Thursday, May 09, 2024

BLOG DANCE...


I am coming back to my long-familiar history on Blogspot, which I hope will restore a certain richness which I have long appreciated.

While I have become disenchanted with my stint of trying to blog on Shopify, I continue to celebrate Shopify for many other functions. When my computer guru introduced me to Shopify, he put it simply: 

Shopify is about numbers, while 

Blogspot is about words.

I need both!

My business has been happily busy recently, mostly because my faithful associate, Momo, has been regularly active on the various social media platforms we try to keep up with: Facebook,  Instagram, & TikTok. The last one is especially lively... in numerous ways... most of them ever puzzling.  We've had some posts which have gone viral (up to 47,000 hits), but that has not always resulted in sales. We are trying to tease answers about the algorithms, as are many others. 

We were astounded by a run of sales of the Chocolate Lily Earrings, of which Momo had made-up several dozen pairs last year from an abundance of stock when our foundry mistakenly filled an order twice.  We don't often sell earrings, but something mysteriously "clicked" on TikTok & we've been frequently shipping them out...  sometime 4-5 orders a day! We don't know why, but we're not complaining!

The capabilities of Shopify to keep the sales, mailing & inventory functioning in real time are a boon to me; I do not love numbers & the details of bookkeeping. The program keeps track & analyzes sales & information about customers which will be useful to study how the business is faring in various ways. It can do more than I can easily fathom, much less use at present. I'm happy to keep exploring & learning its capabilities.

But Shopify is not so capable of reflecting the style of my communication. I have long taken pride in my blog. It is more than a tool for the business, which is the way Shopify is programed. I suspect I could keep working to finesse it better, but it simply doesn't seem worth it to try to reinvent what Blogspot already does.

I have often quipped that my blog is "the book I will never write." It is a collection of essays about several decades of my history... with photos. It is wildly variable as to quality. I obviously have found myself posting in many moods and manners. It is very personal. That is, I believe, much of its value.

So this flipping of venues is more of my experimental exploration. I say"venueS" because at this point I will probably post & repost back & forth, in order to educate myself more about how they contrast in use.

You may continue to read my blog on both plstforms: https://www.grbbells.com/blogs/blog &/OR: GRBBELLS.COM...

Biz & Personal, Mixed... as usual. Obviously clarity is not my easy path. 

FINE! 

I bumble well.