We recently connected with Stacy Tucker and have shared our conversation below.

Stacy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s talk about social media – do you manage your own or do you have someone or a company that handles it for you? Why did you make the choice you did?

I currently manage my own social media because I like the being hands on with what content I want to share and when and I really enjoy connecting with my followers through my social media.

Stacy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a crafter at heart. I always crafted one way or another since I was a child. My mother always bought us kids crafting kits, looms, etc. I learned to make loom rugs, potholders, beaded bracelets when I was child. When I became an adult I made crafts to sell at craft shows including wreaths, wooden clocks and candlestick holders. Later I learned to crochet when I was around 20 years old and I found that I really liked it. I taught my mother to crochet and the plan was she was going to teach me to knit, but in 1992 she passed away before she could teach me. I continued to crochet mostly making baby afghans for family and friends who were having babies.

In 1995 I gave birth to my son and I didn’t have much time to crochet because as a single parent working full-time and caring for my son left little time for crocheting. So it was put on hold for several years. It wasn’t until around 2007 after my father passed away that I picked up my crocheting again. It was a way for me to deal with my depression and grief. I also met two wonderful women who knitted each day during their lunch at work and I asked them to teach me to knit. After learning to knit I found that I enjoyed it more than crocheting so I started knitting for family and friends gifts for birthdays and Christmas.

In 2010 I was commissioned to make a pair of felted slippers for a friend and her husband. That was the beginning for my business. I made 22 pairs of those felted slippers that year. I had to buy so much yarn that my living room looked like a yarn shop. My son came home from school one day and said, “Mom you’ve turned into a knitting mama!” That was where the name of my business came from which is called ‘Knitter Mama’. I opened my Etsy shop in that same year and started going to craft shows again to sell my knitted and crochet clothing and accessories.

My business was more of a hobby business, I worked full-time so I only put time into my business on the weekends with production and shows. When COVID hit in 2020 and everything shut down, I wasn’t doing shows any longer and I didn’t have a big presence online because I used the shows to interact with my customers. When that stopped I didn’t know how to connect online. So I put my Etsy shop on vacation until I could come up with a new strategy. In the mean time, I took online sewing classes and I made cloth masks for family and friends. Learning to sew like my mother and grandmother before me gave me a real sense of accomplishment because my mother encouraged all of us girls to learn this skill and I really didn’t feel I had any use for it. I’m glad I decided to learn to sew because it gave me new ideas for my shop and new branding.

While in COVID lock-down I researched about online marketing and specifically how to market my Etsy shop online through social media. In 2021 created an Instagram account and decided to change my branding, to prepare me to re-launch my Etsy shop in 2022.

In August 2022 reopened my shop and added a whole line of new products that I had never before tried to sell – accessories/notions for knitters and crocheters and more digital items. I still sell hand-knitted accessories, but my main products are accessories knitters use such as bags and pouches, yarn cozies (yarn socks), stitch markers, cute crochet tape measures, chain row counters, etc. Using what I learned in my research and with my new branding there was an immediate change in my sales. It is a continuous process and I’m still learning but I’m very happy with the changes I’ve made and the new connections I’m making with my customers.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I use Etsy as my platform, I’ve been on Etsy since 2010. I chose Etsy because at the time it was the least expensive way to have an online presence without having to build my own website. The pros of Etsy is that it is the premiere marketplace for handmade items, but I also think that this has become the con as the years have gone by. Etsy is saturated with handmade businesses doing the same thing that I do, so it can be very hard to compete sometimes. That is why I use my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tik Tok to keep my audience engaged through personable content.

You have to connect with your customers in order to build loyalty and if you can’t meet them face to face then you have to meet them where they are at, which is on many social media platforms, not just Etsy. I continue to use Etsy because I tried having my own website, but even my most loyal customers still would go to Etsy to contact me instead of my website, so I found it to be not very cost effective to maintain a website at the same time paying the Etsy fees, so I closed my website and focus my energy on promoting my Etsy shop on social media.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had to pivot during COVID, I think everyone had to step back and take stock on what was important for their business during this time. What I learned during this time was that I needed to refocus what I wanted from my business and how much effort I was going to put into it. When I put my Etsy shop on vacation for the 2 years of COVID I researched and learned more about social media presence, content, algorithms, and analytics. I decided during this time to make a plan for the future of my business. I changed my branding and reopened my shop using the skills I learned and realized after 10 years doing this business as a side hustle that it was something that I really enjoyed and I wanted to some day do this full-time. So I made new goals and am working on these goals to achieve the ultimate goal of being able to do this full-time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://knittermama.etsy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knittermama2010/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KnitterMama
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Knitter_Mama
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@knittermama Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/knittermama1/