Thursday, June 30, 2011

Mission Page for a Day Raffle

Become our "Mission" page for a day.

The winner: Kid Chic Boutique plz support them and TCS by visiting :)

Join in the fun. Enter the raffle for a chance to be the TCS Mission page for a day.

The winner will be our "Mission Page" receiving multiple shout outs for 1 full day AND that days "Cruise" will be dedicated to the winning page with the first stop on the cruise. In other words, we will promote your business heavily throughout the day. Great exposure for you and your business.

The winner will be determined via random.org on July 8th.

Enter the raffle by using the ChipIn box on the right hand side of this blog.
$1 = 1 entry. Enter as many times as you like for a better chance to win.

Good luck to all :)

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Cruise FAQ's and other info

Just a few subjects to touch on today.

Cruise FAQ's:
We'd like to clear up some questions we've had about our cruises.

Q: What is a cruise?
A: A TCS cruise is a networking event designed to help businesses grow their fan bases.

Q: How does the cruise work?
A:   The sign up list is in our discussion tab under"Cruise Sign Up". Reply to that post with your Business Page. When the cruise starts, we will pick 15-20 of the pages from the list to stop by. People cruise to the pages with us and leave a link to their business on that page. Then we reward some of the people that are cruising with us by cruising by their page. We've had some cruises that have seen pages grow by over 100 fans in one cruise.

Q: I cruised along with you, why didn't you reward my page?
A: We realize that everyone loves to have their page "stopped by" on our cruises. But it is impossible to stop by everyone. We've had over 100 people cruising with us on some cruises. Fb starts getting a bit sluggish if we do too many pages.

Q: How do you decide which cruisers gets "stopped by" on the cruise?
A:   We look at who is cruising with us and try to make the first few stops at the newer pages to give our "cruisers" fresh pages to stop by. The reason is that if we post the same pages over and over again we would have a lot of "aaf" and defeating our purpose of helping your fan base grow. 

Q: Why should I cruise along if my page doesn't get stopped by?
A: If you cruise with us your page you will get likes returned from the pages that we stop by. If we cruise 40 pages that could be up to 40 likes returned. Plus your name is on the sign up list. People that can't cruise with us on a particular night, may go back and cruise that list on their own. One thing we noticed about TCS friends is that the ones that are growing the fastest are the ones that are most active, such as cruising with us as much as possible.

Networking:
We encourage you to come to The Craft Show to build your fan base. A great majority of businesses and people behind those businesses that are using TCS to network, are very friendly and very helpful. When you come to TCS to make a post, whether it be to share an ad, a new product, an event or to ask for help getting 'likes', we would hope that you would look at some of the newest posts their before making your post. For instance, if you are coming to network and try to get new likes(friends), look down the wall and see if anyone else may be asking for the same. Go visit them and exchange likes. We are more than happy to help by doing shout outs, cruises and other events, but it takes work on everyones part to grow. If everyone were to come ask for likes but not visit then the system won't work.

Losing 'likes':
I'm sure that most of you have experienced losing 'likes'. Their is logical reasons for this. One big reason is that in order for our 'likes' number to grow, people must like you from their personal page for it to count. When this happens, every post you make goes on their news feed. So they are actually having a hard time seeing their personal friends posts. People tend to 'unlike' pages because of this. A suggestion: you don't have to 'unlike' a page to stop the flooding of your news feeds. You can 'hide' the posts of the page thats doing it. This way your like still counts and you can follow that page from your business page. 

Facebook warnings:
FB has been issuing warnings to some people for spamming. Why? We think it's because of going to too many pages, too fast and making the same posts. For instance on our cruises. When we post pages to "stop by", we go there and say "cruisng with The Craft Show" and tagging our business pages. FB may consider this spamming and issue a warning. Suggestion: Maybe slowing down a bit while cruising, changing the wording in your posts every few pages we visit, not tagging The Craft Show every time("cruising with TCS" is one way of changing the wording up.) If you do get a warning from fb please take is seriously and don't push it. I've only heard of a handful of people that got these warnings and have actually been comment banned for a period of time. But its no fun when it happens so please be careful.

Friday, June 24, 2011

One Day Left For The 5x5x5 Raffle

Just a reminder that there is only one day left in the 5X5X5 raffle. The drawing will be held Sunday morning EST.
5 Cruises and 5 Shout Outs in 5 Days.
Each $1 equals 1 entry into the drawing with the winner determined by random.org.
The winner will be the first stop in 5 consecutive cruises. Also the winner will get 5 shout outs at the busiest times of the day. All this in 5 days.
Great exposure and fan base growth for the winner.

Good luck and thank you for supporting TCS :)

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Logo Design Winner

We received some fantastic entries for our Logo Design Contest and thank all who took the time to create and enter the contest.
The winning logo....(drum roll)

Sunday, June 19, 2011

5 Cruise/5 Shout Outs in 5 days Raffle

We are raffling a 5x5x5 promotion for TCS on Facebook. Each $1 will get 1 entry into the raffle with the winner to be determined using random.org. on June 26th. The winner will receive a reserved stop on 5 cruises and 5 Shout Outs in 5 days. The cruise stop will be the 1st stop of the cruise, the shout outs during the busiest times of the day on TCS. It will be great exposure for the winner :)

 Use the ChipIn box to the right to get your entry or entries. Good luck and
 lets R O C K!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

How to use the TCS page.

With lots of new friends that have joined TCS on Facebook and lots joining daily, we thought we would try to better explain how to use the page.

First, TCS is about people helping people. We are about getting your business seen by as many as possible. Lets face it, you could be the most talented person in the world, but if no one sees your work, zero sales. So we want to help you get seen by the world.

Build your fan base ("likes" or as we prefer to call them "Friends"). While this IS important, we seem to lose focus on the other half of the equation, putting your page on as many others that will allow you to. Yes its true that you may like another page and they may not return the favor, but its actually their loss, not yours.

Anyway, before I ramble on too much longer, here are some how to's:

Asking for likes or help getting likes....It's perfectly ok to come to TCS and ask for help getting likes. (TCS Tip: you should visit some pages that are posted, as well).

Visiting pages that we are posting....On occasion you will see us posting pages. There are many different reasons we may be doing this, such as, welcoming new pages, trying to help someone reach their goal, or giving them a "TCS nudge", etc. We encouraged you to visit these pages when we post them. We are trying to help them and you. (TCS Tip: we do notice who is participating and tend to shout out the people who are:).

TCS Cruises...Our cruises are when a number of people join together and visit pages. If your page is "stopped at" during a cruise, you can expect to get quite a few "likes or friends" in a matter of minutes".
How to cruise:
1.)When we announce a cruise and create a sign up post, in the comment field of that post, use your personal acct and tag your business page. This will be the list that we use to "stop by" pages.
2.)When the cruise begins, visit the page we post, like it, tell them you are cruising with TCS, tag your business page then return to TCS for the next page to visit.
3.)Remember if your page is stopped by,be kind and return the like from your personal acct :)
Some facts about our cruises....
-some cruises have created fan base growth to pages "stopped by" by up to 70 in a single cruise.
-we've had as many as 80 people signed up to cruise on some cruises. (we can't possibly stop at all of them, but you can still cruise along because you will get some return 'likes'.
-some people sign up but then don't cruise along. While we discourage this, there could be good reasons for it, such as they are planning to come back later and join the cruise. What actually makes the cruise work is the people that cruise along.
-We do go to the pages that have been "stopped by" to see who has said they are cruising along with TCS, and reward as many "cruisers" as we can by "stopping by"  those pages as well.
-we try to make the cruises fun by pausing after every 10 stops and have comments while we rest and catch up :)

"MILESTONE ALERT"......when you see us post a page with this, its because we have noticed or it is brought to our attention that a page is within 25 "likes' of a "Milestone". What is a Milestone? A milestone in our view is a page that reaches 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, etc. We know how exciting it is to reach these numbers and want to help those close to it to reach it quickly so we can celebrate :)
TCS Tip: We ask that if you see a milestone alert to please visit that page and help. You will be close close to a milestone at some point and need help as well :) And, we've been known to give some shout outs to people that help.

Posting on TCS.....We encourage you to post on our page. Post a creation that you have made, post an event you are having, ask the group for help on something or just come by to say hi :). All we ask is that you do not spam our wall with your ads and requests.

A final note...TCS is about people helping people. We have a GREAT group of people here and where else can you get this many helpful friends.

Have a great day!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Woohoo 5000!!!!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you,

TCS on Facebook has just hit the 5000 mark with friends. Thats 5000 talented, creative individuals sharing their beautiful work to the world. If you haven't been to our fb page to see the beauty, you are definately missing out. Follow this link, TCS on fb, to see all of the great businesses, sharing and helping each other to succeed. You will be AMAZED at the variety of great items you will find. And behind all that talent is the most wonderful people you will ever meet :)

Thank you again to all of our TCS friends.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Tshirt Logo Design Contest

Hey TCS friends,

Wanna do something fun and creative?

We want to make a Tshirt to raffle off and need a creative logo for it. Something like, TCS ROCKS or I cruise with TCS, as an example.
Who better to ask then you talented individuals?

If you would like to join in the fun, design a logo, approx. 4"x2",  and email it to thecraftshow@gmail.com

TCS will pick and announce the winner 1 week from today.

We will make a Tshirt with the winning logo to give to the winner.

Lets ROCK :)

Saturday, June 11, 2011

In the works

Likes, likes, likes, it's all about likes!!!!

We know that building your fan base is important. But, we also know that the ultimate goal is sales, sales, sales!!!! Networking can be fun and exciting, even addicting. Meeting great people, seeing the talent on each page, having fun. But what can we do about getting some sales. Don't get me wrong, TCS is a networking page, we are far from salesmen. We have some ideas that we are working out the details for, to see if we can create something to give the opportunity for sales. We'll give out the details when we have them ironed out. Keep an eye on our blog and/ or TCS on Facebook for news.
As always, our ears are open to any suggestions our friends may have.

TCS

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

About TCS

Our goal is to help promote the FB pages, websites, blogs, etc of people that work hard creating arts and crafts. Why do we do it? We appreciate talent and creativity.

It is our belief that the best way to promote yourself is to get your page on as many pages as possible. The more pages you join, the bigger your fan base will grow.

We have events listed below that will help build your fan base. It will bring people to your page, but thats only half of the battle. You have to get your business on as many pages as possible. Heres an example of what we are saying: A page comes and "likes" my page. Fantastic I now have a new friend which is great. But, thats just 1 person seeing my work. I go to their page and see that they have 1000 "likes". I put my page there. Now I have 1000 potential friends. The point: If you like me, you see my page. If I like you, all your friends see me. So, again, get your page on as many as you can :)

Heres some events we do to help build your fan base and get you noticed:

The TCS Cruise:Sign up is on our discussion tab. We stop at 20 pages on a cruise. The idea is that everyone on the cruise list follows us, visits and likes the page, then comes back and moves to the next page that we post. A great way to get a good amount of new "friends" in just a few minutes.

Milestone Shout Outs:When we see a page getting close to 1000, 2000, 3000, etc. We will do a shout out to try to help them there quicker. We know how exciting it is so we try to help.

Goal shout outs:People can come ask us to help them reach their next goal. Such as "I am at 175 and my goal is 200, can you help?" Yes we will do shout outs, time permitting and if the request is reasonable. But you should start visiting some of the posts close to your post. Why? Because they are online right then and looking for the same thing you are. New friends to build their fan base.

Mission pages:Almost daily I will pick a page that may be quite far from a Goal or Milestone. Quite far away in my mind is around 50. We will promote this page heavily till the Mission is accomplished. This page is strictly picked at our discretion. But the criteria is usually who we see is helping TCS by cruising along with us, visiting pages we post, shouting US out and being helpful to the group.

We want to help you grow your fan base and get you the exposure you deserve for the hard work you do! But, you have to help us help you.