Does daily posting on social media really matter? When I tried to post every day, I burned out, got bored, or forgot altogether. Over time I've found consistent does not have to mean daily... What helped wasn’t more discipline, it was reducing friction. Using tools like schedulers, prepping seasonal posts ahead of time, and leaning into formats I could repeat without overthinking. The more I leaned into my brand and my tools the easier it became to identify content and get it online. I'm still no where close to where I want to be... Some of what I post now is messy; sewing time-lapses, a toddler in a gnome hat, cluttered craft rooms, stretched out pajamas that I wore through two pregnancies. I’m a little embarrassed by it, but it’s real, and showing up is what is going to give me the means to fix those things. That’s been my experience. It's never perfect, hardly polished, and only gets good after building the foundation even if that means messy buns, and old maternity clothes for all the world to see... Reality Check — Assignment Your turn (comment below): 1. Hard: What’s the biggest friction point keeping you from posting consistently? 2. Easier: What’s one change you’ve made that helped (time, expectations, format, etc.)? 3. Tools + workflow: Short answers are welcome. Bullet lists are perfect.

Hey, I’m Jaymie. I started my Etsy shop, Dragonswood, as a joke for a convention back in 2009. I made felt gnome hats, listed them online, and accidentally sold 200 of them in September/October. I honestly thought that was it. A fluke. A funny story I’d tell later. So I didn’t scale it. I didn’t optimize it. I didn’t “do marketing.” I just… kept the gnome hat stocked. And somehow, it kept selling at about the same rate for 15 years. The shop always had intentional vibes, but not intentional strategy. From the beginning, I ignored Etsy advice about sterile, white-background photos. I photographed everything in the forest because they were gnome hats — and it felt ridiculous to pretend otherwise. It wasn’t supposed to work anyway. It was just a hobby. Recently, I went on maternity leave and finally had the time to slow down and ask a question I’d been avoiding for years: Why is this working? That’s when I leaned in — not by stripping it down, but by giving it what it had always been hinting at. I added the whimsy it deserved, built the world I’d been quietly dreaming about, and got clear about the audience who had been finding it all along. I didn’t change the product. I shaped the story around it. After updating the shop (including SEO) in July, Dragonswood tripled its annual sales in four months. Customers didn’t just buy once — many came back two, three, sometimes four times in the same season. Reviews stopped focusing only on the hat and started talking about how magical it felt. That experience is why I’m here. Brand-Made is about designing brands people recognize and return to — even when they don’t follow the usual rules. We use tools, tactics, and formulas here — but always with intention. Always in service of the customer, not the algorithm. If you’ve ever built something that didn’t follow best practices but refused to disappear, you’re in the right place. ✨ Your turn — introduce yourself below.