In a series aimed at helping shop owners, we're going to be sharing some tips from the community about marketing your products.

Today's tip is from Joaquin, the creator of the Seed of Yggdrasil

"Seeing the lack of a broad selection of decorative, full color objects in Shapeways, I decided to try out a design of my own and see what it would look like in color. I modeled and 3d-painted The Seed of Yggdrasil using Maya, in about two days of work. It turned out fantastic, the colors were really vibrant, making it stand out. It was also quite cheap since color printing is much cheaper than a lot of other materials. Once I had printed and photographed it, it was time to share it with the world."

The first step is to tell your friends, using your own social networks like G+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and your own blog if you have one.   Beyond your own social networks, telling blogs and magazines is the way to spread the word to a wider audience. Check this top 100 list of blogs as a starting point:

Think about which blogs would be interested in your product, and send them a short email tailored to their audience. Save them some time by writing it in the way they would write an article, make it short and to the point and include clear images.  Try to make your text interesting, tell a story with it and explain what you created and why its cool. I'd recommend linking to a single object instead of to your whole Shapeways store. The point here is to find someone with a bigger reach than just you.

Joaquin's master tip for advanced users: Use a cat as the background for your pictures.

Bloggers are hungry for content, and we know our Shapeways community is responsible for making a LOT of cool stuff, so feed the bloggers! Send them punchy submissions and see what happens...your design might be the next nyan cat!