Tips & Talk 9 – Craft Show Convo Part 4 – Social Media’s Role in a Craft Show

Hi there.

I see that you made it over to the new tips

and talk portion of the podcast.

These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and

things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business.

Today, we are continuing our conversation on craft shows specifically,

what is social media's role we've talked about in prior sessions,

selection of craft shows,

then how do you judge Results?

And then also the challenges that can come up both as

you're getting ready for a show.

And then also when you are at the show,

everybody gravitates to different social media platforms and then also different

uses within the platforms.

For example,

an Instagram,

obviously we have live there's reels there stories.

There's the feed.

I'm not going to address that portion of social media right

now. What I really want to talk about is the content

that you'd put up and how to make this really work

on whatever platform is the best for you,

that you've already established a community with and the messaging and

the different areas that you should be approaching with your messaging

as it relates to craft shows.

You know,

so often we think social media is one piece all unto

itself. Craft shows are one piece and then there's email.

And then we've got our website where we're taking online orders.

When really the real power is when we layer things on

top of each other.

Because when we're using all of the resources or tools or

whatever you want to describe all of these different things,

when we bring them together and use them in conjunction with

each other,

they are the strongest that they can possibly be by actually

have four different areas where social media can play a role.

The first one is when you first sign up for a

show, you want people to know that you're going to be

there. So if you have an upcoming show,

even if it's in a couple of weeks,

you can start promoting it right away.

You can start telling people that you're going to be at

that show so they can Mark their calendar.

Many shows also will give you graphics either the logo of

the show,

or sometimes people make special graphics for you as an exhibitor.

Another thing I like to do,

let's say you did the show a year ago,

and this is a show that only comes up once a

year in your community.

For example,

if you have pictures from the last year,

then put those up in the messaging can be so excited.

The shows are back again.

And looking forward to seeing you again this year,

you know,

things like that,

all different types of ways of pretty much making an announcement

of where you're going to be.

You can't always assume that your audience are people who are

in the area are going to know that you're going to

be there or remember that you were there from the prior

year. But if they saw you there year,

it might trigger something like,

Oh, you know what?

I really liked that table.

I definitely need to make sure that when I'm at the

show, I want to go back and see her.

If all of the vendors are also promoting the show,

everybody wins.

Think about it.

If you're sharing it with your audience and all the other

booths or tables are sharing it with their audience,

it's more and more people who are coming to the show.

Okay? So that's the first one show visibility and participation.

The second thing that you can do is start documenting your

preparation process,

leading up to the show.

You know how it is.

We never know on social media,

what to post.

And you also know that you shouldn't just be always posting

your product with a price,

selling, telling,

telling, telling,

when you do a craft show,

this is a great opportunity for you to show how you

prepare, how you get ready for shows.

You can do this both before the show.

And then the day of the show before the show,

I don't know that I can ever get enough of watching

you guys behind the scenes and what you do and how

you create your products,

because it's always so amazing to me.

And everyone has like a little different way.

They do it too.

So it's completely,

totally interesting.

Other things that you can think of for behind the scenes,

maybe this is the first time you've ever done a QR

code. So you show your process of getting your QR code

all set up,

or you're doing a new banner.

Anything that you're doing in preparation,

this is social media content that you could be using.

The other thing I really like to do is involve my

audience in decision-making people who are feeling like they've been a

part of an experience that you're creating are more vested in

it overall.

So if you're upgrading your booth,

for example,

maybe you're looking at two different type of display options,

show it to your audience and say,

what do you think of these options for my products?

Do you like this one better?

Do you like this one better?

Number one,

number two,

right? And then you show the different options and let people

vote on them.

Okay? So that's during the lead up to the show.

The other thing that you can do as you're documenting show

prep is the actual day of the show.

How do you prepare that morning of,

or it could be just getting on and saying so excited.

It's the first day of this show.

The show will be open in a couple of hours.

Can't wait to see you.

I'm just anticipating all the people that I haven't seen now

since last,

last year.

And can't wait to see you.

Bye. By the way,

if you don't know about the show and you live in

such and such community,

come join us and then tell where the show is.

Things like that.

Driving over there,

you could do a live right in your car is you're

going over.

Just picked up my coffee,

all my products loaded up.

I'll be there shortly.

Anything like that is always so interesting.

You can also day of the show.

This is still preparation,

but show documentation as you're getting ready day of show,

what your table looks totally bare do like a before and

after. Here's how it looked when I came.

Here's how it looks now.

And we are all ready for the show to open.

The other thing that's fun behind the scenes before the show

actually opens up,

or people are coming in is talking with other vendors that,

you know,

maybe they're friends of yours.

So you can just chat.

Like, how are you feeling about the show today?

Looks like it's going to be good weather.

So excited.

You know,

what is normally your best seller?

Like almost interviewing other people in the other booths.

I want to move on to now the third point in

terms of different ways to use social media for your craft

shows. And this is a personal angle when you're a handmade

product business owner,

people buy also because they want to support you as the

owner of the business.

And the way that you can get people comfortable and close

to you is by showing them who you are by being

personal with them this morning on my Instagram account,

in my stories,

I was talking about some little quirks I have when I

go into the office and things I do in the morning

before I start working and they're goofy and they're just little

quirks about me and you might find them entertaining.

You can laugh along with me or at me.

I don't care whichever,

but it shows you a little bit more about my personality.

And that's the type of thing that I'm talking about here.

When I say share a little bit of who you are

as a person you might get on and talk about why

you do shows,

you might also show some little secrets of being an exhibitor,

like what you bring to eat during the day.

Or I know someone who used to take 20 minute naps

in her car.

She had someone working her table with her,

but she would sneak off once in the middle of the

morning and once in the middle of the afternoon.

And she just needed like a break 20 minute nap did

it for her,

but it was always a secret.

Like she snuck out and went into her car,

took her little nap,

then snuck out of her car and back to the booth.

And she was good to go,

but that's just something she needed to do.

So from a personal end again,

what types of things are there,

do you make sure that you're always drinking enough water?

Do you have a special water container and why is it

special to you?

Anything that's personal like that again,

brings your audience closer to you.

So any little secrets,

okay. Does as number three and number four during the show.

So much opportunity for social media messaging.

There obviously booth traffic.

People are looking at your table and or the traffic just

going down the aisles of the shows.

Let's say you're out at a community show and it's on

the streets.

You can be showing how crowded the show is,

how nice the weather is.

Again, remember when they're local shows like this,

you can continually have interest if you have people coming in

from your community,

because it's only right down the street or 10 minutes away

from their house to keep building attendance to the show,

pictures of you,

interacting with your customers.

I really suggest and recommend for a number of reasons I've

talked about in prior episodes about having somebody work the table

with you have them take a picture of you checking out

a customer,

not checking them out,

but you know,

like ringing up a sale and checking out,

right? Or you're interacting or just talking with a customer,

or you can even do shots where your hands are on

the table or you're showing something.

It doesn't always have to be.

Someone's face all those,

both video and still shots are great for social media.

And it's great for the future too,

not just for during the show.

So make sure you're thinking about that and taking advantage of

that while you can,

as I'd mentioned,

where you can chat with your friends before the show,

you can also promote vendors during the show.

If you have someone who can watch your table,

once again,

take your phone and go over to some other booths with

interesting products,

maybe they're brand new vendors.

How grateful will they be to you?

If you've come over and do a quick little interview with

them on your Facebook live,

I do this a lot.

When I'm at trade shows,

I'll go up and down the Isles and show people who

aren't able to come to the show,

but who should know about some of these products,

I'll show them the products.

You can do the same thing at craft shows.

I mean,

it's giving exposure to people.

So why wouldn't they be interested in you doing that next

thing? And this is a big one,

testimonials. Nobody does this until I tell them to.

And then they're so happy that they know about this.

Someone comes up and says,

Oh my gosh,

I absolutely love your sugar scrubs.

I use them all the time.

I don't know what I do without them.

I will take five,

ask them if you can record what they just said.

They just said it to you.

So it was natural.

Ask them if they would repeat that.

And if they would be okay with you recording it,

many times people will.

So virtually what you're doing is you're getting a testimonial in

the moment.

If they're not interested in having their face on camera,

then ask them if they'll do an audio,

just an audio recording,

and then you just press record and you can even prompt

them. Thank you so much for coming and sharing how you

feel about the product.

What were you saying?

And then they can go from there and then you can

take that audio and either use it as audio or transcribe

it, you know,

make sure you've gotten their agreement.

That it's okay.

That they,

you, you use their name,

but then just write it down as a quote,

you might feel a little bit uncomfortable at first.

And some people might say,

no, you know,

I really don't want to do that.

And that's fine.

You know,

let them go.

If that,

if they're not interested,

that's fine.

But you'd be surprised how many people will say yes.

And they feel honored that you've asked them a golden opportunity

for collecting testimonials.

And the final thing,

we talked this in a prior craft show,

tips and talk also,

but bad weather.

Remember a craft show can be,

make or break.

If all of a sudden it's start pouring rain or gets

freezing cold or super windy because everything is falling over.

If that happened,

have a planned backup.

And what is that plan?

Backup, social media.

Everyone has made a mad dash for their cars.

So instead be standing in your booth,

turn on your Facebook,

live, tell everybody the situation.

Guess what you guys I'm here at the X and X

show. And unfortunately,

now it's pouring rain.

Everybody's leaving,

but I have such great products here.

I've decided that I should be sharing them with you and

then do a show right there.

Tell them to go to your website and purchase,

you know,

somewhere where you have your shopping cart.

Maybe you have Facebook shop right there where they could purchase

there. However,

you'd want to manage it.

You would plan that in advance,

but you can save a craft show that you're at physically.

If there's bad weather,

just by going on Facebook live and selling from there.

Instead, you can also use this backup plan.

If traffic through a show is really slow.

You're just not seeing anything happening for some reason,

or maybe there's a lull in the day.

Also at the end of a show,

you know how sometimes like the last hour before things are

shutting down,

traffic starts getting light there's product left,

and you can say,

you know what?

We've got just a few things left.

These are special sense that I normally don't have available all

the time.

I have two or three left of,

you know,

you show what you have and you say,

first come first serve,

claim it.

And you've got it.

So two really powerful ways of saving a show that doesn't

seem to be performing for you either because of weather or

slow traffic.

Let me go ahead and summarize here.

I'm talking about ways to use social media and overlay that

on top of your craft shows.

So you're using them together to make your shows the most

powerful that they can be.

The first is when you sign up for the craft show,

make sure you announced to everybody that you're going to be

there and talk about the show as well as yourself.

So that's the first one.

Second one is document your show preparation.

So before the show,

what are you doing to get ready?

And then also the day of the show,

what are the steps you take to get there?

And then the third one is personal.

Why do you do shows?

What are tips,

tricks, or little kind of fun,

little personal things that you do at your shows,

any secrets that you have are always good.

You know,

those juicy things,

people feel like they have an inside look when you do

things like that.

And then during the show,

make sure to take pictures,

go and interview.

Other people promote other people's products,

not just all about your table testimonials,

grab testimonials right there when you can,

and then use social media.

If for some reason the show isn't going the way you

want weather or slow traffic,

social media can play such a huge role in craft shows

and it can be so,

so powerful when you integrate these two things together face-to-face shows

and then the social media overlay,

you will see your sales go up and up and up.

That's a wrap.

I may get to the point kind of girl.

And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek

sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream

of yours,

share your handmade products with us.