Do you use Social Networking for promotion of your work
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Had some interesting discussions with some folks passionate about the use of Social Networking to promote themselves.
So I was wondering what your take on this is. Do you use it? If so what is you media of choice? Is it working? Any Downside?
I really am a Luddite in this sector, but the people I was talking with see it as the only way to go.
Appreciate your thoughts. -
Not really, I like to keep social network stuff for friends only and don't get anything to do with work involved with it.
However I do use a blog to present my work and that seems to be very successful, it gets between 50-150 hits a day usually through google searches for keywords like 'helicopter', 'avatar', 'lego', 'sketchup scifi', these seem to be the big hitters but of course you could tailor it to your own needs by naming your jpegs with specific names.Woredpress is good as it gives you a breakdown of site traffic and you can see where most of your visitors come from, that way you can post more stiff on those target websites to keep people browsing your website. Its really easy to use also and you can pay a bit more to have your own address etc.
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Liam
Do you find the blog requires a fair amount of time commitment?
The reason I don't spend much time using social networks has a lot to do with time?
(and I simply won't give up SketchUcation
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@dale said:
Liam
Do you find the blog requires a fair amount of time commitment?
The reason I don't spend much time using social networks has a lot to do with time?
(and I simply won't give up SketchUcation )No quite the opposite in fact. Wordpress is good as I can leave it alone and it will take care of itself, I don't need to maintain it etc, if anybody leaves a comment then I get an email to my phone saying I need to approve it. Thats about it.
If you go on mine you will see I dont update it that often, sometimes not for over a month or more and it still generates traffic.
I think something like facebook would be harder to maintain and I don't want to go down that path as I would not feel comfortable having would be clients able to see my personal photos that I share with friends etc. -
Went over to your blog (another statistic), you have it looking very professional. So it looks like after visiting Wordpress, that they supply the template for the blog, and you have to download, set it up and find a web-hosting service? Or do you host it through Wordpress?
Is the template fairly easy to use?
I set up a couple of template based websites years back, and they were really lame. -
No you dont need to set up anything and the template is a free one I found. You can get paid versions that are miles better but I didnt have any money when I made it so its free.
Give it try, its free and you may like it. -
I have looked at blogs and even considered setting one up...actually I do have one setup somewhere (not sure where as it's been a while),however that was as far as I got, I did not know what to blog about, I drew a blank, firstly I wondered who would actually take the time to read it, who cares what I have to say, and do not believe I have anything of value to offer anyway.
I joined Linked-in, but again what am I supposed to do there? I tried getting involved with a discussion but that's just downright boring, so alas it never bore fruits and wasted time.
My website...ugh! so basic, outdated, like a highway sign advertising something that's no longer manufactured.
SCF, now that's different as so much is happening, a community around a product I'm passionate about, a place to learn and make friends, even meet them every two years. Most importantly is I have made many new clients from here, so SCF is where I'll focus my attention.
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@solo said:
I have looked at blogs and even considered setting one up...actually I do have one setup somewhere (not sure where as it's been a while),however that was as far as I got, I did not know what to blog about, I drew a blank, firstly I wondered who would actually take the time to read it, who cares what I have to say, and do not believe I have anything of value to offer anyway.
I joined Linked-in, but again what am I supposed to do there? I tried getting involved with a discussion but that's just downright boring, so alas it never bore fruits and wasted time.
My website...ugh! so basic, outdated, like a highway sign advertising something that's no longer manufactured.
SCF, now that's different as so much is happening, a community around a product I'm passionate about, a place to learn and make friends, even meet them every two years. Most importantly is I have made many new clients from here, so SCF is where I'll focus my attention.
yeah I dont blog to talk about stuff I just use it as a website as I am too lazy to create one lol
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The people I was talking to, who are much younger,and connected in the social media sense, seem to have a website that they draw traffic to from Facebook and Twitter. With blogs coming in 3rd.
They were also talking about software that automatically posts to all the sites you choose at once, without the need to post individually.
My Social networking has certainly been limited to this Forum, and others that are directly involved with learning, and giving where I can. I've never really needed to try to get work, as the company I work for keeps me busy.
But I would really like to see how others are taking advantage of it. I am also a healthy skeptic, in that I'm wondering how effective this can be if people like me know that I am being essentially marketed to. -
Well, dale, for what it's worth, I kind of share your thoughts on this. Actually, I do a lot of thinking about this, and its ultimate implications.
There are things that just because you can, don't mean you should.
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@mitcorb said:
Well, dale, for what it's worth, I kind of share your thoughts on this. Actually, I do a lot of thinking about this, and its ultimate implications.
There are things that just because you can, don't mean you should.I have a feeling Sociologists will be analyzing the implications of social media for years to come.
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@dale said:
The people I was talking to, who are much younger,and connected in the social media sense, seem to have a website that they draw traffic to from Facebook and Twitter. With blogs coming in 3rd.
They were also talking about software that automatically posts to all the sites you choose at once, without the need to post individually.
My Social networking has certainly been limited to this Forum, and others that are directly involved with learning, and giving where I can. I've never really needed to try to get work, as the company I work for keeps me busy.
But I would really like to see how others are taking advantage of it. I am also a healthy skeptic, in that I'm wondering how effective this can be if people like me know that I am being essentially marketed to.Getting a lot of traffic to a site is one thing. Gaining clients and making sales is another.
The ROI, if you factor in the time it takes to build all of those so called friends, and then having to deal with all the flaming you get, because you mentioned on a social network that you have business, isn't very good.
The social network thing has a tendency to suck a lot of hours out of your day, without much to show for your effort at the end of it all.
Your time and energy would be better spent on more targeted locations. I have found getting involved in the help forums and groups specifically geared towards 3D modeling and design to be a much better use of my time.
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Well, a blog (or a website) is definitely one thing and social networking (or in fact participating on a forums) is another.
I have a Facebook account but I mainly only visit when I receive an email that someone sent a message there or marked me as "friend". I also have a website (small business, in Hungarian) which uses WordPress as its engine. I generally just post my works there and some "important" news (I used it for "blogging" when we were at BaseCamp so friends at home could follow what's happening)
WP is actually a good choice if you do not want a very complicated website software. There are tons of free (and mostly low cost commercial) "themes" you can install (you can install a bunch actually and with just one click, you can change from one to the other). Even this "business card" of mine is WordPres.
If you choose to get it hosted at WordPress, you get a "subdomain" like dale.wordpress.com but you can easily install it on your own webspace if you have a domain and a hosting package.
There are lots of plugins, too, that serve a bunch of purposes and if you are planning to share your posts on these social media sites, there are plugins that do this automatically for you (facebook, twitter, linkedin, myspace - all that crap).
Of course, we will ban you if you want to add automated "bot" posts here at SCF.
I have made a couple of websites for others, too. Don't laugh, please. This is my brother's motorbike gang's website
and my siste-in-la's website for her beautician shop for instance. -
Thanks for the links and info Gai.
I don't know if I'm really interested in pursuing this, but I am wondering if maybe I should be and am exhibiting my old school tendencies by not already being more tuned in, being from the Timothy Leary (turn on, tune in, drop out) era vs the Facebook "expose all" mindset.
I find a lot of forms of communications have become abbreviated, and to me have lost some value. But I can't deny that FaceBook, and Twitter etc are communities, and those communities have a huge following, and recently have helped to changed the course of world events.
But I am having a hard time understanding how me pumping out Tweets can assist business.
Oh and by the way, I can link you to some Architects websites that you put to shame with the sites you did for the family. -
Note that those sites are pre-made WordPress themes - and all I did was to "localize" and "fine tune" them to my (or others) needs - although true that in some cases it even involved modification of the php script, not just the html or style sheets (something I had never imagined of myself before)
Now I understand that not everyone needs a website. Among the members here I could imagine that freelancers who nee to showcase their works, provide a contact page and such it is important.
As for Facebook and others - I mainly use them to keep in (very occasional) contact with old friends I would otherwise not even know where they are and such. Not everyday chatting and hanging around. I also understand however that for some, the presence and activity on these social networking sites may be part of the business as well - if not for other, just to feed Google with more backlinks to their business websites.
Did you know for instance that SketchUcation now has a FB Page as well?
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/SketchUcation/145273552202646Already 25 people liked it (and we have nearly 70,000 members now)!
So obviously we are not really pushing it. I find answering a couple of questions in the newbie forum is much better and worthy way to spend my time than pushing SketchUcation on Facebook. In fact, when I see somebody regularly and "aggressively" pushing his/her business under my nose on those social sites, I regularly switch them off from my wall, notifications and messages (just silently - no need to report a "friend" for spamming). -
@gaieus said:
In fact, when I see somebody regularly and "aggressively" pushing his/her business under my nose on those social sites, I regularly switch them off from my wall, notifications and messages (just silently - no need to report a "friend" for spamming).
And this is one of the points I made in my discussion with the people who believed Social networking was the future of promoting their business. If people understand that in fact this is what is taking place, they will most likely ignore it, or at least take it with a grain of salt.
I guess though that I have to recognize that although we mostly come to the internet for information we find promotion for sales. In the very early days of the net, if you remember the beeping, scratching noise of a dial up modem, or a website gradually blinking on to your screen, you will also remember that the net was all about information in those days. Now it really is all about advertising revenue streams. -
@unknownuser said:
In fact, when I see somebody regularly and "aggressively" pushing his/her business under my nose on those social sites, I regularly switch them off from my wall, notifications and messages (just silently - no need to report a "friend" for spamming).
Csaba, very true, in fact I recently did this with a person you know (no names mentioned) who has pretty much spammed FB with their SU related product, it got so irritating that I could no longer handle it and worked against that person IMO.
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@solo said:
Csaba, very true, in fact I recently did this with a person you know (no names mentioned) who has pretty much spammed FB with their SU related product, it got so irritating that I could no longer handle it and worked against that person IMO.
And I think this will get even worse and become more evident when they are using software that auto posts to a bunch of different networking sites at once.
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