I have used Bigcartel as my platform for my work as I have used this site in the past and feel I have a basic understanding of how it works. It also has a number of positive aspects;
- Easy to upload products to be sold.
- You can upload and customise the layout and appearance of your page so it suites the work that's on it. I
- Easy for people to buy using paypal and card payments.
I feel that a good thing about using BigCartel over the other sites such as etsy is based on how popular the site is with other users and the amount using it. This can be a good thing for the owners of the web site but I feel with the likes of etsy is it's so over saturated with everyone who's anyone creative using it, this I feel this can limit the amount of people directed to your space on the sight. As you have to sithhed though hundreds of others users making similar work that is then in the same place as yours competing to be bought.
One thing I'm waiting to change is my web address but I need to upgrade my account to be able to use livrid.co.uk which I now own. I will also need to continue to add the products to sell and add pages such as a portfolio page which I can show my past and present images. This will be filled up with merchandise very soon once I pull my finger out and start printing my designs on to garments of clothing.
One of the only downsides is the fact you have to pay a monthly fee to be able to upgrade and have more use of the features that are on the website such as the use of my own domain address, to be able to set limits on products so you can track what stock you have sold or have left, to see where the traffic to the website is coming from and if the methods i have in place work at getting people to my page. But this is not a high fee $9.99 which is just over £8 a month so seems a worthy investment.
I will be adding a link to this page to my other social media pages to bring potential customs directly to my products.
https://www.instagram.com/livrid/ -
Only ever used to show my creative side and the work I produce, its the site I keep up to date the most with my illustrations and images. Using hashtags to mark my work with the methods and subject matter in order to increase the amount of people it's shown to.
Instagram is my favorite place to show off my work and i feel this is due to how simple the site is to use and it's available as an app which is my personal preference. All you have to do is upload a file of your work and post it and thats it, no having to right sentimental messages or say anything that makes you look bigger and cleverer then the next person at all if you dont want. I personally like to add a title and then using the hashtag processes to tag my work with the subject matter and the methods I have used to produce the image, I feel this just helps to broaden the number of people that may click on my image via the hashtagged word.
The only downside is again the amount of accounts on this site due to it being one of the most popular of the social media sites in the world. This has a massive impact as the site is not just used by people in the creative industry, you have to compete with millions of others particularly sifting through pages of selfies which is all too often what is saturating instagram in the current day. This often means your work may go unseen by many.
Instrgram
www.faceboom.com/livrid
I have set up a page on facebook to try promote myself on there too but due to me not using the social media site as much as I used to this has had an effect on the content been applied to the page . Also the fact that all they seem to do is get money out of you to use the account as a business or to promote yourself. But it does have the most amount of users that could potentially see my work. If i had the money i would try put some money into the page to see if it would be successful in bringing in new customers and potential clients, but i don't have any money so this will have to wait to be tested at a later date.
Tumblr
So I also have a Tumblr page which i have to say seems to have not been any help in recent years as i feel the website is not used as much as other platforms and this has an impact on the traffic it pulls to my other pages and sites. It feels like tumblrs days are numbered or is it i just need to make a extra effort on ot to make it work for me.
Linkedin
www.linkedin.com
This is something new to me and I have mixed feelings on it, I'm not sure if at this time in my creative practise this networking is for me just yet. Its use is to contact and connect with other creatives but for my freelance I don't need to be adding friends on a website that do nothing.
WEB ADDRESS
SO getting my prefered web address LIVRID.CO.UK . The idea of using my brand name as the website address feels significant. Customers can become confused if they are redirected to a site that has a completely different name. I plan to upgrade my Big Cartel site and use this as the basis of my website.
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