Collecting Peanuts memorabilia has been my hobby since I was 10 years old. Through the years I’ve developed my expertise and a very large collection. CollectPeanuts.com grew out of a need to fund my hobby and the lack of resources available to my fellow collectors online. I’ve created a large showcase of over 14,000 items, articles that cover all aspects of collecting, and a professional online store. To grow my customer and fan base, I’ve reached out on various social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube.

CollectPeanuts.com has helped me hone my skills as a designer, coder and communicator. As a one-woman show, everything is up to me to create, fix and appease, etc. A continuous drive towards a more professional website with better resources, photography and interaction has always been my goal. While a few remnants of my early days of skill-building and archaic digital camera files linger, CollectPeanuts.com is my masterpiece that fools many into asking, “Will you send me your catalog?”

Behind the scenes, the site is built in WordPress with a custom theme I developed using a basic Bootstrap framework. I have implemented and re-styled a variety of plugins to make the site work just as I need it to which includes WooCommerce, MailPoet, Toolset Types and FooGallery. The website also has an automated weekly newsletter sent to over 1,000 subscribers. To coordinate the content, a trusty spreadsheet tracks the weekly schedule for many months into the future paired with a strict organization of all media files for easy retrieval.

Social media has been a crazy game of three-way chess with the artificial intelligence of the networks, the psychology of the Peanuts collector and myself. Facebook has the strongest fan base with over 19,000 followers and content posted daily. The visual nature of both Instagram and Pinterest bring many Peanuts fans together. Youtube is the latest foray into Peanuts fan content with 2-4 videos posted monthly.