Organic Odysseys Where in the World are you?

Recently at etsy.com there was a virtual lab on Bookmarking and sharing, I had been up all night but stayed awake long enough to get the major gist of what DanielleXO was talking about in the lab. I have joined a few of the suggested sites and maybe adding a few more, I just need time to absorb it all in. Once you get my age, learning a new thing doesn't come instantaneously anymore and sadly we have to be patient with ourselves so we can keep up.

I had been trying to 'get myself out there' in recent months, and promoting is like the last thing on my list I want to do regarding my life and art, but in the fast paced world today , it is a must. I have been an artist all my life and have never been good at self promotion. I could coach others on it, and promote some one else's art ( that I liked, I don't false promote anything) but mine, forget about it! When I used to do craft shows ( which I hated) I would always design my booth so that there were backdrops that only let you peek in a little behind them where I would set up a table and be about my work. My husband got the job of schmoozing the customers, and the ladies liked him, and I'm sure he helped make as many sales as my actual products did! But with virtual selling it's different, I can hide behind my blog, my store, my twitter, etc, and promote when and where I want and if I want. My store is open even when I'm not up to manning it, and if someone wants to ask a question, they can convo me, or email me, or comment on my blog. :) So with all the high tech learning does come some perks and I think I can live with that.

So, anyway, when I first opened up my Organic Odysseys Store, which came out of my new direction in my artwork after my second year at the CSA organic farm, after about a month I decided to look my name up on Google search and see if I'd been 'crawled by their web spider'. I only found one listing , don't remember which one it was, but realized I did have to do more to get my name out there and let others know My art existed! So I started reading up on many articles at etsy, and in the forums there. I joined Plumdrop, I joined twitter, I started this blog, I got myself on google base, I posted in the forums, I joined two etsy street teams/guild, I joined flicker, and I found Stumbleupon ( which is very addicting btw). I started doing Treasuries and getting put into treasuries. Whew!!!
Now a recent search for 'OrganicOdysseys' ( with no space) has revealed about 40 pages on any given day! Now some are from promotions from my guild, and pages at etsy, also all the above sites I told you I joined, but some interesting ones came up that I'd like to share.

This was a most interesting one, I found my Bronzed Edamame pin on a site called 'The Worlds Newest pictures of Edamame'

I came across a wonderful blog about a month ago and decided to help promote it by adding their logo to my blog and sharing something NICE someone did for me. I was shocked when I googled I came across this on the Operation Nice blog, how wonderful to get this little story of mine out there, I hope it helps to bring people into my shop to purchase some of these items I've made, as all the proceeds will go to my local animal shelters, and this time of year is a very needy time indeed.


I have been blogged in Serbian, ( thank you MilicaBulbana) In Hebrew In Israel ( todah Iris Mishly) and in Russian from Alice who, along with her followers was trying to figure out how I made my Nasturtium Bracelet. ( it's fun to read the translated pages, and a bit puzzling too! )


I have been listed on a Beautiful Etsy organic blog , found my Bok Choy Switch plate listed on this cake mold site and have seven followers now on my blog and have over 600 visitors to my blog.

I think every item in my store now has a google listing, as well as my sold items page in my store. I also found many of my pictures on flicker in groups under one of the tags I gave them, that was interesting to discover as well. You can see my Bok Choy switchplate here on a page with other true metal verdigris photos. Even an etsy search page on tomato brought up all my tomato items!

So in conclusion, It seems to pay to get your name out there, if only now it would bring some revenue into the shop so I can buy my first beehive for Heifer International!

Happy Organic living everyone!

Oh, and if you would like to find me at my various haunts

OrganicOdysseys.etsy.com
OrganicOdysseys on StumbleUpon
http://twitter.com/OrganicOdysseys
http://www.plumdrop.com/members/OrganicOdysseys
http://flickr.com/photos/organicodysseys/

And then there's

AlmostARTifacts.etsy.com - My Judaica Shop
PolkaDotSandals.etsy.com - My everything else, quilts, supplies, whimsys, and other polymer clay art that doesn't fit the other two shops.

Moral of the story: promote yourself in your comfort zone and your art will get out there!