from ignite Minneapolis, a social networking event I attended in April.

I’ve gotten (reasonably) savvy at this social network marketing thing, and while I’m certainly still building on my own blog, I’ve had modest success on Myspace with 5000 friends and over on Facebook with around 280 friends.  Also, my Twitter stream continues to grow, and once in awhile it’s with people interested in what I have to say!

I’ve been at this whole business/self-employed thing over two years now, and here’s what I’ve learned about marketing my goods online through social media thus far:

1. Relationships matter. Follower numbers matter minimally at best.
Your business will go a lot farther with repeat customers, and that happens when people know you. It’s better to have a smallish number of genuinely interested followers than scads of people with mild interest – you want to build a core audience. Do these people buy daily? Not at first- but they may refer others who are genuinely interested in you on a daily basis.

2. When you GIVE attention, you GET attention.
This is one of many reasons to keep the number of social media sites you’re on to an absolute minimum. Readers/followers look for new and diverting information from the same source over and over.  Pay attention to and update your pages. Pay attention to who is following you and make comments that are meaningful to them – not just buy!buy!buy! over and over, and especially common mistake I see sellers make.

This is another reason not to try to get as many followers as possible all at once. You can’t genuinely carry on a conversation with 1000 people – but two or three you can. Stadium crowds are for musicians and politicians. The rest of us generally do better in a small, quiet room.

If you make the subject somebody else’s interest once in awhile, you’re more likely to keep your own followers interested. This also works in dating.

3. A lot of old tricks just aren’t working anymore. This is normal, it’s part of change.
The upshot of the proliferation of indie businesses is that a lot of old innovations in marketing just aren’t so innovative anymore. Guerilla and viral marketing worked great in the late 90s, when most people didn’t know what the terms meant. Nowadays freaky Youtube videos/documentary websites/bookmarks stuck in strange places are easily recognized by the consumer as guerilla marketing – and tend to anger said consumer.

Similarly signing pages with nothing but your Etsy mini also has a backfire tendency to it nowadays. Your comments must be relevant to the page before you, otherwise, you’re putting yourself in a position where you get skipped over. Being visual definitely matters, but there is a point where to many graphics contribute to yet more ad-blindness.

Most people are feeling some sort of information overload these days, and when you start working in more ads in even more spaces, all you do in the long run is increase ad-blindness and leave someone associating irritation with your personal brand. This includes butting in on messages other people are trying to send – you don’t just tick off a fellow business person, you tick off the people interested in the original message. You do have freedom of speech in this country, but you and your business are in no way entitled to any other person’s time and attention. You will do much better if you build a good reputation for classy behavior around yourself, and then simply put out content that people want to pay attention to anyway.

Just be cool, indie folk. It’s all you can be.

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At long last I have a balcony, and so I finally get to start growing things and at some point using them in my perfume making! I just wanted to share with you my plant babies as they grow, and I’ll keep you updated with pictures along the way this summer.
– my morning glory.
– moonflower
– dill
– marjoram
savory
– basil

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I’ve been taking care of my little garden, and sure enough, the bugs found ‘em, too. While it’s nowhere near an infestation, I’m not one to take chances, so I whipped up this concoction. It’s just a bit caustic and I advise against getting this on your skin, but it doesn’t harm your plants, is non-toxic (just very acidic) and can rinse right off your plants at harvest time.

In a spray bottle, I put in:

• 1/3 cup dish soap
• 1/3 cup Everclear

In a pan, I brought to a simmer:

• Cayenne
• Black Pepper
• 1 Clove Garlic, broken in half
• Chili seeds
• Crushed red pepper
• Mint
• and Thyme

After done simmering, I allowed to cool.

While cooling, I added three drops of each of the following essential oils to the spray bottle:

• Lemongrass
• Peppermint
• Citronella
• Eucalyptus
• Pine Needle
• Sassafrass
• Rosemary
• and Hyssop

After the mixture has cooled until it is safe to touch the pot, I poured it through a funnel fitted with a coffee filter.

Once room temperature, spray on plants as needed.

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On a random tour through Etsywiki, which is still up but uneditable now by non-Etsy staff, I discovered Yaami.com. It’s similar to CraftCult in the service it offers, but it allows slightly more information about the people that heart you. While I’m not crazy about the way this can lead to yet further heart-spamming (when you send unsolicited convos to the people that heart you – an Etsy Don’t) it does look really handy for letting me know who hearts me, and their intentions: for instance, some are bath and body people who want to keep an eye on me, others are perfume fiends and still others are just kindly heartbacks. It does help me get a good feel for who my core market is.

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My girl Cassidy at Dharaholistics is all about keeping it really and truly clean, with careful research into each material she uses. And with the new uprising of those opposed to traditional shampoo, she’s got you covered: along with a bottle shampoo formula, she offers shampoo bars that work like a dream. I purchased one last year – it lasted me about three months, and I was really impressed with how soft my hair was after using it.  Not all of us can bring ourselves to forgo shampoo, so I’m liking these alternatives!

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Awhile back I started making these burnable pieces of paper. It was my first sally into the rising art form of trashion, and it gave me something fun to do with all the paper bags and junk mail littering my home. I’ve certainly used it a lot in my own practice – uncrossing rituals, a fast way to clear mosquitoes, even as a quirky little postcard that made it all the way to Canada.

So now I want to know how people who have gotten it from me have used it – if you’ve been around it, what have you done with it? If you haven’t had a chance to try my incense paper, comment here with how you’d like to use it. The most interesting comment will get a free pack!

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by Osbournes life on flickr

I adore vintage perfume bottles, and while I just don’t have the space for them all to come live with me, I do love finding images like this so I can drool and daydream about a big shop window with the sunlight filtering through the hundreds of lovely bottles.

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Since I began making perfume, I’ve ruined a LOT of clothing. It’s my own fault for not making sure I owned a smock from the get-go, but since I learn best by making mistakes, it’s a lesson I learned a few rather nice shirts at a time first. I also learned that if you don’t act fast when you do spill oil of any kind on yourself, you may just have to give up your garment.

However, once in awhile I emerge from a spill triumphant. The basics to cleaning up oil products can be found here, although my own methods differ just a bit. When I get an oil spill, as soon as I can I dab it with vinegar and then follow this with rubbing alcohol. Then for good measure, I use one of those rub-and-leave it stain sticks you can get at Target for around $4. It’s actually saved me some nice stuff.

In the event that that fails me, I toss the item onto my “T-shirt surgery” pile and experiment on it with scissors, ribbons, safety pins and grommets – and that’s another story for another day.

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This comes a bit late, but still is worthy of discussion: Cheerios, which has been making health claims as to the effect of their cereal on cholesterol, were issued a warning letter by the FDA. You can read the text of the letter here. The FDA also gives a sort of rule-of-thumb guide to the incident with a short Q&A webpage here.

What got General Mills in trouble? Not the claim that their cereal lowers cholesterol – the claim that it does so with specific results. By naming specific percentages, according to the FDA, it promotes the breakfast cereal as a drug and would have to be labeled as such.

After reading carefully the FDA’s standards on aromatherapy last year, I decided to withdraw my entire aromatherapy line. The way it is phrased, and the example, made me realize that even suggesting a fragrance formula could do something as seemingly innocuous as reduce stress could get me in trouble – and if the FDA wanted to, they could claim that having suchandsuch chemical that is commonly believed to do (fill in the blank) would be enough to merit pharmaceutical testing:

“A claim that a perfume’s aroma makes a person feel more attractive, in general, is a cosmetic claim not requiring FDA approval before a product is sold. But if someone tries to market a scent suggesting effectiveness as an aid in quitting smoking, as a sleeping aid, or to treat or prevent any other condition or disease, or otherwise affect the body’s structure or function, such a claim may cause the product to be regulated as a drug, requiring premarket approval. The agency will make judgments on a case-by-case basis.”

I don’t know whether going after Cheerios was erroneous – certainly guaranteeing it would lower cholesterol bordered on irresponsible marketing, since not everyone could get that result – there are too many types of metabolism and body chemistries out there to make such a claim. It’s a serious message, either way: the FDA isn’t messing around. Mind your labels and your p’s and q’s.

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Humans, man.

Here’s my lesson to impart: don’t confront a raging, zombie feeding racist asshole unarmed, because metaphysical protection you conjure yourself will do nothing for internal bleeding. I can still walk, but I probably shouldn’t.

Joel, you still have my power of attorney. My safety deposit keys should be taped under my desk – this will’s at the bank.

This is my signoff. The only way out is to take this guy with me into the Mississippi and hope we both get consumed as an offering to the River Father. Moll-Dolly showed me the back door, the place at the furthest back of the Wabasha caves where they’ve kept the corpses of old gangsters buried.

There’s been zombie in the groundwater for the last two years. Those corpses are infected, and the only thing holding them back has been the ghosts, the hell gods and that door.

All those angry, mobster zombies, slow and fast, will force us both to the river.

From there it won’t take much to get him at gunpoint. We can’t have this guy running loose in the world, even if he only kills once a year. Killing for biology is just biology. This guy kills for hate and pleasure, and the recidvism rate for that is terrible.

Pete says he’ll meet me on the riverbanks and we can go together to the boatman at the Styx.

By all the Gods, I hope that’s true.

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