Proof that social media can help your small business.

It is hard to believe that it is already the middle of  September and that in a month we will be closing our Korcula based shop for the season – remember our jewellery is always available via our website, www.sebasilver.com and that we will be regularly updating our facebook page, Seba Dizajn.

Our store is located on a small side street, Ulica DePolo, in Korcula, Croatia – an isolated location and one that can be very hard to find in this town of many similar looking cobbled lanes. We are now approaching the end of our second season at our store, Seba Dizajn and our website has been live for approximately 18 months.

It has been interesting and rewarding to learn that some of the time we have been putting into our ‘Social Media Campaign’ has paid off – I have been blogging, updating our facebook page and using Twitter and Pinterest to promote both our business and Korcula/Croatia.

This year we have had the pleasure of meeting a number of our facebook fans and twitter followers.  And we have also had some customers find our store via our website, brilliant for a small business in a town full of jewellery shops.  Now that the season is a little quieter I have time for a little more social interaction and have asked a couple of recent customers how they found us – via a google search was the reply from a Canadian filigree fan and also via google for one couple visiting Korcula from San Francisco 🙂

Our first twitter visitor for the summer came via the UK when Sharon Howard who we had ‘met’ via facebook and twitter visited Korcula.

Sharon and her Seba Silver collection.

We enjoyed meeting Sharon, especially as we had been regularly sharing tweets (you can follow us on twitter via this link @SebaDizajn) and Sharon and I had also written guest blog pieces for each others blogs.  You can find a link to Sharon’s blog and to our other bloggers HERE on our ‘Guest Bloggers’ page.

We have also met Lynda Milina who organises and hosts painting and photography courses to Korcula, and had the pleasure of meeting one of Lynda’s groups here for a painting course.  Lynda lives in Canada and spends the summer months here with her family in Lumbarda so she is very well connected and organises excellent tours. We look forward to catching up with Lynda again soon now that the season is drawing to a close and our time is a little more flexible.  Follow this link http://www.slikamilina.ca/, if you think you would like to learn more about Lynda’s business.

Lumbarda reflections

A twitter introduction via a mutual friend led Joanne of Act One Parties to Seba Dizajn – Joanne and I shared tweets while Joanne planned her families Croatia holiday.  We enjoyed a glass of wine together as the sun set and continue to share tweets now that she is back in the UK.  You can also find Joanne via our Guest Bloggers page where she shared a little about starting her business and why she loves organising children’s parties.

Korcula sunset

During the same week that Joanne was in town we also met Ivona Novak of Dubrovnik.com – Ivona and I had also been sharing tweets and we shared a guest blog piece here on our blog, So Many Reasons to love Dubrovnik talking about why Dubrovnik is so great and how Ivonka can help you during your visit.  Ivona and I shared a sunset cocktail and talked about the things we each love about our respective towns, we look forward to eating at some of the great sounding restaurants she recommended in Dubrovnik and to catching up again soon.

We have also met several of our facebook fans here in the store and look forward to welcoming Marie on Thursday for an in store jewellery making experience.   Marie has found her way to us via Alan Mandic of Secret Dalmatia – Alan organises unique and personal holidays in Croatia. I met Alan in Split earlier this year and he has kindly booked several people for  exclusive jewellery making experiences here in our store.

I still feel like such a novice with all aspects of social media while at the same time as I contemplate what I have written I feel delighted that we can make it work for our new and slowly growing business.  I would like to thank and recommend Nikki Pilkington and her series of 30 Day Challenges for providing a lot of guidance along the way. You can also find Nikki on facebook and twitter where she will happily answer your questions.  Thanks also the ‘support groups’ started by Nikki on facebook and all the members who have helped us by answering all sorts of questions from Korcula.

We would love to meet you too, please stop by if you are in Korcula.

Do you have any experiences of meeting your Social Media followers? Leave your experiences below, would love to hear from you.