Are you not the average bride? Does the thought of doing the chicken dance at your wedding make you cringe? Our Vintage Wedding Weekend Event could be just what you need! If traditional is not your thing, it’s ok to let your wedding day reflect that!
So, save the date and let’s get weird!
Vintage Wedding Weekend at Crompton Collective
May 4th and 5th
We spent the last week touring the coast of California on a little inspiration vacation. We had no plans but, to get away and get soak up the sun! Our drive through Palms Springs got extended after I fell in love with the Ace Hotel and refused to leave for 3 days.Thank you Adam, for being a good sport. If you ever get the chance to go to Palm Springs, just grab a one way ticket. That’s all you’ll need.
After speaking to Worcester Magazine last week, Boston Business Journal last Summer and helping a couple of my vendors set up profiles this weekend. I was inspired to put together a few Instagram tips for small business owners.
Instagram tips for Small Business
Complete your profile: this is the best place to leave a first impression. Your place to define who you are, what you do and how people can find you. Leave a link to your facebook page or website and an address! If you intrigued them, they will want more information about you. Don’t give them a dead end.
Find your customers: search for people already talking about your business or your field. Find people in your city (#worcester) or people that share your interest (#antiques). These are your potential customers. Find them, follow them and engage them.
Make your captions count: they make you stand out and let your personality shine through, keep it short, funny and use appropriate hashtags.
Be engaging: tag others, talk to others, check in to other businesses, use your location. Adding layers to your posts give people a better feel for who you are and spreads a little Instagram karma.
Use your location: If you are selling items select a location where your items are sold! This is a tool that a lot of business forget to use. Which is to bad because it launches a map with directions to get people right to your door.
Be consistent but not spammy: post frequently, but not to frequently (if that makes sense). Consistency keeps your followers engaged. Depending on the type of business you run, 2-3 posts a day is a good limit ! If you have quality material, share it…just spread it out!
Keep it creative: it’s not enough to post a picture, post a pretty, inspiring, bold, funky picture! Or else it’s still just a picture!
Be unique: much like my advice for Facebook. I think you should showcase what no one else can. Give your followers a behind the scenes look in to the daily workings of your business. Document YOUR work, show off YOUR quirky moments, and tell YOUR filter-filled story.
Have any tips that have worked well for you? We would love for you to share them!
My lovely new intern Claire and I have been busy playing around with visual merchandising at the shop. While I have no official training in this field. My two mobile shops have given me the design bug. I now love any chance I get to make a space beautiful. Hope you like our DIY!
Materials:
-Sheet music
-Needle & Thread
-Curtain rod
-Scissors
-Patience!
I. Trace and cut your feathers from the sheet music (about 8 feathers per string will do)
II. Measure your string and snip! (We did about 8 feet each, stringing the needle in the middle and tying a knot with the two ends)
III. This knot will be your first ‘feather stopper’ so string your first feather
IV. Make another knot about 8inches above the lower feather and string your next feather
V. Continue this until your string is almost full of feathers, leaving enough room at the top to tie it to the curtain rod
VI. Viola! You’ve just made your first string of feathers. Continue until your rod is full enough to your liking.
Worcesters Start at the Station event is somthing I look forward to every year! It’s the merriest of the Start on the Street events. Everyone is in a gift giving and cheery holiday shopping mood with carolers singing and all that jolly stuff! The day is always full of friends, locally made treasures, silliness, and cookies! Make sure you check it out at Union Station, December 2nd!
I cant believe the shop has been open for almost three months, I guess time does fly when your having fun! The shop was going so well, I recently decided to expand and open up 10 more vendor spaces for antiques. We also opened up an event space for DIY workshops, shopping nights and other craft related gatherings! If you havent been to the shop, I hope you will check it out soon!
As a small business owner, I know how frustrating it is to see all of your hard Facebook marketing work go to waste. So, I put together a list of proactive ways to get your posts showing back up in the feeds of your fans. Warning: It’s going to take a little more work than posting “Add my page to your interests” to your Facebook page. Facebook uses an algorithm called EdgeRank. It sorts through posts and determines which ones are most relevant to the reader. The more a user interacts with your page, the more posts of yours they will see.
Reach is influenced by these factors:
Be visual
That old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” is especially true on Facebook! Photos automatically get much better placement in your customers newsfeed. All other things being equal, adding a photo to a post will increase engagement on its own. Photos also take up more space in a newsfeed. If you get creative, you can find a way to add photos to just about anything.
Be Bold
Start your post strong, get to the point quickly and wrap it up in a few sentences or less.On your website, you have just ten seconds to grab your customers attention, on Facebook you have even less! Remember that users have dozens of items in their newsfeed to go through. If you don’t capture their interest in the first few words, they’ll just move on to photos of cats.
Be Transparent
If shares are what you want, try asking people to share your post! Sometimes people just don’t know what to do with a post after they’ve seen it. Adding a simple call to action gives them some direction for what to do next. You’d be surprised at how well this works!
Be the expert
People “like” Facebook pages because they want more information about products and services. This gives you the chance to be a resource for your Facebook fans by giving them the information they need! Use your knowledge and expertise, to provide helpful solutions to your customers. Teach them something new and watch your likes and shares rise!
Be Engaging
Everyone likes to be heard. Let your customers know you hear them! Try to comment on or like every interaction your fans have with you! Not only is it important to do that, it’s important to do so within the 3 hour period following the post while your Edgerank is still building. It will also show your fans that you care and you’re listening!
Be yourself!
I find this to be the most important thing in marketing (and life). Your unique voice and personality is your branding. There is a lot of competition out there looking to grab attention of consumers. Remember, no one can be you!
Haberdash was featured on the TV show Chronicle last week! Our last two events of the season are coming up! We will be at SoWa Open Market October 14th and 28th! See you there!
The grand opening of Crompton Collective is this Saturday! I have been working non stop (with lots of help from my friends and family, of course), trying to get things ready! I hope you will come see the shop I’ve poured my heart in to this summer! I will have the new Haberdash bus here as well, so you can see my two new shops at the same time! Hooray!
I was standing in Home Depot today, returning about 800 clothing hangers that I changed my mind about. When someone yelled over to me “Punky, your shop is looking great!“. Then I realized I havent even posted photos here yet! I cant believe my antique and artisan mall opens in two weeks! My days have been flying by, I love meeting with all the antique vendors and handmade artists. Surrounding myself with creative and talented people is something I’ve always tried to do. But, this is a whole new level. I have to remind myself to stop and take it all in.
I have been busy hand selecting local artists to feature in the new shop! I feel like Haberdash has a pretty unique style and I wanted to bring in handmade artist that will elevate that even more! I want you to be able to walk in the Crompton Collective and be able to find the perfect gift for that hard to shop for friend or find a styling new outfits for yourself. Here are a 3 of many the artist we will be featuring this September:
Sometimes I forget I have this pretty little space to talk about what ever the heck I want. I wonder if that means I’m officially over fashion blogging? Today we even went to a scenic place with no intentions of taking outfit photos…gasp! Ironically, it seems like the more interesting life gets the less we blog about it.
So here are some photos of my non-blogger life:
Iphone photos of our Newport RI day date.
Photos of my shop that is really coming along! I’m having fun talking to all the antique dealers and vendors. I think they can tell how long I’ve wanted this and are getting excited too!
Haberdash is rocking and rolling this year! I cant believe this is our 4th season in business and we are still meeting new people at every event!
and Penny is still adorable.
The Haberdash family is growing! I’ve been secretly working on our second mobile shop!
When I found out our retail shop, Crompton Collective, wouldn’t be ready to open till September. I decided to take on a summer project! You can now shop the Haberdash Bus! Her nickname is B.B., because she is the little bohemian sister of The Haberdash. I curated this shop to be a little bit hippie and a little bit rock and roll, inspired by my mom and late stepdad. You can find us at SoWa Open Market soon! And as always if you would like us to roll up to your event, shoot me an email!
I’ve been known to get obsessed with some pretty weird things. But this is something I think you might be able to get behind…macrame! A few weeks ago, I came across the sweetest little macrame owl necklace at a yard sale. I couldn’t believe how much work went in to making this tiny little owl necklace, so I decided to do a little pinterest research and found this and this! Instantly intrigued and headed over to Etsy to see what the crafters of today are doing with this age old art form. These were my five favorites finds (click to open):
Tempted to try a little macrame diy? Etsy has a bunch of cute vintage books on how to macrame. I personally love the hammock diy, but that’s way out of my league!
The next themed swap in our 40Berkeley year long series is a Denim Swap! Thats right all jeans (although I’m sure anything red or white will fly too)! We have some very fond memories from our first swaps. When we would gather our friends in the back yard and play in a pile of designer denim and drink wine till the sun went down. We would love to relive those days with our new friends. I hope you will join us!
Use the code PUNKYSTYLE for 50% off your ticket!
