Your shop is ready, your products look great, so now it's time to promote yourself! We love the incredible designs that you create on Shapeways and we do what we can to promote you via our blog, the Holiday Gift Guide and our weekly newsletter. To get the most success for your products you can't just rely on broadcasting, you need to go where your audience is. 

The first step is to tell your friends, using your own social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and your own blog or website if you have one.  The next step is to go beyond your social networks, and spread the word to blogs and magazines, people who have a bigger reach than just you.

Here are two great excerpts of ideas from our community members, read their full posts for more details.

Joaquin Baldwin describes how to make your product go viral in this informative post about his Seed of Ygrassil sculpture. 

I wanted prototypes of the models printed, pictures for galleries ready, videos, various other networking and popular sites covered and a website all ready for the first day of my designs going 'public' to the world.

Have any tips to share? Post them in the comments, and let us know what you do to make your holiday season fruitful! 

This weeks Designer Spotlight focuses on Stijn van der Linden, the creator of one of our most popular items on Shapeways: Gyro the Cube. He is an avid and prolific designer, and he also finds time to answer questions on the forum as one of our moderators.

Hi everyone! My name is Stijn van der Linden, probably better know as Virtox around here . I live in Tilburg, in the Netherlands together with my lovely wife and son. I am a work-at-home dad, so I juggle my time between housekeeping, changing diapers and late night sessions of tinkering, designing and programming. I have a college degree in Electrical Engineering and worked as a software engineer for several years, but shortly after discovering 3D printing and Shapeways, I switched careers to my life long passion of 3D Art & Design.

What's the story behind your designs? What inspires you?

Initial sparks often come from the intrinsic beauty found in nature, science and life: a twig, an atom or a kitchen sink. I have a particular fondness for using primitive shapes, such as circles, cubes and spheres and morphing them into the desired forms.

How did you learn how to design in 3D?

What brought you to 3D printing with Shapeways?

In August of 2008 I saw a mention of Shapeways somewhere and I signed up for the closed Beta. At the time I thought it was mostly expensive and very complicated,  but I kept a close eye on the newsletters and forum and started to learn about the wonders of 3D printing. I tinkered about on the site, uploaded some models and tried the shop feature. To my shock and amazement, I sold something within mere days! Someone had actually bought Holey, a model I had designed years before and now someone, somewhere, was actually going to hold something I had once designed to be impossible to make. And worse, they beat me to it! So this led me to quickly place my first order and ever since I've been hooked on 3D printing.

How do you promote your work?

It has never been my strong suit, and it's hard to find the time, but I try to post updates to social networks as much as possible, such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, my own blog and occasionally to design blogs and websites such as Designspotter and Behance. But all things marketing, I learned from the Shapeways blog, as it contains a goldmine of tips, tricks and hints on how to promote your designs and shops.

Who are your favorite designers or artists? Who in the Shapeways community has served as an inspiration to you?

My all-time favorite artists are Salvador Dali, M.C. Escher and H.R. Giger. Their mind-bending work really sparked my love for art and I am very fond of surreal and impossible looking stuff! After four years of being part of this community, I must say there are so many great members helping and inspiring others, I could not hope to name them all! So a big thank you to ALL for making this place the success it is today! A special shout-out to Youknowwho, Magic, StonySmith and Stop4Stuff for driving the community forward and to Nervous System, Bathsheba, Unellenu and Opresco for making the most inspiring works. And apologies to all that escape my mind at the moment!

If you weren't limited by current technologies, what would you want to make using 3D printing?

Oh wow, well just about anything and everything! I can't wait to sink my teeth into an impossibly shaped designer steak, sit down in a fully personalized chair and strap on that pair of extra robotic arms to get things done. But this technology is evolving so quickly I really do not feel limited. If anything, 3D printing just seems to be the ultimate addition to any toolkit.

Thank you to all Shapies for all your efforts to make the impossible possible, you are changing lives and the world with it!

Check out Stijn's incredible designs on his Shapeways Shop, his website, or hop onto the forums and chat with him and the rest of the Shapeways community.

Merchandising is all about designing for the occasion.  You already have products, you simply need to tweak them to appeal to holiday shoppers.

People usually shop with one of three things in mind: type of gift, price, and recipient. Knowing this, you can make it easier for them to find your products by tagging your products according to potential recipient, theme and occasion. Tagging is the fastest way to help you hit different categories.

Read Tip #3 on discovery for more about tagging your products. Tags relating to themes and occasions can be as broad as holiday, christmas, Valentine's, mother's day, fathers day, birthday, even just the simple tag of gift will help you get found in search. Tags relating to recipients can be broad too: men, women, parents, children, hostess gift, secret santa, teacher, stocking stuffer.

You can also use the description and photos to highlight gift ideas.Gunter Art and Design shows how his jewelry is perfect for a girl by using his own girlfriend in his photos.

Lastly, don't underestimate the power of seasonal gifts! Ornaments, hostess gifts and decorations for the home are all popular choices. This great snowflake generator from Kimotion Arts is a perfect example of an inexpensive ornament that makes a great gift. A lego snowflake? Perfect for the man, child or techie in your life!

Do you have any tips or tricks to share? Share them in the comments!

And for those in the USA, Happy Thanksgiving!