twitter – CraftyGuider

#SBSevent2015 – Meeting Theo Paphitis

On January 30th, Mr CG, the monkey and I headed to the ICC in Birmingham for the #SBSevent2015. For those not in the know, #SBS is the twitter hashtag for Small Business Sunday, an initiative set up by Theo Paphitis. Small business owners tweet to @theopaphitis on Sundays between 5pm and 7.30pm. He personally chooses 6 winners and retweets them to his 462,199 followers (at time of writing). I won on 6th January 2014 and for a week my twitter feed went mad, I wrote press releases for the local paper and the national Guiding magazine and tried to put Craftyguider out there.About every 12 months or so, all winners of the #SBS awards get to go to a big event for networking, Q&A and meeting the man himself. I felt a bit out of my depth as I’m not a career woman any more. Craftyguider is a fundraising venture and I take no money from the business other than material costs. It’s lovely when people do buy from me as it means a lot that someone has appreciated something I’ve created, and it means a lot to my Guides who benefit from the money that I invest in the unit.

After the networking session, Kypros Kyprianou, Group CEO of Ryman Stationery (and fellow Spurs fan!), took to the stage to introduce the next part of the day, and then his boss, Theo Paphitis.Theo talked through some of the great things that were happening with SBS, including the newly updated SBS website. I’ve been on and updated my profile page already.

After lunch, there was a Q&A session with Julien Callede, co-founder of Made.com, Judy Naake who introduced St Tropez tans to the UK, and Rob Forkan, co-founder of Gandy’s flip flops.

Towards the end of the questions (which overran their time slot), some people started queuing for their photo with Theo. I didn’t as I thought it would be a bit rude to walk out on the session, and I was interested in what people were saying. Some people had long journeys ahead of them though, and with the cold weather, they probably needed to get away as quickly as possible.And this is me with my certificate and Theo. By this time, I managed to squeak to him that I was Craftyguider, a Guide leader who made things, before my voice gave out completely! Mr CG has had the benefit of me being almost silent for more than 48 hours now. We collected our goody bags and fortunately had a clear journey home to relieve my parents from their 24 hour babysitting stint.

And when I got home, I found I’d been nominated to receive a Certificate of Good Service from Girlguiding Hertfordshire “for being totally devoted to Girlguiding and for helping in many and varied roles”. Whilst my #SBS is fantastic, this Guiding award is more special to me. It means that 2 people have taken the trouble to write nomination letters for me, my commissioner has agreed the nomination, and that the awards committee have approved it.

I’ll be back at #SBS next year. Mr CG has said he might want me to try and get an #SBS for his company, and eldest Craftyguidelet will shortly launch her polymer clay jewellery. #SBS winner at 8 years old?

Girlguiding UK Big Gig 2014

Wem-ber-leee, Wem-ber-leee, Wem-ber-leee! No, sorry. It’s not football, it should be “HELLO WEMBLEY. GIVE ME A SCREAM!!!!!” Cue 10,000 Guides and their leaders at Girlguiding UK’s Big Gig to raise the roof of Wembley Arena for the biggest event of the Guiding calendar in the eyes of my Guides. A real pop concert with real chart names.

On Saturday 4th October, 13 Guides, one Guide mum and 2 leaders left a train station in Hertfordshire to go down to Wembley Arena to join 10,000 other Guiding types for the second Big Gig of the day. The Guides were excited. The mum was excited. The 2 leaders, let’s face it, were doing their duty to their Guides and going along so the Guides didn’t miss out on the trip. I’ve heard of Union J and Little Mix but couldn’t (and still can’t) identify any of their songs. I think I’ve seen Diversity do their thing. Kingsland Road? Mike Dignam? Neon Jungle? I don’t think I’ve ever heard Ken Bruce play any of their songs on Radio 2 so there’s no hope for me there!

I tweeted about the event in the morning and after one of my tweets, Mike Dignam followed me on Twitter! “Wow!” I thought, “This will impress the Guides!”. Nope. They’d never heard of him either!

After a bit of Google and Wikipedia revision, I felt prepared for the trip (one member of Union J has strange eyebrows so I’m sure to recognise them, therefore Kingsland Road will be the ones without the eyebrows).

A completely smooth trip by train and tube and we took our seats. As you can see from the picture, we were quite a way back, but as tickets are allocated by lottery, you don’t get to choose.These were a great find thanks to the #BigGig2014 hashtag on twitter. They hand them out for free at the information counters and someone had tweeted about it. They came in handy for the Little Mix set at the end!10,000 Guides with their phones lit up is a fantastic sight. Add to that the flashing bunny ears, freaky hair and illuminated squid heads and it looked brilliant.And then I became a cool Guide leader. Mike Dignam came up on stage. “He’s WELL fit!” came the cry from the Guides. “Is he the one that follows you on twitter?”. Kimberly Wyatt (ex-Pussycat Dolls and Got To Dance judge – I’ve heard of her!) was hosting and posted a selfie on Instagram which I liked and commented on on behalf of my Guides. I was a social media queen for them.

Stooshe was a surprise, and were a hit with the Guides. Ken Bruce has played them so I was able to show my knowledge there too! And I’d heard of Stacey Solomon too.

Once Little Mix had finished, we managed to dash to the train station before the rush and got home before I turned into a pumpkin. I even got some thank yous from the Guides without them being nudged to do it by their mums!

The Big Gig is a fabulous event organised by Girlguiding UK twice a year all over the UK. I’ve been going fairly regularly since they started more than 10 years ago. I’ve seen Ed Sheeran (before he was a megastar, absolutely brilliant with just a guitar and some pedals), Orson, Shayne Ward (Google him if you don’t remember), Pixie Lott, Eliza Doolittle, Lawson, Conor Maynard, Dionne Bromfield, Katy B, Olly Murs, Amelia Lily, JLS, Scouting for Girls, Lil’ Chris, Sugababes, Aleesha Dixon, McFly, The Saturdays and loads more.

The only way Guides can enjoy events like this is if more people volunteer. We were only able to go because of the Guide mum who was willing to step in and be an extra adult. You don’t have to be a leader to support Guiding. We need people to test badges, do accounts, help once a term in meetings, or even come to pop concerts.

And by the way, Mike Dignam has since unfollowed me on twitter. Obviously handmade cards and news on the Craftyguidelet’s broken arm weren’t his thing. His loss!

January Review

And just like that, it’s the 31st January! One month of 2014 has passed and the next 11 months are stretched out ahead, full of promise. On the whole it’s been a good January for me. I’ve felt a lot better (apart from putting my back out in the last few days), I’ve made decisions on what I want to do with the business and my blogging, and I’m in a positive frame of mind.
January started really well for me. A couple of days after my birthday, I won a retweet from Theo Paphitis, and my twitter feed exploded with new followers and good wishes.
I managed to get my craft on and make cards, get some scrapbook layouts made, finish some decoupage and get some sewing done. It’s the most creative I’ve been for a long time.
I’ve also started crochet lessons which is something I’ve wanted to do for a couple of years now. My doubles and trebles lesson was a bit more successful than my tea gloves lesson. Perhaps it’s because I don’t drink tea, I just don’t have the tea gloves gene in me.
Probably my greatest achievement is to get more organised. My magazine mountain is now a foothill, and several WIPs have been completed. I’ve got a long way to go still, but with each mini breakthrough, I feel more weight coming off my shoulders.

How was your January?

Theo Paphitis #SBS Winner

I wanted to get more focused on my blog and my webshop in 2014. I’m still on catch up, so my targets for January were just to get my workspace organised. Simple but achievable.

However, I did start a couple of things. I have a plan in place for what themes I am concentrating on for www.craftyguider.com month by month. I have started following more accounts on instagram, pinterest and twitter, as well as more blogs on bloglovin, and I started entering Theo Paphitis’ Small Business Sunday competition on twitter. Two weeks in, I won!

My winning tweet said “When I was a Guide, I earned 2 Craft badges. Now I’m a leader, I design and make badges.”

I am so pleased Theo Paphitis personally chose me, and having had a quick look through the #SBS winners website, the benefits are fabulous, I’ve increased my exposure on twitter, and I hope this, with a bit of hard work, translates to more sales in my webshop. And best of all, I hope to meet Theo and get a certificate at his next winners event.

I’d love to hear from you if you have any creatives you think I should be following on social media. And obviously feel free to click on the links above to follow me!

10 reasons why I don’t follow everyone back on Twitter

I don’t work with other people. The majority of my social interaction in a day is talking to children, or talking about children. Apart from my husband and a few mums on the school run, I don’t get any grown up conversation at all.

Then a little bird came into my life. I discovered twitter some time ago and I’ve made some great connections on there. Some people I’ve met in real life, others I’d love to meet. Twitter connections encouraged me to start Craftyguider, to try crochet, I’ve had support when I was down, ideas to put into my Guide meetings and hopefully I’ve managed to inspire and help others occasionally as well. I’ve still got a long way to go to be as popular as some, but I hope my ramblings in 140 characters are mainly worthwhile.

Recently I’ve been followed by people doing the Purpledog Challenge. The object is to follow 10 new people a day and they follow you back to increase your business network. Some timelines interested me so I followed back, but others just got ignored, which is what inspired this blog post. One person seemed to send out her 10 tweets a day just saying “@—– I followed you with the #PDChallenge. Please follow me back.’ However she didn’t seem to tweet much else.

Sometimes I don’t have the time to sit down and go through my new follows for a few days, but I do try and keep up regularly. And sometimes I even take the time to be proactive and browse through some of the suggestions Twitter puts forward, and sometimes, they are even relevant to me!

Why do I choose to follow back certain accounts on twitter and not others? This is the top 10 I came up with.

1. Auto DMs – “Thanks for following me. Check out my FB page and like me. Visit my website.” This is spammy. If you want to thank someone for following you, make the effort and manually type something. I’ve had people tweet to me and say they liked something from my website. It may be something they looked at for 2 seconds on my homepage, but it felt like they had made an effort. An auto DM has me reaching for the unfollow button.

2. Every tweet is a Facebook link. I know that people link their Facebook accounts to twitter. The odd one is fine, however, if I wanted to follow you on Facebook, I would get a Facebook account and like you (is that the correct term?). Not all Facebook links work because I’m not on Facebook, so there’s not much point in me following you.

3. Just retweets. Do you not have anything to say for yourself?

4. Over hashtagging. They are meant to make it easier to search for something, not to take up most of the 140 characters.

5. People who just sell things. Yes, it’s nice to see what you make, but if it’s not something I want to buy, you aren’t providing me with any other reason to follow you.

6. No interaction. It’s like someone who just talks at you all the time and never bothers to listen.

7. Thanks for following. It’s OK, but some people just tweet thank you’s and forget to tweet anything else.

8. Retweeting every tweet you are mentioned in. I’m pleased that you have received a lot of Follow Friday mentions, but do you really need tell us about every single one?

9. Follow Friday’ing everyone in your follower list or everyone who has interacted with you in the last week. Just pick a few who you really enjoy interacting with and explain why I should follow them, rather than a long list of names.

10. Just following people who follow you back. I’m sure my tweets don’t interest everyone that I follow so I don’t expect to be followed back. As long as what you are tweeting interests me, I’ll stick with you.

I’m not into twitter for the number of followers. I’d love it if everyone bought things from my website, but it’s not why I’m on twitter. I belong to a SOCIAL network where people interact, share and support each other. I love having friends in my phone.

If you would like to follow (or unfollow!) me on twitter, follow the link and we could be having some deep and meaningfuls soon.

What annoys you most on twitter, or what keeps you addicted to those 140 character messages every day?