Rose of Sharon Jewelry

Last week I posted a Tantrum on changes re: Facebook custom landing pages. Here’s an update on FB’s apology and reversal of their rules.

To recap: Facebook via a forum post shared that custom landing pages would only be available on fan pages with 10,000+ fans and/or where the company was purchasing FB advertising. This meant that literally thousands of small businesses would not be able to set a custom call-to-action Welcome page tab as the default “home” page for their fan page.  Read my prior post on this change.

Ending small business access to the custom landing page happened without any prior notice. Pages simply weren’t being shown as the “home” page any longer. No notice just a forum post!

While this change may seem insignificant, in the FB world where everyone is scrambling for potential customers, the custom Welcome page levels the playing field a bit between businesses such as Rose of Sharon Jewelry and Kay Jewelry.

The news came just as I was authorizing Jenni at Suga Pink Designs to create a Welcome page for the Rose of Sharon Jewelry Fan page.

The next evening Matt Trainer (FB Development) left this message in the same forum.

Hello,

As of last night, we’ve removed the recently-added authentication requirement for setting custom landing tabs on Pages. The requirement was instituted as part of a Pages quality initiative, and we apologize for the inconvenience this caused to our developer and business community. We are re-investigating the situation, and will not make any further changes without first giving our community standard notice and lead-time.

Thanks for all your feedback,
Matt Trainer

While this doesn’t mean the rule won’t be implemented in the future, it does mean that the business and social marketing people who felt this was unfair were heard.

So I’m back to getting a new Welcome page for the Rose of Sharon Jewelry Fan page . I’ll announce it as soon as it goes live.

If you are interested in your own custom Welcome page for your FB fan page, I’d recommend Jenni at Suga Pink Designs

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Social networking is hot for businesses – at least that’s what we’ve been told. So I’ve devoted my waking hours to promoting Rose of Sharon Jewelry via Facebook, Twitter and this lonely blog for months.  We’ve been blessed with Rose of Sharon fans and personal Sharon Fullen friends and store traffic is growing rapidly. I’m loving connecting with everyone and sharing a love of handmade arts and crafts BUT

where are the sales?

I’m not a newbie marketer but social networking as a marketing tool is still pretty new. There are tons of “experts” telling us what to do and how sites like Twitter and Facebook can level the playing field for small businesses like Rose of Sharon Jewelry.

What I’d like to know is how well Social Networking is working for your business? How much time to do spend every day in keeping up with tweets and wall posts?

I’m spending so much time talking to everyone online that my studio time is really an afterthought. And that’s not why I launched Rose of Sharon Jewelry.

I’d love to hear from everyone about their real-world experiences and thoughts about their marketing via the Internet.

 

Thanks,

Have you been wandering if you could become a a successful entrepreneur? What defines an entrepreneur? Is there a test to know whether you are 0ne? The word sounds so daunting and scary - plus it’s tough to spell. An entrepreneur is simply a person who takes an idea, creates a way to make that idea “real”, sets up a business structure to develop and market that idea and assumes the associated risks and rewards.

In future installments, I’ll discuss developing your idea and how  to analyze its potential profitability and success.

If you have a marketable idea and know how (or can learn) to transform it into a sellable product (or service), you’ve satisfied 50% of the above definition. For example: In 2005, I had an idea that the world needed more beautiful handmade jewelry and I wanted to meet that need. So I bought a stash of beads and some books and started teaching myself how to make jewelry.