
In summary:
I learned how to block people very quickly between their incessant phone calls. Later on (fun story), I learned how to report them to FB for harassment! There was a bit of a nice feeling of accomplishment in that one.
Got back on the horse and just kept doing me.
Posted a whole series of daily scheduled FB reels for a Valentine’s day card collection
Started driving a bunch of traffic to my store! YAY! Although it started to get a bit discouraging with the more the number of visits going up, and still no one was buying anything. Does no one really like my stuff?!!! (I love my stuff by the way)
Got my very first RedBubble Sale! Thanks Dad! Yes, my Dad blackmailed me to come over and buy something from my store. It’s always worth the visit though (L)
Realized that RedBubble has stupid high shipping costs! Oh my god! Is this why no one was buying anything?? Don’t know how they get away with it, but I need to try and reassure myself that people must still buy things since they are one of the biggest online POD stores out there….
Started building a Kaliverse Creations artist dedicated website to act as a central hub for all my various activities and platforms and blogs
Started 120 day challenge with Mey Aroyo (see below)
Converted my personal FB profile to a ‘Professional’ profile (Future blog post to be created for the benefits of a professional vs personal profile)
- Removed all of my 14 year old pictures, which makes me look like I’m a young hot thing in my early 20s…it doesn’t fit with the image I’m trying to convey anymore and more than that, I’m hoping it stops creepy people from following me
- Finalized the bulk of my website! Still a lot of tweaking to do, but the basics are there! Play around with it and let me know what you think.
- Revamped most of my older design postings in Redbubble. Included better SEO optimized keywords and descriptions. Resized all of my patterns to 10,000 px x 10,000 px so that all designs fit on all products now.
- Created 65 image pins in Pinterest to showcase product mockups and scheduled as many as possible for the next two weeks.
Fast forward the next two weeks till now, this is where I currently stand 19Feb2023:
RedBubble:
- 128 designs uploaded
- 5 followers
- 324 favorites on my products
- 10 products sold
- Total commission: $12.57 (My royalties are set very low by the way. 10%, since it is below the standard 20%, and at this point I’m trying for every advantage I can just to get people in the door and buying. I’ll boost it later on)
- 143 unique visitors to my store since opening (on January 13th – rebrand Jan 28th)
Facebook Business Profile (www.facebook.com/KaliverseCreations)
- 9 page likes
- 17 followers
- 50 posts (not including shares)
I highlighted 31 shares…Thanks Oein! My little brother is so awesome! Every time I post something he immediately likes and shares it, to show his support. I love you little brother! Be careful though, I’m a bit worried your facebook friends are going to think you’re spamming them!
Pinterest:
- 1 follower (I got my first follower the other day! So cool!)
- 36 following
That’s how many people I’m following. I figured out that if I want to drive internal traffic to my boards, it helps if I follow people an then maybe they’ll follow me!). Plus, they do have cool content that I like.
- 333 monthly views
That’s crazy! It hasn’t even been a full month yet. Just so you know, Idea Pins is one of the new things Pinterest is pushing. I have 78 impressions on those recent pin creations vs 2-4 impressions on some of my other normal pins. If you’re trying to use Pinterest to market yourself, this may be the way to go.
- 17 pins created, but 0 engagement so far
- 750 impressions in total
NEXT STEPS:
- Launch new Kaliverse Creations Website! (it’s technically been live since I started building it, but I haven’t told anyone it’s there yet)
- Create Instagram account
I don’t have a huge interest in Instagram, but since it’s linked to FB, and apparently I can have some of my posts duplicate onto that platform, it might be worth twice the benefit for the same work)
Also, I have never been on Instagram, don’t know anything about it, and will need to figure this all out from scratch too
- Launch new Blog! Several dog posts are already waiting and as you already know, so is this new “Join Me” Series
- I have joined Mey Aroyo’s 120 day challenge! To help keep some consistency in this journey, we are on a challenge to spend 20 minutes every day uploading and promoting a new design. Consistency is key when it comes to all these platforms, their algorithms like that a lot more than dump and ditch, and they are supposed to reward you for it somehow!