Gecko Fabric Art: January 2018

Monday, 8 January 2018

A post in defence of Facebook

I've seen a lot of Facebook-bashing posts from small business owners recently, and I thought I'd add my tuppence-worth.

If we'd set up home-based businesses twenty years ago, we'd have had to put a card in the post office, or do a leaflet drop, or take out an ad in the local paper. Now, we can reach hundreds of millions of people across the world FOR FREE from the comfort of our living rooms. Which I think you have to agree is a pretty amazing thing!

But Facebook wasn't created to help small businesses promote themselves. It was created as a social network. People use Facebook to check up on friends, chat to people and lol at cats (or whatever the latest meme happens to be – I realise I'm about 15 years out of date with my lolcatz reference...) People primarily don't come on Facebook to shop, so it isn't geared towards helping you sell your wares. If you just want a marketplace to sell your items, go to Etsy. Facebook is about you connecting with your followers socially, and developing a relationship with them.

“Facebook is hiding my posts.” There are currently 2 billion people using Facebook. There has to be an algorithm used so that we're not bombarded with useless posts. People don't come on Facebook to shop, they come on to socialise, so any post that looks like a sales post will be penalised by the Facebook algorithm – because it's not what people want to see. To beat the Facebook algorithm, you have to post stuff that is interesting to your followers.

Facebook cannot show you posts from every person you're friends with and every page you've clicked “like” on – there's simply too much content. One way Facebook determines if you want to see content from a particular source is how often you interact with that source – i.e. if you like or comment on their posts. So if you want your followers to see your posts, you have to write posts that they want to like or comment on. (But please don't beg for interactions, that just makes you look desperate...) Then Facebook will realise that those people want to see your posts and will continue to show them.

“Facebook just wants us to pay for ads.” Well, maybe they do, they are a business after all. Businesses need to generate income somehow, and as they offer an amazing platform for free, they do rely on businesses placing ads for their revenue. This does not make them evil. This makes them a business. You don't work for free and neither should Facebook. Get over it.

As a business, you shouldn't be afraid of spending money on marketing yourself. If you know how Facebook works, and you have lots of time to spend networking and promoting yourself, yes you can do a lot for free. But advertising does work (otherwise the commercial breaks on TV would be a lot shorter!) and you have to pay for it. Paying to promote your business does not make you a mug, it makes you a business. Just make sure you target it properly so you're not wasting your money.

So in conclusion, yes Facebook can be annoying at times, yes it has glitches that should be fixed and yes sometimes the automated spam filters etc are over-zealous and punish you unfairly. But instead of spending your energy complaining about it, spend some time understanding how Facebook works so you can navigate it safely and effectively for your business. And say a little thank you every now and then, and be grateful for what it enables you to do.

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My business, Gecko Fabric Art, offers a range of beautifully made quilted items which can be customised to your requirements with bespoke appliqué designs. Mug rugs, notebook covers, wall hangings, cushions, Kindle cases, make up bags and more, each made from scratch just for you with a design created just for you. I'm always delighted to discuss custom creations, so please do get in touch if there are any gifts you need help with!

www.facebook.com/GeckoFabricArt

www.GeckoFabricArt.etsy.com

www.GeckoFabricArt.co.uk

jenny@GeckoFabricArt.co.uk

Stop calling women "mumpreneurs!"

(I wrote this a couple of years ago so the ages of my kids have changed, but I still feel the message just as strongly now as I did then!)

This morning I was helping Little Gecko No.1 build her lego rocketship that she got for her birthday. As a feminist, I was pleased to note that (a) she was just as excited about building a rocketship as she had been last year about building a princess castle, and (b) that there was both a male and a female astronaut included in the lego set. However, when it came to the spanner in the set (of which there was only one), I was horrified to hear her say: "Which one is the boy astronaut? He has to have the spanner because girls don't use spanners."

This triggered a long monologue from me about how girls are just as capable of using spanners as boys are, tools aren't just for boys, and there's no reason in the world why a girl shouldn't use a spanner just as much as a boy does. She responded with "well I've never seen a girl builder," and as far as she is concerned, that seemed to trump all my arguments.

Which makes me very sad. We live in a society where, although things are much better than they used to be, children grow up seeing that "boys do this, and girls do that" and it shapes their beliefs, attitudes and expectations. It saddens me that boys are brought up believing they can be engineers, astronauts, firemen, surgeons, businessmen; and girls are brought up believing they should be nurses, hairdressers and secretaries. Not that there is anything wrong with being a nurse, hairdresser or secretary - but girls shouldn't be limited to think that they can only do those jobs.

I've had my eldest, at the age of 6, say that she doesn't like maths any more because "girls aren't good at maths." This is despite her being brilliant at maths and her mum (i.e. me!) having gotten a degree in maths. It upsets me that even at this early age, her expectations on what she is able to achieve are being limited because she's a girl. We need to be building up our little girls' expectations, making sure they know there aren't any limits on their dreams and ambitions, and teaching them to reach for the skies.

So I would encourage you, please, if you have children (boys or girls) to teach them that girls are just as capable as boys, and that their ambitions should be based on what they truly want to do, not what society says they should do based on their gender.

I find there is also a lot of insidious sexism in the grown up world too. Sometimes it's the things that are supposedly helping women that are actually reinforcing the notion that women are not as good as men. One example is the invention of the word "mumpreneur" to describe a mum who starts her own business. But to me, by having a distinction between an entrepreneur who is a mum and an entrepreneur who isn't, it reinforces the divide and somehow makes the mum seem less capable and less worthy of the term entrepreneur. There is no separate term for dads who are entrepreneurs - it would be ridiculous to suggest that there needs to be a special category to denote male entrepreneurs who are fathers and those who aren't. So why are we so accepting of it when it applies to women? (And don't even get me started on the way the media spend their time evaluating the outfits of female MPs, instead of focussing on what they're talking about!)

And I'll finish with this little story, which I love, about the young woman who tweeted Emma Watson and said "I really want to become an engineer but my dad doesn't think girls should be engineers. What can I say to change his mind?" (I'm paraphrasing. I may have gone over the 140 character tweet limit there, I'm not sure!) And Emma Watson replied: "Become an engineer."

We won't change the world by talking about doing things. We'll change the world by getting out there and actually doing the things. So my thought for the day is, to think about what it is you want to do but feel that you're not able to. And just go ahead and do it.