– Tara Reed

Thanks to my friend Barbara Rozgonyi – the one who’s Facebook account was hacked – I just learned about a free service that will backup a wide array of social media sites.

Go to Backupify.com and secure your online identity in case of technical glitches or hackers messing with your world!

The free account will backup all of your personal sites or for $4.99 you can upgrade to a business membership and backup business accounts as well.  The image below shows you all the accounts you can secure with this service.  Thanks Barbara for the tip!

Here’s to your secure social media identity!

– Tara Reed

This is also a great example of how you can interact with others and have some fun in your day on Twitter…

It started with her tweet:

@abstanfield: Need an inspiration for making my #Valentine cards.#wheresmymuse

To which I replied:

<< in Cabo w/my muse? slow start today…

She was surprised by this location saying:

@ArtistTaraReed I had no idea my muse was in Cabo! I was thinking, maybe, Florence

I had to double-tweet back to get my next thought out (remember, you only get 140 characters at a time on Twitter!)

Part 1:  I think Cabo since I’m not a huge fan so it’s a good hide-out for mine… rumor has it our muses are friends!

Part 2:  but maybe WE should go to Florence and find NEW muses… would show them, huh? (And be fun!)

Now she’s on the same wave-length with my early-morning logic and replies:

@ArtistTaraReed Got it! So my muse wouldn’t be hiding from me anywhere I’d look. Must be in the Russian Steppe

Getting to know people on Twitter is as simple as that. And if you are an artist on Twitter – you want to follow Alyson – she’s a wealth of great information, advice, and fun.  Alyson is the author of “I’d Rather Be in the Studio”*  – a great resource I believe should be on every artist’s bookshelf so be sure to check it out if you don’t have a copy yet.  Be sure to check out her blog – The Art Biz Blog* – as well – also great information about art, organization, inspiration and more!

Now it’s your turn – if your muse goes missing, where would she hide?

Remember, it’s probably somewhere you’d rather not be… leave your location in the comments – or come tweet me!  Twitter tip: If you want to ensure someone sees something that you tweet, you have to put the @ symbol and their twitter name before  you tweet – then it comes up in their “mentions” stream.  I try to follow everyone who tweets directly at or with me but admit that I’m not the best at keeping up with checking new followers – it takes a bit of time so I follow those that interact.

Here’s to a little fun and interaction while building your business!

– Tara Reed

Entry Level Graphic Design Assistant

Available June 28, 2010

Dena Designs is a dynamic art licensing / surface design company in Lafayette, CA. We are looking for a full time entry level employee with the following skills:
Photoshop – As most of this job is creating repeating patterns from paintings, you will be scanning, erasing white paper backgrounds, and creating coordinates in Photoshop. You will also be creating PR printouts, brochures, and more.

Illustrator – Our newest line is almost all created in Illustrator. You will need to be able to trace sketches with the pen tool, and create patterns & mockups.
Sewing – Is a plus, but not a necessity. You should be comfortable with a home sewing machine both with and without patterns, mostly without. Things typically sewn include pillows, tote bags, aprons, stuffed animals, and dresses. You should also know how to make things like ruffles, pleats, and piping.

Digital Photography – Occasionally you till take photos for magazine ads, blogs, Scripps Howard News Service Monthly DIY columns, PR, and more.

Writing – At the very least, the writing of the monthly Scripps Howard column and 2 blog entries per month will need to be written.

Other programs that are good to know – imovie, iphoto (to create slideshows), idvd (to make dvds of videos and slideshows).

The position also includes some website maintenance, shipping & receiving, ordering supplies, studio organization, filing of contracts and paperwork.

They are hoping to hold interviews this week!  If you are interested, call 925-299-0470 or email info@denadesigns.com if it is after hours.

– Tara Reed

Facebook fan pages can be a great way to connect and build community.

Let’s face it, these days you have to offer your information in several ways and several formats so people can consume it how and where they want to.  That’s why I have a blog, a bi-monthly eNewsletter, a forum, a YouTube channel and yes… a Facebook fan page.

As my friends online create fan pages, I keep saying, “Now that you have 25 fans, have you registered a better url?”  Of course you can use a budurl, tinyurl or other url compression to make something easier to share, but wouldn’t it be better to have a cool “facebook.com/YOURNAME” url? (The answer is yes…)

SO… here is how you do it.  In chunks from past posts…

Last week Facebook made it easier for people to share their Facebook pages… assuming you grab your name!

Having the joy of sharing a name with an actress presents some issues for me… I can’t get www.TaraReed.com so I had to go with TaraReedDesigns.com. And forget getting my name on Twitter or Facebook either. So I’ve become “ArtistTaraReed” and am using that consistently across social media platforms. I’m now quite happy with it since it makes it quite obvious what I do!

Before the change, this is what people had to type in or link from to find me on Facebook:

http://profile.to/artisttarareed/

http://apps.facebook.com/webaddress/artisttarareed

(end of the June 23rd excerpt)

Way back in June, which is like the 80′s in ‘internet time’, you could do this for yourself. That was all I had and all I really cared about at the time. (you know, back in the 80′s)

But NOW I’m getting on board with ‘fan pages’. Continuing my ‘separation of church and state’ (you might recall I now have a separate YouTube channel just for Art Licensing Info)

I decided to set up two: one for Art Licensing Info (this may replace the ning forum… or not replace it but I might HIGHLY recommend everyone go over there… more on that in another post) and one for fans of my art (Tara Reed Designs.)

But there is a catch to registering a username with Facebook – you have to have at least 25 fans before they let you do it.

So here is what you need to do, as best as I can remember.

Creating a “Fan Page” is just like creating your own page. But you create it for your business. (And you have to have a personal page to get a fan page – login information is the same.) Go to:

http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages

(don’t worry – they won’t ask you to open your wallet unless you want to do those little ads down the right hand side of Facebook when you are logged in.)

Click on the Green “Create a Page” button in the upper right. You might want to read through the ‘how-to’ as well. Maybe even bookmark it.

Set up the basics. The “Who”, “What” and “Why”. Make sure you become a fan of your page so it can be found.

Add a link on your personal page. I understand that business pages are a way of letting people know about your business without being your personal ‘friend’ on Facebook, but two things may be true. First, you may already have a cloudy line and have lots of business people as friends. Second, some of your friends (or their friends) may also be interested in your business. So I say, make sure there is somewhere for anyone on your personal page to know about your business page.

To do this, I added links in the “info” box below my photo and all the “contact”, “message”, and “poke” me links. Since your link will have both words and lots of numbers until you can register a better looking username, I put the long url in at http://www.tinyurl.com to create a shortcut.

Now go find some fans. At least 25 to be exact. That is the first magic number because then you can grab the special url.

I found that the ‘ethical bribe’ method got me to 25 fans in 6 hours. (If you missed it, sorry! Maybe next time.) I gave a discount coupon and artists came running. I advertised it on Facebook (of course) and Twitter (again, of course).

Once I had collected my fans and sent out my coupon codes, it was time to register the name. Go to:

http://www.facebook.com/username/

If you already registered your personal name like I did back in June, the screen will look like mine above and say “Your user name has been set”. If not, that is where you can start.

But now that I had my 25 business and art fans, I clicked on the “Set a user name for your pages”. The drop down showed me the pages I owned and if I had the requisite 25, I could pick a name, say I was sure it was the name I wanted (you can’t change them later) and I was all set!

That’s it. Now I just need to add the parts and pieces I want to the pages. I’ve already linked the associated blogs. (I’ll blog about how to do that another day. One thing at a time.)

SO… if you are reading this blog, you just might be interested in becoming a fan here:

www.Facebook.com/ArtLicensingInfo

If you are a fan of my art and want to know what I’m up to on that side of things, I’m at:

www.Facebook.com/TaraReedDesigns.com

I hope this helps! Here’s to your creative success and your successful navigation of pages and name registration on Facebook.

– Tara Reed

Now Ning is going to be charging for the forums.  I simply can’t justify paying for more ‘free’ services so I will be closing the forum on June 15th, Ning becomes fee based in July.  I also spend an inordinate amount of time getting rid of Canadian drug and porn “members” who try to join this forum – to the tune of 100-300 per week!

If you’d like to read about Ning’s decision to make the change, CLICK HERE.  As they so eloquently put it, “eyeballs don’t pay the bills”.

Every business needs to take time to evaluate whether the free services they provide are generating enough revenue by leading to sales of products, affiliate promotions, etc – ArtLicensingInfo.com is no different.  The cost of free needs to be offset by sales – or I need to spend more time on my art which means less free… it’s all a balance!

There have been some great discussions and exchanging of ideas on the forum – but they can be done on Facebook as well.  I encourage you to join the Art Licensing Info page and use it to ask questions and share ideas.

www.Facebook.com/ArtLicensingInfo

I posted the basics on the Ning site and one concern was about Facebook being too much of an open forum and giving too much information to advertisers.

Here is my understanding of how your information is used with advertisers on Facebook:

FB does share some info with advertisers but only information that you put on your profile. So if you fill out your age, where you live and if you are married or not – advertisers looking for married women of a certain age in your area will be able to target the ads in the right sidebar to you. You don’t get email from advertisers – it is how they generate targeted ad on your pages, instead of the Google AdWords we have here.

You can limit the details you add to your account to protect against that if it concerns you. Personally, I see it as more valuable than a nuisance. For example, I don’t have to look at Dominoe’s pizza ads every day like my 16 year old son says he sees – he is more likely to buy from them than I am so they target him. I think it’s similar to tv commercials you see on different shows – South Park will attract different advertisers than the Golden Girls because a different audience will be watching.

The way Facebook can target ads is also how they are monetizing the site and hopefully won’t have to resort to pulling all free services as Ning has. You simply can’t support a platform on Google Ads.

Also, from my research into ads, FB doesn’t give the average advertiser visibility of the individual – your name for example isn’t given out – just the ability to laser focus demographics.   However, an artist shared the link to this article saying that FB will be selling some information so who knows… everyone needs to make the decision for themselves.

Here’s to your creative success!

- Tara Reed

I have combined 18 months of experience using Twitter and all the questions I get from people about how to decide if it will help them in their business.

The audio isn’t specifically for artists – but for any business owner who might want to get more insight than they are getting in newspapers and magazines.

SO, in the vein of Twitter I’ll keep this blog post short – if you or anyone you know wants to learn more about what can be accomplished with Twitter for business and some tips to make the most of your time and effort, please check out all the details at www.ArtLicensingInfo.com/twitter.html

And of course, if you are on Twitter – follow and chat with me!

– Tara Reed

Let’s get social tonight!

Here’s how it can work on Twitter:

• During the call, add #ask to any tweets about the call.
• If Mary says something quotable or that makes you go “A-HA!” – then tweet it! (don’t forget to add #ask)
• If you use TweetDeck, or HootSuite – set up a column to track #ask so you can see and interact with others who are on the call.  You might make new friends – I always do!  Just remember to set up your columns to track the hash tag (#ask) BEFORE the call starts so you aren’t in a panic!
• If you want to make sure I see a tweet, be sure to include @ArtistTaraReed – but I’ll be checking the #ask stream after the call.

If you prefer Facebook:

• Login to facebook and go to the ArtLicensingInfo fan page.
• Start talking. Just like on Twitter, if you hear something that makes you go “A-HA!” – add it! Comment on what other people are saying. Get to know your fellow licensed artists.
• One advantage to Facebook is that the stream stays – it doesn’t limit you to 140 characters and people can go back to it later – almost like group class notes.

I won’t be able to be tweeting and commenting on Facebook since we don’t want typing noise on the audio and I need my full attention on Mary.  But I really hope you all connect and comment – it will be interesting to see what you you have to say and share!

So let’s take these calls up a notch and interact.  I’m excited – are you???

– Tara Reed

And WOW! So far so good!  We have some exciting things coming up – many of which I discovered or got a final “yes”  to this year.

• AskAboutSEOforArtists.com – the Ask Call for February (on Wed. the 17th) came to me via email – “I have this new product and thought it might be of interest to your audience…” Absolutely!  What artist with a website doesn’t want to know how to make it work more efficiently for them?
• Brand Yourself for Success in Art Licensing – teleseminar by Paul Brent (on Wed, Feb 24th) – we’ve been talking about this for months and now it will be happening!
• Ask Mary Engelbreit – 13 months in the ‘wooing’ – Mary will be the Ask Call expert on Wed, March 17th – can’t wait!

And these are just the amazing things going on on the information side of my business – not the art side.  But do you see a trend in these events?  They are all opportunities that came from my taking the Teleseminar Secrets Class and learning to connect, teach and inspire by phone.

We’re getting to the part where I need good vibes now…

The cool thing about the Teleseminar Secrets Class is that once you are a student, you are always a student and you can listen in every year to learn the new content and brush up on some review.  I have 2 really cool things going on during the class again this year.

THE GOOD VIBE REQUEST: I entered the “Teleseminar Secrets Challenge” again this year (this time as a “Veteran” – if you read my blog last year you might recall I was a finalist for the “Newbie” category.)  Well I am a finalist again!  One of 6 Veterans who will give a 4 minute speech on WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10th to the other students (usually about 500 people are on the line) and tell them why I believe I deserve to be the “Highest Vote Getter” among the 6 finalists.

For some reason I was REALLY NERVOUS during my speech last year – like, crazy didn’t-think-I’d-get-each-word-out nervous.  The level of it surprised me!  I fully intend not to repeat that feeling.  (The audio sounded fine but it didn’t feel good while I was talking.)

So I would love to know that I have you on my side and sending calming energy to me, OK? (Very new-age, I know!)  I have so enjoyed every Ask Call I’ve done or facilitated since my first call in December 2008 – and it’s thanks to the artists and support you give.  That was part of the challenge entry that got me into the finals…

I’ll let you know how it goes on Thursday, ok?

Another fun Teleseminar Secrets addition – I have been asked to be on the “Faculty” to teach about using Twitter to grow a business.  I was just tweeting away during class and posting to the Facebook fan page and suddenly heard my name and ended up on the live call… if you want to hear my basic thoughts and how this came about – you hear it all below…

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

So remember, none of these amazing things would be happening if I wasn’t ASKING (for experts to become part of the ArtLicensingInfo.com family), TRYING (entering the challenge) or LISTENING (to new ideas like the SEO for Artists.).

You don’t know what is possible for you or your business unless you try.  So I encourage you to take a deep breath and GO FOR IT!  The worst that can happen is nothing… the best?  Who knows!

Here’s to your creative success!

– Tara Reed

]]> http://artlicensingblog.com/2010/02/07/good-vibes-needed-please-the-power-of-asking-and-trying/feed/ 11 http://artlicensingblog.com/2010/01/28/twittering-leads-to-a-fun-tour-of-katu-with-a-blog-reader/ http://artlicensingblog.com/2010/01/28/twittering-leads-to-a-fun-tour-of-katu-with-a-blog-reader/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:00:48 +0000 Tara Reed http://artlicensingblog.com/?p=2283 How cool is that? Many people who don’t get or don’t like twitter love to use the excuse, “I just don’t care what you had for breakfast.”  (I’ll blog more about that later!)  They might also say they don’t care what I watch on TV on Sunday night…

But guess what? My tweeting about it led to a blog reader (Susan E) who happens to work at KATU in Portland to email me and ask if I’d like a Brothers & Sisters poster. Well sure!  Why not!

Susan was also nice enough to give me, my son & my BF Craig a personal tour of the tv station.  I’ve never seen a tv station the way I saw it with Susan!  What a great learning opportunity for my 16 year old as well – who decided that none of the jobs he saw looked like good possibilities for his future – so maybe we are narrowing in on a career… or at least checking a few possiblities off the list!

My point in two-fold:

1. You don’t have to Twitter if you don’t like it but you just never know where a random comment could get you! and

2. THANK YOU SUSAN!  You were a wonderful tour guide and the gesture was much appreciated.

NOW… where am I going to put my poster????

– Tara Reed

follow me on Twitter.com/ArtistTaraReed