#Elevensestime, Social Networking and the Bookbinder.

I'm Susan, a bookbinder and I started sharing my morning coffee with the elevensestime crew back in 2009 with my original Twitter account SusanGreenBooks, and I'd like to share my journey in social networking so far.

At the time, I'd been bookbinding for a couple of years, selling online in a small way and was fairly new to Twitter. Without a studio open to the public, I relied on my online presence to build relationships with local and national news and consumer press, galleries, potential customers, fellow bookbinders and those working in associated art and craft practices.

When you're an independent designer-maker, there's really little distinction between your personal and professional lives. Elevensetime helped me find a band of happy folk who have supported me and my endeavours ever since,  whose families, work, projects and travels have become a familiar part of my life every single day. 

Social media is the biggest part of my online marketing strategy, and although I use Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and more recently Google+, Twitter remains my primary platform, thanks to its immediacy and focus on individual personal connections, and I've got elevensestime to thank for switching me on to hashtag networking, a major part of building brand presence on Twitter.

In 2011 I was selected as one of Dragons' Den Deborah Meaden's top British businesses for quality Christmas gifts in her #BuyBritishHelpJobs Twitter campaign, and in 2012, I was one of the businesses featured in a Guardian newspaper article: How social media can benefit small businesses. Without elevensetime, where would I have been?

I relaunched as BOUND in time for Christmas 2012, complete with a new twitter account @boundbyhand and I'm happy that elevensestime continues to be a part of my professional and personal life.

So to say thank you to my Twitter followers, from elevensetime and elsewhere, I like to do regular giveaways of a Mini Journal. It's personal, and it's business, and really - there's no distinction. It's good to know you - thanks for being part of the journey.

Susan x
www.boundbyhand.co.uk

where do they come from?

I first met Pankaj when he was four years old, I was visiting a colony of homes whilst on holiday in India. Pankaj has quite a posh house compared to some, it has mud walls and a tin roof. I don’t think the colony was often visited by tourists, so many children came up to see this novelty! i said hello to everyone… Pankaj appeared from under the bed with his school book, signalled to me to sit down and proceeded to show me his work. he didn’t learn english at his school but he was really proud because he knew one, two and three in english. he made me sit until I had learnt my name and one two and three in hindi! I find it very difficult to decide which one of us has everything and which one of us has nothing in our relationship, but I do know that he is one clever boy – he saw an opportunity and grabbed it!


whats this got to do with flowers then?


well the sale of flowers, (you can buy them in our fabulous online boutique) has supported pankaj through school, because he has worked so hard, last year we went to see his headmaster and agreed to transfer him to an english school. recently he told me in english he had achieved his first ever 1st class pass, so excited he dived under his mattress to find the certificate to show me… all i managed to do was burst into tears because he had told me in english, that totally confused him but luckily the international language of laughter got me out of that hole!

Our flowers aren’t just great because they pay for the school fees for several children now they are also made in a special way. You see when we make them it is done from the fleece from our sheep, which is good because it is natural. Then they are felted completely by hand, which is really hard work for lots of people, which is good because it creates jobs and makes people feel better about themselves. we don’t need electricity to make our flowers which is good because we don’t want to be greedy and use up the earths resources on fun things. Even better we don’t create any waste when we make our flowers because what’s the point!

next time you go to make a purchase ask where it came from...

read more of our story here or have a look at some pictures here