One thing I try to do from time to time write thank you card and handwritten notes to people who have bought from me or I’m working with. Not so much to show off my terrible penmanship, but because sending handwritten notes are one of the things that many people still appreciate especially since everything seems to be so automated nowadays with automatic emails, tweets, and Facebook messages.

There’s even some services that will allow you to automate your card and note giving. While I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with a service like that, it’s really not for me. The way I see it, it kind of defeats the purpose of sending the card in the first place if you’re simply automating it like it was an email. It’s the fact that you took the time to actually write the note that has the meaning.

Now of course doing this takes time and effort and we’re all busy. But if you want to start getting into the habit of sending out written notes and thank yous, here are a few things that helps me.

• Be prepared- I try to keep a supply of stamps, thank you cards, and blank note cards on hand so if I want to write a quick thank you or a quick note I don’t have run to the store or the post office first. Here’s a preparation thing that my husband does that’s always impressive. Whenever he’s going to meet someone for an interview, a meeting, or a business gathering, he carries thank you cards with him, already stamped and addressed. He writes his thank you out immediately after the meeting and drops it off at the post office on the way home. Talk about being prepared!

• Plan known events like birthdays and anniversaries- Keep important dates like birthdays and anniversaries on your calendar and review it regularly. When you know a birthday is coming up, write the card a couple weeks before and send it when the birth date gets closer. Like the thank you cards, I make sure I get the birthday cards purchased in advance.

• Set aside a time- While I do spontaneously write thank you’s and notes when the occasion calls for it, I try to plan a specific time every few weeks to write out cards for known events and thank you’s.

• Make it fun- It becomes less of a chore if you find ways to make the process fun. One thing I love is sending out unique, well designed cards, especially if they’re handmade. While buying the more artistic cards can run into a bit more money, it’s also a lot more fun to send them, plus it’s a great way to support some of the great letterpress and stationary artists out there.

• Don’t concentrate on being “perfect”- One reason why I’ve hesitated with sending handwritten notes is because I’ve never liked my handwriting and I always worried about how ugly it would look. It seems to be a pretty dumb reason, but sometimes people hesitate sending notes because they’re not sure what to write, they’re afraid what they’ll write will seem silly, or like me they’re afraid that their hand writing is illegible (or perhaps it actually is). Fact is, most people don’t even notice stuff like that. They’re happy enough at the fact of your thoughtfulness. So while you do want to make sure what you write is thoughtful and looks as nicely written as possible, you don’t need to dwell on it to the point that you never send the note at all.

P.S. If your handwriting really is so hopeless that no one can read your writing you can a) work on improving it, there’s two good books that will teach you how to improve your handwriting; Teach Yourself Better Handwriting by Rosemary Sassoon and Write Now: The Complete Program For Better Handwriting by Barbara Getty. Your second option is b) get someone with better handwriting to write your thank you’s out for you. Just type out your messages and hand your list off to a friend, spouse, or assistant to write out the notes.

So what method do you use to keep in touch with your customers? Leave a comment and let me know!

Card image by Inkspot Workshop

How “sharable” are you? If you happen to catch the attention of a blogger, or a journalist, or even just someone who loves your work and wants to tell others about it, how easy do you make it for them to do so? With the advent of blogging and social networking, making it easy for others to talk about your work can help get the word about you out. How do you make yourself more sharable? Here’s a few tips:

• Provide some easily accessible images of your work. If someone wants to blog about you, they’ll naturally want to include a couple of images. If you lock your images down, only provide teeny images of your work, or otherwise make getting an image a big hassle…a blogger is less likely to bother. If you’re worried about copyright, you can include a watermark of your copyright in your image.

• Make sharing easier by providing links to popular social networking sites and tools like Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and others so that people can easily click a few buttons to share your information with their networks. If you have a blog you can use Feedburner’s FeedFlare or you can use the AddThis or the Share This service on both your regular websites or your blogs.

• Provide easily accessible information about yourself as well as an image as a couple of images of yourself. Pictures of you, your studio, and you actively working in your studio are always useful to bloggers and journalists.

• Make use of media sharing sites like Flickr and Picassa for photos and YouTube for videos. Upload pictures and videos that you want to share with people and encourage people to pass them around.

• Create press room on your website or blog. Here is were you can put images of your artwork, yourself, your studio, your bio, and information about your company all in one place. Public relations expert Joan Stewart discusses what to put in your online press room and how with Ariane Goodwin in their CD How Artists Can Sell More Artwork from Online & Offline Publicity. If you get the chance, check it out.

How “sharable” are you? If you happen to catch the attention of a blogger, or a journalist, or even just someone who loves your work and wants to tell others about it, how easy do you make it for them to do so? With the advent of blogging and social networking, making it easy for others to talk about your work can help get the word about you out. How do you make yourself more sharable? Here’s a few tips:

• Provide some easily accessible images of your work. If someone wants to blog about you, they’ll naturally want to include a couple of images. If you lock your images down, only provide teeny images of your work, or otherwise make getting an image a big hassle…a blogger is less likely to bother. If you’re worried about copyright, you can include a watermark of your copyright in your image.

• Make sharing easier by providing links to popular social networking sites and tools like Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and others so that people can easily click a few buttons to share your information with their networks. If you have a blog you can use Feedburner’s FeedFlare or you can use the AddThis or the Share This service on both your regular websites or your blogs.

• Provide easily accessible information about yourself as well as an image as a couple of images of yourself. Pictures of you, your studio, and you actively working in your studio are always useful to bloggers and journalists.

• Make use of media sharing sites like Flickr and Picassa for photos and YouTube for videos. Upload pictures and videos that you want to share with people and encourage people to pass them around.

• Create press room on your website or blog. Here is were you can put images of your artwork, yourself, your studio, your bio, and information about your company all in one place. Public relations expert Joan Stewart discusses what to put in your online press room and how with Ariane Goodwin in their CD How Artists Can Sell More Artwork from Online & Offline Publicity. If you get the chance, check it out.

It’s always great to have proof that you can do what you love and make a living from it. I’ll end this workweek with this great story from CBS news about artist Alissa Harvey of Mew Paper Arts. (The actual story is after the commercial)

You can visit Alyssa’s website at www.mewpaperarts.com. You can also follow her on Twitter.

P.S. If you’re also lucky enough to gain a TV appearance like Alissa did, whether it’s on CBS, Martha, or even your local news, make sure that your website is prepared by following these tips.

If you have a Facebook Page, Facebook has just come out with a new widget called “Fan Box” that will allow you to advertise your page on your blog or website. This widget will allow people to become fans of your Facebook Page directly from your website. You can also customize it a bit by including your fan block and/or your Facebook Page stream directly in the widget.

Here’s what the widget would look like:

To add your own widget to your website or blog, go to your Facebook Page and click on the “Add Fan Box to your site” link. You’ll be taken to a page with the snippet of code you’ll need to add to your website or blog. That’s all you’ll need to do!

So if you have a Facebook Page, go grab your Fan Box widget and add it to your blog or website. It only takes a few minutes to do, and it will help you get more fans. Also, if you’re not already a Fan of The Crafted Webmaster page…it can always use more! Click my Fan Box up above or here on the side and become my page’s newest fan!