I want to be sure I am using Facebook and Twitter effectively.  We try to post on FB every couple days and put up links to the website.

I have posted daily on Twitter about Rhinebeck this week and looked for others who said they are going. 

Any suggestions about what else we can be doing on FB and Twitter?

Claudia

Comments

Caroline (not verified)

I don't know about T & the dreaded Facebook - never  use them - but I was browsing Yahoo today (I have a free email account there), seeing what was new and discovered some craft feeds about weaving - which made me wonder how to get selected. There were 256 feeds about weaving and over 800 for spinning, and a couple of our members have their blogs featured. Can anyone shed any light on this? Or is it a pay-to-advertise feature? I did find a couple of feeds from Ravelry and Google groups, but almost nothing from Yahoo groups, which made me wonder what the criteria is.

Loominaria (not verified)

 I see the Find us on Facebook on the bottom of this page. Where's the Follow us on Twitter banner?

I just clicked on your Twitter follow. Yay.

I think as long as you put the #weaving tag in all your tweets, weavers will find you. It seems like linking to projects here would be an effective magnet. And highlighting (I don't know how) the friendliness of Weavolution could draw some people who have psychological scars from some of the heavy-handed moderators and policing members of the on-topic-or-suffer online communities.

Didn't like MySpace and Facebook and left them, so no suggestions for them.

Kurt

Sara von Tresckow

 The most "effective" way to use Facebook and Twitter is to ignore them and see that weavers jump onto Weavolution. No kidding, you can only be reading one screen at a time and your looms are also screaming for attention.

Put your publicity out on the existing Yahoo group lists and other fiber sites - those big general ones are not specific enough to reach your target audience.

Caroline (not verified)

Sara is right; people who spend time on Facebook andTwitter find that it becomes all-consuming. The rest of us are probably never there long enough to read half the garbage flung at us, let alone try and find other weavers - they are probably already over here on Weavo anyway. The Rav weavers are slowly coming across, but there are soooo many groups there its hard to tell where the weavers all are hidden.

Most weavers are probably on digest, unless they are asking specific questions on Yahoo etc, as they are too busy weaving. Getting the backing from local weaving and yarn supply stores, manufacturers, Guilds and weaving groups is the way to find other weavers, because we are not self-sufficient. Word of mouth is the best advertisement going, so your efforts are better concentrated in ironing out the major problem here with the forums - because that is the thing that will make or break this site. There are still a lot of/too many complaints about navigating the topics because of that "reply" facility. Please - just kill it.

Loominaria (not verified)

Twitter takes me a few minutes every other day, but it may take a little longer as I find other weavers there. If your focus is limited at Twitter, it's very easy to find brief amusements and education without a great investment of time.  I'm certainly not feeling all-consumed, and if someone posts nothing but boring garbage, I just stop following him. Considering how little time it takes to post 140 or fewer characters per day, I think it would be a good investment of time to continue recruitment at the social networks. You might even find new weavers who don't yet know they want to weave.

Kurt

francorios (not verified)

You could be right Kurt! Maybe we should lurk on the social networks and be on the lookout for people who are latent rigid heddlers.

They just haven't freed their inner weaver.

Evidently I have had enough caffeine today.

Carry on without me!

Have a good day!

claudia (not verified)

Hi Caroline,

The forums are in the works.  Our developers have begun the work.  We will be given benchmarks and deadline dates soon.  Once we know when the work will be completed and ready for testing, we will let everyone on Weavolutionaries and elsewhere know. 

We need testers.  If you are interested in helping with the testing process for the new forums, please Join Weavolutionaires group here:  http://www.weavolution.com/forum/1269  and we will announce all the details for testing the alpha version of the remade forums.

No joke, it's coming next week some time.

Claudia, Weavolution co-founder

Caroline (not verified)

Thats brilliant! This will make such a difference to navigating the forums!

I have noticed that many of the people I have come across on the Yahoo groups are not members here,  yet, or are just lurkers,  and I'm not too sure how to give Weavo a strong promotion without having a few List Moms descend on me like a ton of bricks. Perhaps all of us who are members of Yahoo groups could put a link to Weavo in the Links section of those groups, and if that doesn't raise a ripple, try a link to a WAL as an item of interest. Otherwise, instead of posting photos in our Yahoo albums, post them here and provide a link to them in the forum there, and let natural curiosity do the rest. We could even let TinyUrl provide the link because Yahoo is notorious for chopping links in half.

TinaHilton (not verified)

I've been posting some of my weaving on Facebook and have gotten lots of good comments, and a few people thinking about learning to weave.  It is a good way to infect others with the weaving virus!


Loominaria (not verified)

It's probably not too provocative to post in a yahoo group about something you've seen or are working on that happens to link to Weavolution. I recently saw Franco's promo for the Weavo rigid heddle weave-along. Hopefully no moderator gave him a beating for that one.

Kurt

francorios (not verified)

Generally on yahoo groups, I watch for people who ask for help. Then when I send them to Weavo, I'm not hijacking members, I'm offering valuable assistance. With most yahoo groups, if somebody asks a questions and gets a link for an answer, that's fair and that good communication.

If the moderators are wrapped up in protecting their turf, they are not doing a service to their members.

As a moderator of 20 plus yahoo groups, I think there is always room for one more good discussion group. I've started a few groups that did not work out. I close the groups that don't work, keep the ones that seem to be working.

Have a good day!

francorios (not verified)

Remember when you post a link to a Weavo group that you tell the people they have to register on Weavo to join the group and view the message.

Be sure to tell them there is no charge to register on Weavo. Which is a good feature.

Have a good day!

tommye scanlin

 My Facebook account came about so I could post notes for my university class in weaving.  Since then I've connected with many other tapestry artists who are on FB and also have found other folks and groups that I like to follow.  I've been happy with the way it's worked out for me.  As with anything, it is only a tool.  If I get sucked into the "drama" of following everything that happens with it... that's not the applications problem--it's my problem!

Tommye

claudia (not verified)

Good point, Tommye.  I have found it very useful for finding a few high school pals I lost track of and fiber friends I like to keep up with. 

As for Twitter, I just don't get it usefulness or why it is so popular.  My 25 year old techie nephew says it's a must.  He'll be here for Thanksgiving so I'll see what he suggests.

My Twitter account was hacked on Tuesday and started sending direct message spam to people who are my "followers" and I had to change my password and send out several apology letters.  That was annoying.  Mostly because I thought I had a good password with caps and symbols and numbers in it.  Ugh.

It's changed and hopefully more secure.  I use both accounts very infrequently and mostly read.

Claudia

SisterDiane (not verified)

 I hope you all won't mind me adding my two cents to this discussion - and, full disclosure, I wrote an ebook on using social media tools like FB and Twitter for crafty businesses.

These are really relationship-building tools. It all comes down to the way marketing is changing in the internet age.

Up until now, we all used "Broadcast Marketing," where one person sends one message out to as many eyeballs as possible. (As in, traditional advertising.) This worked for a long time, but, thanks to the web, that model is beginning to break.

A new form of marketing, "Engagement Marketing," is emerging. In this form, instead of broadcasting messages, you build a community of friendly fans by reaching out to one person at a time. The keys are providing good value, responding to people, and reaching out meaningfully to them. It looks a whole lot more like friendship-building than marketing.

...But it works, because this style cuts right through the clutter created by all those thousands of broadcast marketing messages we're still buffeted with each day. Consumers are starting to mistrust ad messages. But they'll generally respond to friendly human beings who have something interesting to say.

Twitter and Facebook are excellent tools for this kind of relationship-building. They allow you to reach out to more people more quickly than ever before online, and form reciprocal relationships with much less time invested.

As I said before, the key is providing value. You can't get on these systems and mention your business over and over again. Instead, it's important to share ideas, links, or images that your online friends will find useful or inspiring. If you give them that, they'll be listening to you in future.

...Anyway. I can go on and on about this stuff. :-) I hope that explanation of social media's usefulness in a business context was helpful. And I'm more than happy to answer questions anytime.

claudia (not verified)

Hi Diane,

thank you for your comments.  I have one question, how do I get a copy of your ebook?

Claudia

Loominaria (not verified)

I tried Facebook and myspace and ended up with only Twitter. I like Twitter because its enforced limitations enhance creativity and concentrate the interest -- or so it works for me with the small group I follow. You have 140 characters and Twitpics (photo site connected to your log-in). Of course, like all the rest, you can get hypnotized into following posted links on Twitter to things that are unlimited. Or you can get in and out quickly and sample from what looks most interesting. It is so easy to scan tweets quickly and see if you want to explore something further.

This is way over 140 characters, so I'll stop now.  :-)

Kurt

kbird (not verified)

Claudia -

Perhaps you've beaten me to it!  I was actually thinking I would purchase a copy of Diane's e-book as a small token to thank you for all the work you've done with Weavolution.  Diane is one of my favorite people who is interested in promoting craftiness in general, but also is willing to share from her wealth of information.

Her blog... www.craftypod.com/ is one of my all time favorites.

She also didn't mention that in addition to her e-books, she produces a podcast and has taught classes in how to do podcasting...

A local fan...
Kay

TinaHilton (not verified)

I didn't realize that was the same Diane!  I subscribed to CraftyPod after you recommended it Kay.  It's definitely a good addition to my list of podcasts.


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