Keeping everything in one spot

I really like the saying: Don’t keep your all eggs in one basket. It is on my mind, especially now when I see so many changes around me and in the POD world. This is something I am more aware of now than a few years ago – and making changes based on it.

I have selected platforms that I think are fairly stable – for me, it is still Amazon and Etsy (and testing Zazzle) but I have started my own albeit tiny blog, that will be only mine, not dependent on anybody else. It is growing very slowly, actually, the growth has been so slow that it highly discouraging. When I log in, I am greeted only with spam comments and bot visits. Ahh, patience, patience girl – that is all I can say to myself at this point. I was very tempted to spend some money on Jasper (Jarvis) AI to help me grow but now I am holding my horses, so to speak, after Google stated very clearly – no AI-created content in its vicinity…Personally, I think, that it will change in the future but at the moment Google is the doorkeeper – so not worth messing around with it.

On that note, I do think that the internet space that seemed years ago so vast and egalitarian, will become segmented among the biggest few and the access will be a lot harder to get for free. I have tried to utilize more visibility with some Ads but it did not deliver and I am too small to through my money at it. While we are talking about the future, yes, I do think, there will be new options for small businesses and I am sure, lots of clever people are drafting it now as we speak. But it will take time to materialise. Until then, I have to rely on my strategies and productivity.

With regards to Social Media, I am devoting my time only to Pinterest and YouTube. The other media ‘just ask’ too much in return for exposure. And I don’t have hours and hours to feed the greedy algos.

And of course, the last piece of the puzzle of my strategy is self-education. I really spent a lot of time on that. Currently going through a really good and inspiring course. It is from someone I have been following on Youtube for the longest time. That is also the reason, I finally signed up for a course. Even if I don’t make what the course promises, I am still happy for that person to get the sale. Just because of this ‘relationship’ that is based on trust. This is actually also a very valuable lesson for me. If you are able to have a small audience that resonates with you, that is actually enough. But you do have to keep certain qualities that are different from big companies:

1. You have to be authentic and really be yourself, companies are not able to do this as it is always a massive group of faceless people, they try to make up for it with an influencer/celebrity face but here you have a massive advantage – it is really you, normal human-like your customers
2. I know that everyone is advising this – brand yourself, make yourself into a brand, and yes, it works especially if you want to turn into a big company. But for me personally, it is a turn-off. I do not like people turning into a brand as they sooner or later lose that personal touch. I really prefer ordinary people making their craft or doing what they do best, and I do not need the hear their ‘value proposition.’ So yes, be yourself and tell your own story as it is.
3. Big companies will drop anything that does not bring big bucks but the small guy can thrive here and is very specialised and focused.

So that is all, I have been thinking and working on this summer. I have included a little schema as some of you prefer visuals 🙂

Have a great summer dear friends and keep on going!