I was sitting down this morning, drinking my coffee and trying to get my brain in gear for the day while watching the Today show.  The feature was about Valentine’s Day and great personal gifts to give…great!  Maybe some ideas!  They went a few along with big name websites such as Snapfish and Pier One and then showed a personalized fishing lure telling this national audience that they could purchase at Etsy.com.  Anyone else see a problem here?  My heart just sank! You can check out the story here….

Etsy is a beast of a website but the Today show did not give the artists’ shop name or any way to really find him or her beyond Etsy front page.  I did a fast search for “personalized fishing lure” in handmade and found 1,368 results from multiple artists.  This hard working artist had the promotion of a lifetime to a national audience and there is NO WAY to find them.

This leads me to this question to all artists out there….who will they send your potential customers to?  Do you have your own website, even if it is a blog that directs people to your shop on another venue to purchase?  If someone finds one of your fabulous treasures and decides to feature it, will customers be able to find you?

There is nothing at all wrong with taking advantage of a site with built in traffic, a shop set up and ready to go and a community of artists; but when it comes to taking advantage of every opportunity to be found, be sure that your 15 minutes of fame are not wasted when a customer can not find you!

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