CyberLyly Plastic fantastic Summer '09 now in stock !

Lets hear it for the long awaited arrival of the Summer '09 collection of Plastic Fantastic jewellery from CyberLyly.

Yes we do know its taken ages, but honestly its not us, we're not quite sure which scenic route the boat took ? But its here now.

We have zingy Summer hues of Turquoise, blues and greens, and a sofer colourway of pinks, lilacs and zingtastic reddy pinks to rock your look right through this lovely Summer.

All the new jewellery is now on our website (well it will be from Friday morning) so perhaps we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, but the news is too good not to share !

Watch out for new releases next week in our graphic traffic collection - tell the world how you really really feel !

So, here's to a colourtastic weekend !

What's new....

Just noticed that we haven't posted for a while, so this is a kind of a catch up !

We're hard at work on our new catalogues for September issue, as you can imagine this is lots of work, so we'll be fairly quiet and heads down for a bit.

Harrogate preparations are underway - we're in DesignPoint 1-98 ! We hope we'll see lots of you there? We're taking a selection of our ranges with lots of new items for the summer... We'll be looking forward to a nice few days - hot but not too hot, if you know what we mean, it can get pretty roasting in those tents...!

New people have joined us, You'll hear Mark on the telephone with Charlie, and David who's come to manage our despatch operation and even up the guy/girl ratio. On our team of the battle of the sexes, we have the lovely Stephanie and Natalie who make sure your orders go out right !

Retailrehab is growing rapidly and we've been asked to speak at both IJL & the Autumn Fair, on how to promote your businesses on a budget, so we're preparing our seminar and looking forward to this opportunity.

Hannah has left to get lots of sleep in before her baby arrives and the rest of us are working hard, avoiding getting distracted by the beautiful sunny weather to concentrate on the orders and the new designs for Autumn / Winter 2009.

Happy sizzling summer, hopefully all those staycations are having a booming effect on your cashregisters !

Hope to see you at Harrogate !

Blogs, blogging and new social media !

Blogs, blogging and new social media !

This is taken from our June top tips, which get sent out by email at the beginning of each month, if you're not on our list, or you haven't received them, give us a call or drop us an email to let us know....

First up, lets start with a definition of what a blog is, so there’s no confusion:

A blog is a derivative of the term web – log. Its normally run by one person but it can be run by several with contributions by interested parties. Its updated regularly and can feature graphics or video, as well as quizzes, questions and comments. It runs in reverse order with the most recent articles or posts as they’re known coming at the top of the blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others are used more as online personal diaries. There’s many different kinds of blogs, personal ones, corporate ones, question answering ones and genre blogs to name a few.

Since blogs are posted online, they’re arguably interconnected and this interconnectivity is called the blogosphere. It now has its own rules, communities and search engines. There are also micro blog sites such as Twitter which only allow users to post messages of 140 characters at a time.

So, what’s all the fuss about, what’s the importance of blogging?

Well, blogging gives people and in our case businesses a voice, they’re invaluable for interacting with customers and engaging with and attracting potential new customers. As you control the information you put out you can promote your business as you wish it to be promoted and gain search engine ranking (as content rich sites rise up through search engine rankings)

So should your Business be Blogging?

The answer is pretty much - YES! Whatever product or services your business provides you should be blogging now. Unless you hate writing or have nothing of interest to say. Blogging is basically free, the only cost is your time, but sadly, most businesses are still not taking advantage of this simple, easy and inexpensive way to promote their business.

These are the top five reasons why you should be blogging:

1. Blogging creates authority: If you put out good content, then you can brand yourself as an expert in your field. Experts are trusted, which can only reflect well in your sales.

2. Interaction with customers: Your customers can read your posts and comment on them, getting into dialogue with your customers builds relationships, and strong relationships are at the base of sound businesses.

3. Keywords: Blogging allows you to add keyword dense content to your site – this will attract customers searching for your keywords online.

4. Branding your business is in your hands: You can present yourself as witty, personable, humble, expert, intelligent, however you see fit – blogs are a great way for your customers and prospects to see the people behind the business who are often hidden behind walls of minders …

5. Content – adding new content to your site regularly will bring in a steady stream of new prospects or customers, its also a reason for existing customers to check back, to see what’s new…. Its one of the mysteries of the human brain – none of us like to miss something we think we should know about.

The most used excuses for not blogging are lack of knowledge or time.

So for a quick knowledge burst head over to blogger to sign up for a free blog site that you can customise with your own template.

As for time, if you’re already issuing press releases, or writing a newsletter then this shouldn’t be a giant leap for you… Just re-write the piece for your blog and post it online.

There’s also a host of free resources on line about almost any kind of industry you can imagine, so if you read things that are interesting to you, and you think they’d be interesting to your readers too, then you can share them…

Don’t be put off, it sounds much more complicated than it actually is – Have a go, in the words of a famous sports brand – just do it !

You’ll be surprised, you might even enjoy it !