Facebook and
Twitter and LinkedIn Oh My! With Pintrest and Tumbler and Google+1. There’s
Behance and MySpace and blogger too, Flickr and YouTube, what’s a girl to do?
I am being
swallowed by the world of social media!! Not to mention my Etsy shop that has
been neglected for at least 2 months now and my personal web site that is in
need of an update. I have always
been a social butterfly but this is just getting a bit out of hand!
In a world of
social media the only way to stay on top of things is to connect your self to at
least on of these
sites. But if your trying to run a business, the more the better. Sometimes I
know about events that are taking place in my family before my mother does and
I live 5,000 miles away! I am able to get information from my siblings through
facebook before she is by calling them on the telephone. And while, yes, its wonderful to feel
so connected, especially to my family while living so far away, the difficulty
with all of this begins in trying to be an artist, property manager and wife at
the same time. In all of the
reading that I have done about promoting your work and/or product and getting
the word out about it is the importance of an Internet presence. Fair enough.
I have created
accounts on almost all of the above-mentioned sites, but now who has the time to
keep them all updated while making sure that my art is being updated? What am I supposed to talk about if
there is no new work to show? Now don’t get me wrong, I love to work and I love
what I do, but I am beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed here. Even if I do find
the time to create new pieces, in order to get them seen, I need to photograph
each piece and then upload and edit said photos and then write a description of
each piece to make it all sound appealing to the public. I then find myself social networking
obsessed. Do I have any comments?
Any new followers? Any message in my inbox from people wanting to know how to
purchase/carry/represent my work? Usually not.
Just a few days
ago I read an article saying that the best thing that you can to do promote
yourself is to write a really great blog with interesting information that
people want to read. Great! But how do you compete with all of the other great
blogs out there with thousands of followers?
Now don’t get me
wrong, I think its all great and wonderful that we are able to reach a wider
audience and connect with people we would have never met otherwise but many
times I honestly don’t know where to begin.
Even our language
has changed and one must understand the decoding of Internet speak in order to
keep up. TMI, BTW, OMG, LOL, LMFAO, see my automatic spell check isn’t even
underlining these anagrams in red, as they now seem to be an integral part of
the English language, in fact there is an entire web site called urban dictionary dedicated to deciphering then. And then if you happen to be bi-lingual like me, you have
to decode that Internet language as well. Where does it end?!?!? But more
importantly where should one begin in this ADD mixed with OCD inducing world of
social media?
Well, I have come
up with what I hope will be a solution or at least a relief. Since I am truly trying to start a
small business and promote myself as a professional designer, I have decided to
take on an intern. There are
thousands of students out there that are looking for experience. Studying mass
media communications and need to fill up their resume with real world experience.
How great would it look during their first interview for them to have written
on that CV that they created a mass media advertising campaign for so and so
and increased their sales from a said (very low) amount per year and increased
it by such and such percent. Everybody wins! And as I mentioned in a post a few
days ago, I am trying to enlist the help of others to share expertise and
experience. I hope it works.
However, I’m sure
there are many different solutions or ideas as to how to tackle and manage your
social media. So tell me, what’s your take on it all? Do you feel it benefits
you or hinders you? What are your creative ideas and solutions for dealing with
it? Any advice you’d like to
share? Let me know by leaving a
comment below. If no comment box appears below this post try clicking on the
word ‘comments’ (see this is another thing, you have to understand how each
site works and be tech savvy or your going to waste a lot of precious time
trying to figure it all out leaving you tired and frustrated! I can’t tell you how many times I have
tried to get that dang comment box to appear!)
