I recently visited a handful of yarn shops in New South Wales Australia. The trip reinforced previous observations I’ve made on yarn shop visits elsewhere in Australia. Some shops really have it together, and have been following the “new world of knitting.” By this I mean using all the tools the internet has to offer, especially Ravelry and Pinterest. Other shops are struggling to enter this new world. For example, one shop I visited would not purchase my shawlsticks because her customers were all older ladies who just knit capes for the nursing homes. I think this shop owner has become a victim to her customers. If she had exciting shop models of shawls and sweaters in her shop that one just couldn’t resist making, she would be on her way to having more creative fun with her customers. She could go a long way to fostering community with her customers, and could even use her older customers as ambassadors to help encourage the younger generation get their creative fire on.

     In the five years I have spent in Australia, I have found a surprising number of people who have never heard of Ravelry. It is an amazing resource for anyone interested in yarn. Their “About” description states:  Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, weavers and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, project and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration. The content here is all user- driven; we as a community make the site what it is. Ravelry is a great place for you to keep notes about your projects, see what other people are making, find the perfect pattern and connect with people who love to play with yarn from all over the world in our forums. As a yarn shop owner, taking advantage of the Ravelry Library feature, and joining the shop owner’s groups would be especially helpful. You can find tutorials  to help you get going, and you can join the online pattern sales feature for your shop. Having a computer or tablet in your shop which your customers can have access to is a good idea.They can have access to the “creative fire” and can make decisions which enable them to buy on the spot.

     Other ways you can foster a more creative community and keep customers coming back would be to start a loyalty club. If you are hesitant to offer monetary discounts, try offering extra time with an instructor after a class. Make a one skein project section in your shop so that customers can see cool projects that won’t break the bank. Support your local dyers, spinners and crfaters, by hosting a pop-up shop within your shop on a Saturday. Partner with local food establishments and host a joint yarn and food tasting. Read the Craft Yarn Council’s article about knitting and health to gain inspiration on how your shop could reach out to the community and ignite a creative fire in those who are struggling with health issues. Subscribe to email newsletters from other shops. Two that tend to post good Ravelry info are: The Knitter's Edge, and Suzy Hausfrau.

     I’ve written two  Previous blog posts about Pinterest, you can find lots of info there. Let me add that Pinterest has added a guided search option to their site that will help you find both what you were looking for, and things you never knew existed! Also note that a huge percentage of the pictures pinned on Pinterest come from Ravelry.  I give three cheers to Cherry Hills Yarn Shop in Sydney. Sue has jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon, and says that she and her customers often refer to her Pinterest boards on the ipad she keeps in the shop. I love seeing what she posts in my daily Pinterest feed. Besides wanting you to fall in love with my shawlsticks, I aim to be a helpful resource in this wonderfully creative world of yarn that we all engage in together. I hope I have helped. Thanks for reading.

Curating is a word that appears frequently in discussions about Pinterest. It means to pull together, sift through, and select for presentation. This implies some thoughtful planning and careful selection.

I wanted to provide a list of yarn shops that had well curated Pinterest boards to visit. Sadly, I had a hard time finding a nice list of good ones, and starting a list of shops with poor Pinterest boards is unproductive. Constructive criticism would point to boards that have more than 300 pins on them. How could I ever begin to sift through 500-1,000 pins to maybe find an inspiring idea? It is much smarter to have 100 boards with specific categories than it is to have a few boards jam packed with a jumble of ideas on various subjects. Make sure to delete duplicate pins as well. The other weak presentation I encountered were boards   with 6 or less pins on them. This implies that the pinner has forgotten about maintaining a strong presence on Pinterest. You can keep a board secret until it is filled out and ready for a good debut. The message as always is balance. Don't be skimpy, and don't overload.  I have updated my list of board suggestions in my previous post Pinterest A Power Tool for Your LYS, please refer to it for ideas.

The more useful and specific content you can publish on Pinterest to showcase your yarn shop, the more trusted you become to your viewers, who may turn into future customers. Shop models sell yarn. True? Then start pinning some well curated photographs of the samples in your store (past and present) so that you have a visual record to refer to. Start promoting Pinterest to your customers on a daily basis. Keep an ipad, or other picture taking device that can post easily to the internet handy in your shop. You and your customers will have fun plumping out your Pinterest boards with creative photos. Make sure to link them to your store by adding a link in the source space on the edit page for that particular pin. This can be done on the ipad while connected to Pinterest on safari, not through the app.  Delegate curation of your Pinterest boards to your employees so the task of keeping current is not overwhelming.

I would truly love to assemble a list of links to yarn shops on Pinterest. I found that searching for them through the Pinterest search engine was a bit frustrating. If you want to share your boards with me, please follow me or send me an email. If you email me, I can invite you to pin on my most followed board: Ways to Wear Shawl Pins. Once I collect a nice list of yarn shops on Pinterest, I will send a newsletter to announce it.

I am looking forward to a well curated world of fiber related pins!
Cheers,
Lindsay

Pinterest is sensational. It is that simple. It is a visual feast for the imagination, and a fantastic tool for showcasing all that your yarn store has to offer. It far excels Facebook as a showcase for your business. A brief look at a picture speaks volumes, and those of us in a creative industry like knitting and crochet can really go to town communicating with each other via Pinterest. Think of Pinterest as a “pre-shopping”place, a creative smorgasbord where your customers will assemble ideas they can use in their hand made goods. In a world where time has become a valuable currency, a well done Pinterest page can engage and inspire your customers along the avenues that they choose to explore. The more specific your Pinterest boards are, the less likely a visitor to your page will navigate away. They will check out the board topics that they want to spend time on, and not feel frustrated that they have to sift through tons of material to find the inspiration they are seeking.

To learn how to use Pinterest, I recommend the book Pinfluence by Beth Hayden. You can visit her website to learn all about what she has to offer. There are many other Pinterest experts out there in cyber space, and Pinterest itself has information to get you started. If you are not a member of Pinterest yet, I suggest joining as a business. This will give you the ability to verify your website with Pinterest and will give you access to Pinterest Analytics so you can track how your pins are doing. If you are already a member of Pinterest, you can rejoin as a business. One of the most helpful things to me has been how to use PicMonkey to edit and create pictures to use for all my online endeavors. Repinning photos on Pinterest is fine, but the more original photos you publish from your own shop the better.  This link on YouTube explains how to create images starting with a blank photo.  This link is a general PicMonkey tutorial, and this link is how to edit collages in PicMonkey.

Can Pinterest be a time suck? Oh Yes!  It is a fun one though, and easy to use. With thoughtful planning before you set up all your boards, and with the help of all your employees, Pinterest can rocket your shop and its creative online presence into a fabulous new dimension. I am not a fan of a board that has only one or two pins on it. It tells me that the pinner is not organized, and is not staying current with that board. The solution to this is to use the secret board option and wait to publish until your board has been filled out. Again, I cannot stress enough how important it is to be specific with your boards. A good example of this is Knitomatic. One board I visited on another yarn shop page was titled organization and it ended up being filled with knitting cartoons, a turn off and a time waster in my opinion. One of  Beth Hayden's best tips, and this is true for all social media, is to share and solve rather than schill. This will ensure your customer's loyalty, and not turn them away.

I have created a list of board topics to get you going. If you want to keep a professional look to your Pinterest page, I would suggest staying away from food recipes and other unrelated topics.

The final Pinterest feature I want to mention is  guest pinning. It is well explained in this article by Tehmina Zaman. If you are jazzed  by my board, Ways to Wear Shawl Pins, please email me and I will invite you to pin. Now, dive in to Pinterest and have fun!

Lindsay Gates

   Welcome again to Foofaraw.  As I write my blog  I want to concentrate on LYS (local yarn store) owners and managers.  We are in the business of connecting with those who knit and crochet, aspiring to further them along  on their creative path.
    When I write an email newsletter, I try to pass on information that relates to the business of knitting and crochet. It is so frustrating to spend time creating email newsletter content, sending it out to over 1,500 yarn shops, and have only 400 or so people open them. I am not into generating tons of sales pitches all the time. I prefer sending out 5 or 6 email letters per year and hope to share some knowledge, tips, or insights I have collected as I run the business of Foofaraw. I love what I do, feel blessed to have something I can do in both the countries I live in (Australia & the USA), and hope that I keep learning more and more to share with you as time goes on.
   My first post will be a recap of my Fall 2012 newsletter. I shared some information I learned from Rena Tom, who writes about creative retail strategy. I highly recommend signing up for her newsletter. She has good insight and information to share.

   I did my first ever trade show at Stitches Midwest in August 2012. I really wanted to catch some of the buzz I see and read about the world of knitting and crochet on my Twitter feed and elsewhere on the internet. My goal was to break even, which I achieved. All the bits and pieces I learned from doing the show were invaluable. Would I do it again? Yes, but infrequently. I realized upon visiting yarn shops in the area afterwards that there are a lot of mixed feelings about big yarn shows and, of course, the big online yarn vendors. I have always wanted to keep Foofaraw mostly exclusive to the LYS. I have no interest in Etsy and selling one shawlstick at a time to your potential customers. Which brings me back to Rena Tom and the subject of your open sign.
   Rena had an article on her blog titled Open and Closed, it is a must read and has lots of great pictures to get your creative juices flowing. Reading the article reinforces the idea that your LYS has a personality that the big box and online stores can never match. Capitalizing on the idea for a fun, unique open sign is a huge step in getting customers to walk into your shop. Plus it is your first chance to show your customers what kind of charisma you've got.
   I think one of the main reasons people go to the big events and festivals is for creative inspiration and innovation. They also go to interact with others and to share in their love of craft. The big attraction of a LYS is the sense of community you provide to your customers. Big events may come and go, but you and your staff are always there to welcome your customers in.
   As I spend most of my year in Australia, I won't be doing a lot of retail events like Stitches, which will mean that the LYS is the main place where people can purchase Foofaraw Shawlsticks. They are one way of keeping a unique product in your shop that your customers can't get anywhere else. Another attraction for your customers could be a book club which welcomes knitting during the discussion. One shop I sell to had a shawl of the month club and she has bought more Foofaraws than any other shop I sell to! Keep your LYS intriguing by having mini festival-like events and trunk shows. I invited some if the indie designers on Ravelry to participate in my booth with their own trunk shows. I think Laura Aylor sent more people over to the booths selling the yarns used in her shawls than I could count. Her designs were strikingly simple. A shop model does sell yarn, I watched it happen over and over again with All Shades of Truth and Derecho.
   Thanks for reading my 1st blog post!
 
Lindsay