Social Media for your Crafty Business, by Diane Gilleland, Sister Diane of craftypod.com

To a crafty entrepreneur trying to navigate the often confusing waters of social media, Sister Diane is the Jiminy Cricket on your shoulder, offering gentle, but pointed advice on which direction to take to avoid peril on the seas of Twitter and Facebook (I’m assuming she doesn’t usually wear spats and a top hat, but one never knows…).

As Sister Diane writes in her e-book, social media can be a confusing prospect to a generation that have been steeped in broadcast marketing, i.e.-constant, repeating, self-serving advertising on tv, print, and radio.  Social media works beautifully for those who can understand the big shift in thinking toward engagement marketing, the mellower, relationship-based love child of advertising, social media and new internet outlets.  Here, engaging and providing value to your friends/followers/contacts/customers is the key to using social media in a way that helps both your business, and your online community, and Sister Diane lays out clear directions for building a healthy, happy relationship with social media.

“Social media space lets us filter the world through the eyes of people we trust…”
Diane Gilleland, Social Media for your Crafty Business

The e-book is divided into clearly laid-out chapters, with easily digestible bits of info on understanding how social media spaces like Twitter and Facebook work, analyzing what makes for engaging content in your updates, avoiding falling into old broadcast media habits, and time management.  The thread that runs through the book is that social media is NOT advertising, and although it can benefit your business, that it is a tool for gaining trust and building relationships.

With subchapters titled, “A sane way to build up your network of friends and followers” and “How to mention your business, appropriately”, Diane will teach you how to provide value and engage your audience, avoiding the running list of shop updates or the “I ate Cheerios for breakfast” schtick.  She provides plenty of checklists, clear examples, and food for thought on how to analyze your own content and reshape it into updates that real people will want to read on a regular basis, thereby gaining a group of readers that trust and respect your voice.  advice ranges from the basics of crafting an interesting personal profile and choosing and avatar to helpful tips on time management to avoid “time-suck” and keep your interactions fresh & helpful.

For the e-book’s modest $12.50 pricetag, it packs a solid punch of information that when utilized will help you walk the fine line between artfully promoting & engaging vs. unintentionally spamming your readers.

As a follower of @SisterDiane on twitter, long-time listener of her excellent Craftypod podcast, and a current student in her Craft Blog Tune-Up class, I’ve seen evidence time and again that Sister Diane knows how to use social media effectively.  She is a thoughtful, well-organized, and accessible instructor, every bit of which shines through in this well-crafted e-book.

For additional resources on social media, I recommend listening to her recent podcast on engagement marketing.  And for those that would like a more in-depth, interactive introduction to using social media, consider enrolling in Diane’s upcoming Twitter for your Crafty Business online course, coming up February 15th.

Buy Social Media for your Crafty Business over at craftypod.com.