Social Networking

First of all I want to tell you all that we are doin ok here.  The fire is still going, but we are hangin in.  No one has been hurt and no structures have been lost as of yet.  I have been posting updates to my Facebook page if anyone is interested in that.

Now on to the post...actually today I am going to repost a post I made 4 years ago because it still holds true.  There has been some discussion about using Facebook and Twitter for selling.  While there is nothing wrong with that, I do it too...I want you to keep in mind it's called social networking for a reason, so if you want to mix the two, I don't see a problem. Also keep in mind as you're reading we weren't using Facebook yet.  So here is the post I made 4 years ago:

"I have a no soliciting sign on my door. Lots and lots of sales people tend to ignore it and ring the bell anyway. It never occurs to them that maybe there is a larger reason behind that sign than just not wanting to buy something. I am a day sleeper. So nothing annoys me more than having a pushy sales person at my door who not only ignored my sign but also woke me up. Do you think that results in them getting a sale? No. Never.

I view my computer screen the same as my door. If I wouldn't let a person into my house through my front door for any variety of reasons why would I let them into my house through my screen?

As I have mentioned before I have my things for sale on my website and Etsy. (I edited this because two of the sites are no longer around.)  People talk a great deal about promoting their shops on these sites. They want to know how other people do it. I read these a lot. I have even tried a few of them with little or no results. I also see them saying they promote their shops to their friends and families. Really? No REALLY? I have mentioned these sites as a whole to my friends and family and told them what to expect from other sellers by looking at them, but I don't promote my own shop to them. They already know what I do for a living. I don't know about you, but if my Mother wants something I made I give it to her. She is my Mother for crying out loud! The same with my friends, if they insist on paying anyway...I certainly don't send them to an online shop so they can go through the entire check out process, pay for shipping and I can give Paypal a cut. If they did that to me I would find that really strange and think long and hard about their friendship.

Many people don't think the site is responsible for promoting us, I don't see why not...I am giving them a cut of my sales or a listing fee. They have just as much obligation to promote me as I do them. They are making money every time I promote in the simple fact that a new customer will most likely be a return customer because they aren't going to just stop at looking at my shop in most cases. They are going to look at lots of shops and items for sale and probably in the end they are going to buy something else on top of that initial purchase.

So what about the rest of the world at large? What is the right way to promote to them? We have Twitter and our blogs and all sorts of places to network. But imagine if you will for a moment...an insurance salesman in your neighborhood. If he rang your doorbell every day or even several times a day to try to sell you some insurance would you appreciate that? Would you just finally cave in and buy something? And if you actually did, what if he kept coming back day after day to try to sell you more?

Where did we get the idea that non stop hammering was the way to make a sale? I suppose in some instances it works. But I don't think I would sleep very well knowing that is how I run my business. Coincidentally since I have stopped almost all self promotion the past few days I made a sale last night...go figure!

I suppose my perspective might be a little different since I did shows and sold to shops and advertised for 25 years before moving my business to the net. I was used to the regular sort of selling where I make the effort to show up and the customer makes the effort to come and see me. It was mutual agreement.

I saw a video the other day of a man talking about social networking. He said he expects to make 0 dollars from Twitter. (This would also apply to Facebook now.)  He views Twitter as a party where he meets people. Once he gets to know them he invites them to his blog which he equates to his house. In his house he has personal things and also things that reflect what he does for a living. By getting to know people and make friends they find out what he does and they are more likely to mention it to someone else even if they are never going to make a purchase. I thought this was brilliant. It's the way I like to do it. I post pics of what I have just completed because I like to look at pics of other people's stuff and I think many of them do too. I also think it's a good way to keep a back up record of what I have made and when. I post a link to where they can find it and I have links on the sidebar to where I sell my works. If you want to go look you can. If you don't...no pressure. I clearly want to support these selling venues because if I didn't I wouldn't have shops in them. But ultimately I am in business for myself because I want to make sales for myself. I do occasionally post a link on Twitter, but I would rather just chat with people a bit on there than post link after link after link. That gets old real fast.

I find in the long run I have made more friends and more sales in the end by doing it that way. Maybe that's why they call it SOCIAL networking and not SALES networking?"

So back to the present, in conclusion here, I just want to remind you that Twitter, which I no longer use because it became nothing but endless links to people's Etsy shops and other venues, and Facebook were originally created as ways for people to socialize.  It's great that we can use them to show off what we do for a living.  But I don't think people should be using these for nothing but selling.  I know when I have a Facebook friend that does nothing but post links to things to buy...they are gone.  I unfriend them. I did the same thing for the brief period I used Twitter.  To see nothing but endless links to work is boring.  You don't have to spill your entire personal life onto the screen either, but mix it up a little on these sites.

I think it's really important to have a free standing professional presence elsewhere online where you do nothing else but sell your work.  From the other side of the fence, as a collector I have never purchased anything from Twitter or Facebook.  I like seeing what people make, but I don't want to send a message and hope I can buy that item if it's still available.  I want to go to a website that has a buy now button so I can just buy it and be done with it.

An Experiment In Worry ~ No One Is Keeping Score

Before I launch into my topic at hand, I want to tell you that Dralion was AMAZING!   If you get the opportunity to go see it, by all means do so.  Having the front row seats were so great.  You could see every detail of the costumes, the makeup...so wonderful.  So much inspiration.  I also got "petted" by one of the clowns.  It was funny and he was adorable.

Ok so on to the topic at hand...yesterday I decided to conduct a little Facebook experiment.  I made the following post:

"I am conducting a little experiment. So if you read this post, would you please hit the like button. I am going to do another post later and I am asking that you don't hit the like button on that one. I will explain after the fact what I was doing. Thanks!"

22 people hit the like button.  Considering I posted that at about 5:30 AM MST, I found that to be an impressive number.

About 6-7 hours later I posted the picture shown above without any explanation.  18 people hit the like button on that post.  A good number  of the people who hit the like button on the second post were the same ones who read the first post and hit the like button.  Now please understand I was in no way trying to embarrass anyone.  Had it been me, I probably would have done the same thing.  I was just curious to see how long people would retain what they read.

So why was I doing that?  Many of my posts are based on conversations I witness or participate in with other artists.  So this post is based on something some artists were discussing and worrying over.

I read a quote long ago that said 90% of all the things people worry about never come true.  I believe that to be fairly accurate.  All too often we worry over little things needlessly.  One of the main things I see artists worrying about are the things they say or that are said about them online.  There is a concern that it will be misconstrued or misinterpreted, and that people will remember what was said forever!  That somehow it will effect our business or how others view us.

I want you to think about the last few things you read and the pics you saw on Facebook, Twitter or a Blog?  Do you remember what they were?  I have an exceptional memory and I don't remember most of them.  I don't even remember everything I posted.  It's not that people are not interested in what we have to say, or in us.  It's just that people read it and then think about picking their kids up from school or what to make for dinner...they have their own lives that take precedent above what we are doing all the time.  That's the way it should be. While people do like our work and are curious about us sometimes, we don't have the kind of influence we may like to think we do.  That's a good thing!  I certainly don't think I am that big of an influence on anyone's life.  Too much pressure!  *grins*

When we post something, and then circumstances change...as they do once in a while in everyone's lives and we have to contradict what we had previously said, no one is keeping score unless we do it every single time, which most of us don't.

When we make some sort of faux pas, people usually look past it to see who we are as a whole, especially if they have been friends or loyal followers.  They may even think ill of us for a moment or two, but most of them are not keeping score.  Nor do they hold grudges forever when they realize that we are not inherently bad people.

When someone else posts something less than favorable about us, whether they name us by name or not...it can seem devastating at the time.  It seems as if everyone saw and they are judging us whether we did what we were accused of or not.  But the truth is, only a small handful of people ever see anything that is posted online.  They remember it about as long as they do reading something less than favorable about a movie star in a tabloid in the grocery store check out line.  No one is keeping score.  If they are, they may not want to throw stones at glass houses because we all do these things at some point.

We are human beings...we are flawed and fallible.  We will make mistakes, we will be sorry for them, we will try to learn from them, we will be forgiven by the people who like us and our work.  We will be talked about at times, like it or not.  It will not ruin our businesses, it will not ruin our reputations if we are good, honest, hard working people most of the time.

No one is going to think less of us for not being perfect or selling every single thing we make within five minutes of posting it.  Business doesn't always work that way.  It doesn't mean our work is bad, it just means that the right person for that bear hasn't found it yet.

So the next time this happens to you, and you are worrying or losing sleep over it...please don't.  Just be your sweet, lovable self and move on, let it go.  I promise you...hardly anyone saw it, and if they did...no one is keeping score!

Hugs, K. <3

Killing The Bluebird To Find Happiness

Most artists who have a website and/or blog end up joining social networking sites at some point. While some people find those to work out very well and be a wonderful tool to use in their business, others don't.

If you read my blog then you know I am not a big fan of those sites. I gave up on Twitter (that's the killing the bluebird part) long ago and was happier for it, and Facebook still vexes me because I find it convoluted and very user unfriendly...but I still make feeble attempts with Facebook.

If you belong to this type of site, one of the main goals is to expand your social network. People follow us and we follow others, we receive friend requests, etc. We usually tend to accept these without much thought as to who is offering and why. I've done it, we all have.  Most of the people who send requests are very nice, friendly people who share common interests with us.

This afternoon I was reading a blog post about someone who was encountering a problem on one of these sites. It reminded me of two conversations with artist friends I have had in the past few months, one had an issue on Twitter and the other on Facebook. So this post is dedicated to my two friends, and anyone else who has encountered this problem.

If you are online long enough and put yourself out there you are inevitably going to run into someone who is less than kind. In fact you might run into someone who is downright nasty without cause.

Now when I have run into these people, the first thing I do is give them the benefit of the doubt. Is it possible I misinterpreted their words or intent? It's easy to do when you don't hear voice inflections and see facial expressions. I tend to speak in a straight forward manner and I have been misinterpreted many times in both what I was saying and my intent. The thing I get most often is that people think I am mad, when in fact I am not at all. The internet is kind of a funny thing, people tend to take the worst interpretation of anything as a default mode. Also when someone voices an opinion or doesn't make a pretty, fluffy post people sometimes rail against it. I am not sure why that is.  Life isn't one giant picture postcard.

But other times what is said cannot be misinterpreted. So if I encounter someone who is being less than kind, I still try to give them the benefit of the doubt. I like to believe that most people are basically nice, but everyone has an off day now and again. Believe me, I have off days...I am human.  I ask myself is this really the character of the person, or is something going on in their real life that is making them type these things as an outlet.

However there are always going to be a small handful of people who get very brave thanks to the anonymity of the net and turn into keyboard commandos. It can be easy for some to be cruel to someone when they don't have to look them in the eye.

So what happens when you encounter one of these people? Having hate or anger aimed at us can be very hurtful if it comes out of the blue, or you don't feel as if you have done anything wrong.

You might think someone making bad comments about you as an artist or your work will effect your business. It can seem like a really big deal! The truth is, the internet is a very big place and people have short memory spans. Even if a handful of people do read what is said, they will either be discerning enough to know it's not true, or they won't remember it in a week anyway so relax.  It's not going to ruin your business.  It will probably only ruin your day.

If you come across one of these people who is out to make trouble, if you can't talk to them and reason with them...remove them from your list of friends or followers. Most sites have a way to block people. You don't have to take it though.

The next thing I suggest is really think about these sites.  Do you enjoy tweeting and posting to facebook?  Is it working for you?  If it is, that's great.  Don't let a rotten apple spoil it for you.  But if it's just taking up time, maybe it's time to let go of that particular site.  You're not obligated to join them just because other artists do.  There are other sites out there that are more specialized to what you do that you might find make you happier. 

The next time someone you don't know sends a friend request or follows you, take a second to look at their profile before you accept. My best rule of thumb about people on the internet is this:

If I wouldn't invite them into my house through my front door, why would I invite them in through my computer screen!

Click here to go to the site that created the image above and graciously put it up for free, if you want to use it! They also offer one in favor of Twitter.

***No bluebirds were actually harmed in the making of this post!***

Tweet Cheat

Last night I received an e-mail saying I had a private message on Twitter. Now normally I don't bother with that because I don't really use Twitter anymore. But I went to see what this one was because it was from another artist friend. She had sent me something saying that she found a video of me on a site with a link. Being curious I went to have a look since there is video of me talking about and making bears floating around the world.

As it turned out, her account had either been hijacked or cloned and the link led to a phishing site. Now luckily my PC protection grabbed it and stopped me from looking at it. I changed my passwords anyway.

I get very tired of all the scamming and identity theft on the net sometimes. It doesn't matter how cautious or savvy to such things you are. You are always going to fall prey to something eventually because these criminals get smarter every day. Plus it looked genuinely legit since it appeared it came from a friend. There wasn't a single thing to imply it wasn't from her.

I would completely delete my Twitter account since I think it's sort of useless anyway, but I don't want anyone else using my name for nefarious reasons. If you get a link like this, make sure the person it shows it came from is actually the person who sent it before you click it! Also if you ever get a link on Twitter from me...I can guarantee you it wasn't really wasn't from me, so don't click it because I would never send a link in a private mail on Twitter!