eSMArts is a group of Social Marketing Artisans who have come together as a team, using etsy and yahoo groups to connect and communicate.  From there, the group goals are to use cutting edge social marketing in order to promote their work, much like a group of artisans might come together, sharing store expenses, marketing and advertising costs. Except, in this case, the costs are minimal in terms of actual dollars; esmarts members invest time and energy in working on their designs, stores, blogs and cross promotions.

eSMArts members are from all over the world. Members have been from Canada, Australia, Belgium, and the United States, at least!

Unicorn Gem Store link

Girl in the Woods link

Coastal Artist link

There are members with American Indian heritage, who create paintings and jewelry, as well as horn pipes, decorative gourds and gourd bowls and more! There are jewelry artists and those that also provide jewelry-making supplies. Others make lampwork beads of all sorts, color and shapes. eSMArts members are also textile artists, creating purses, wall hangings and crochet/knit projects. The images in the next section provide hyperlinks to those online stores and/or team members blogs, so you can learn more about the group and the creativity demonstrated by its members.

Jewelry Elegance by Jill

eSMArts is a team organized around goals of social marketing, using the internet and social marketing tools and websites to promote the creativity of all the members. Members are involved with twitter, flickr, facebook, myspace and more. Almost all members maintain a blog and post regularly to keep everything current. Blog partners may be designated at times, when partners will blog about each other some time during the month.

A Beaded Affair

Members follow the blogs of each other and try to comment regulary so all members' blogs are active and participatory. As a member it can be fun to follow the work of others, and members get to know each other pretty well, regardless of distance.

Whimsey Lampwork Store

DGDesignsTX Store

In addition to these somewhat formal communication methods (if you can call Facebook and Twitter formal, anyway), the group maintains a private yahoo group, where members can post notices to each other and ask questions. Sometimes conversations there become quite lively as members discuss how they deal with customer complaints, or follow up with past customers, etc. However, this is also where members keep in touch with any personal struggles or concerns, know when members are on vacation, and when they are travelling for shows and booths.                           Gahoole Tree Designs

Members also discuss other social marketing websites and how to use or maximize the use of sites like Squidoo, writing a Hubpage, or developing a business signature for email messages. There has been a great deal of information posted on the yahoo group page about photography, since taking quality photos of creative work seems to be a major, ongoing topic for all artisans. Recommendations of lights, the use of a lightbox and how to stage a photo are available online.            Sassy D Lite Shop

My Gemstone Box

eSMArts originally started out as a group who all had stores on etsy, a large venue of creative stores that contain originally made items for sale. There is a small section for vintage pieces and for supplies, but most items are made by the store owner(s). On etsy you can find handmade papers, calligraphy, sewing, knitting and crochet items, woven textiles, jewelry, lampwork and glass creations, metal work (I found a coffe table made in the shape of a guitar), paintings, pottery, clothing, and much much more.

S & T Creations Shop           Artisan Jeweler Store          Kicking Bear on Etsy

However, over time, the group has grown and changed and more venues for creative works have appeared. eSMArts members have stores on so many places. A few sites include 1000markets, ecrater, silkfair, artfire, bonanzle, and many more besides etsy. In addition, some members maintain their own sales site on their own domain.

If you are selling or considering selling your artistic designs on the internet, you may want to find out about eSMArts.eSMArts can offer a new shop lots of information on how to develop social marketing initiatives and how to promote your work. In addition, by cross promoting, members enjoy the combined fruits of all the members' work. cyberwezz

One of the difficult things to figure out is the proverbial "where do I start" question and eSMArts can provide you with assistance and recommendations to help you prioritize your efforts. As anyone who works on the internet, you can spend a lot of time and really never finish any one thing with all the possibilities out there. With eSMArts you will get a roadmap and lots of help.                                       Coastal Artist store

The other wonderful information that is available from eSMArts members is advice, options and possibilities for developing your blog. Yes, each blog has its very own author's signature style, but you can learn about widgets, themes, RSS feeds, scoutle, webrings, ning groups, technorati and more. One of the members is an author for BellaOnline on the subject of jewelry collecting. She is the team's expert on social marketing strategies and has posted a calendar or time line of how often she tries to check/update different sites and various internet memberships she maintains.                       Jannadu

Finally, eSMArts also maintains a team store on etsy, where proceeds from sales go to fundraisers that help fellow Etsian creative members with special needs or problems. All items are donated to the store by members. You may wish to check that out here: eSMArts Store .

If you want to know more about membership (there are 3 categories of memberships, so there is one that will meet the needs of everyone), you can leave a message here or contact the founder of Gahoole Tree Designs at the etsy store.