Twittering Leads to a Fun Tour of KATU with a Blog Reader!
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
Put in "Twitter Time Out" for Excessive Tweeting! Really!
Oh yeah! This is a badge of honor if ever I created one myself. Let me explain…
I’m a bit chatty… I was never the girl to get in trouble for talking in class, oh no! I was a very well-behaved student. This is the first time that I can remember getting “in trouble” – we’ll call it “Twitter Trouble” for ‘talking’.
It was “The Big Call” with Alex Mandossian and the pre-kick-off party of sorts for the 2009-2010 Teleseminar Secrets season. Last year was the first time I took the class and it has changed my business. (go to TaraRecommendsAlex.com here for those details)
What was so cool was that not only did I learn all these amazing skills for my business, but I could interact and ‘meet’ other students on Twitter as long as I used the #tss hash tag. (That’s how I could find them.)
Well on December 3rd, I was having a great time talking to everyone! Such a great time apparently, that I was told I was shut down for “Excessive Tweeting” and to “check back in a few hours”. HUH? Sounds like social discrimination! Just because I’m a fast tweeter with a circle of friends I’m done!
At first, it was quite stressful. But I had an alternate account – as @MarianSparks said, “no one puts baby in a corner!” and Twitter can try and put me in time out but it wasn’t going to stick! 
Now I’m so enjoying sharing the story! I’m beaming with pride! This is fabulous! I think one other person got put in time out too – I’ll have to confirm that with @NewThoughts.
I decided to make a badge, start a club and revel in my ability to out-tweet Twitter. (the rule, it seems, is no more than 150 tweets an hour…)
Feel free to DM me on Twitter if you ever get put in “Twitter Time Out” – you can put the badge on your website or blog and if you ask nice, I’ll send you a button. I’ll also put you on the list of club members.
Here’s to connecting and turning lemons into lemonade! (The lemon being “Twitter Time Out” and lemonade being my “club”)
EXCESSIVE TWEET CLUB ROSTER
@ArtistTaraReed (founding member)
@NewThoughts
@KimBeasley
And here’s a video of my dad’s reaction to my mischief…
BlogWorld Keynote: The New Celebrity. What we can learn for our own social media interactions
The official BlogWorld Description:
The Reawakening of Artistry: Using New Media to Make Consumer Media Significant – Again
With the avid consumer migration away from traditional distribution channels and mechanisms for the support of artistry, how can established and emerging artists reconnect with fans to not only sell and promote their work, but also shift participation from fandom to community. Join Brian Solis with special celebrity guests, Soleil Moon Frye, Jermaine Dupree and Anthony Edwards as they explore how new media tools and communities are ushering in a renaissance for traditional media while also inspiring its evolution into new formats and distribution platforms and channels while enhancing relationships between artists and fans.
The panel included: (the links are to their twitter accounts)
Brian Solis, Anthony Edwards, Jermaine Dupri, Soleil Moon Frye
My take-aways:
OK, here we go again. Welcome to my brain. I’m just going to let what I remember about the session flow…
First of all, it was a great panel of articulate, engaged celebrites from TV, music and film. Brian Solis was a fantastic moderator and started the discussion saying that when celebrities first got on social media it was very inauthentic – assistants were in charge and they were all branding and commercial messages. But there is a shift and the point of the panel was to talk about that shift and how celebrities can and do use social media.
Some points that stuck with me:
Do your own social media – don’t outsource it because people can tell.
Don’t talk about using the restroom but let people get to know you.
Keep the “We” in Social web and not just the “Me” in Social Media.
You make the rules in how you interact with others in Social Media. Yes, there is freedom of expression but if it is your blog, Twitter or Facebook, you decide who gets to say what. Don’t take abuse.
Be kind and remember that even though you might be interacting with your thumbs, act as if you are face-to-face – keep respect in your interactions always.
Social Media is about sharing and connecting in real time. Put yourself out there in a way that makes you comfortable.
Social Media has eliminated the need for a lot of middle-men – market research on fan base, etc. can be done by you, online.
Your message is instant and worldwide. The internet is shrinking the world and helping people connect like never before.
So what do I take away from all this, for use by me, personally? A non-celebrity but artist looking to connect with my consumers?
Let others get to know me without giving out information that I think is too personal. It is ok to put boundaries around how you relate.
Don’t be afraid to be myself. Some might not like it but they won’t be my consumers, friends and fans anyway and that’s ok.
Help and connect with others. Social Media will work best when it is a two-way street – you can’t just throw your own stuff out there and expect to get anywhere. Share. Help. Relate. Talk.
I make the rules. You can play the “Social Media Game” anyway you want so don’t let others tell you how it has to be done. I was once told I HAD to have separate twitter accounts for business and personal. I always disagreed and never did it. By my rules, it is about letting people know me and I am a combination of life, fun, work and sharing.
Attending BlogWorld has been a great way to step outside of the ‘artist’ box and see what is going on in a lot of different industries. I’m sure I’ll be processing everything for quite some time.
Would love to hear your thoughts on all this. (Oh yeah… one person said our blogs are only as relevant as our comments – hope not! I think I get more email feedback than blog comments so my rules say – it’s still ok. I believe I help people – even if sometimes that is only me by processing things in print!)
Facebook: how and why to consider registering user names and creating business fan pages
I’ve talked about this before… back in June when they launched the ability to register a username. Let’s review:
(excerpt from the June 23rd post…)
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
Have you grabbed your Facebook name?
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
But “profile.to/” doesn’t really mean anything if you don’t know it goes to Facebook. So now I am the proud owner of:
http://www.facebook.com/artisttarareed
Obvious where it is going and who you will find (me) – cool!
But why is this important and worth the 2-5 minutes it takes to setup?
Having consistency with your name and being on multiple web pages will help you come up higher in a Google search. It will also help with your branding and visibility.
So what are you waiting for? Go grab your Facebook real estate right now!
Tara
PS – Here is the page people find (slightly squished) when they go to my new url…
How Accountability Can Help Your Bottom Line…
I just finished a little experiment. I didn’t even start it intentionally, it just sort of “twitted” out of me. Here’s what happened.
I looked at my calendar. Eek! In 3 weeks I will be IN the Jacob Javitz Convention Center in booth #613 hopefully talking to lots of current and potential licensees.
I thought to myself, I haven’t reached some people I want to connect with, I should get back on the phone. Goal #1: set some appointments. Goal #2: Have them hear my voice and remind them that I will be at the show. (booth #613!) Some people choose not to make appointments and that is ok, but reminding them to look for you is always a good idea.
Then I went on Twitter and said this:
Now that is putting it out there! HAVE to do it if you put it out there for all to see, right?
Well about 1/2 hour passes and it’s now 12:30 pm and my stomach starts rumbling… but I can’t eat! I’ve gotten 7 voicemails and only 3 live people. (We decided receptionists didn’t count.) Keep dialing…
It took me an hour and 9 voicemails before I got to 5 live people. (That’s actually pretty fast – I’m happy!) I have 1 new appointment, 3 people will be stopping by because they are “roaming free” and 1 won’t be going at all. I also got some good industry information and furthered my relationship with all 5 people. Not bad for an hours work.
But the points I really want to make are these:
- If you tell someone you are going to do something and they cheer you on and hold you accountable, you are more likely to do it. (And not give up so you can eat.)
- I don’t just tell people to do things, I actually do them myself, which is why I know that what I teach works.
- Setting smaller, achievable goals gets you farther than HUGE, crazy looking ones. I have an overall goal of having X number of appointments at the show, but on a daily basis, it may be, “talk to 3 people”. Create 1 repeat pattern. “Chunk” your goals into doable pieces and you will be less overwhelmed and more productive.
And the BOTTOM LINE is, if you do the work, make the calls and nurture your connections, the bottom line of your business is going to reflect your hard work.
That’s all I’ve got – now off to find some lunch!
~ Tara
P.S. If you are an artist wanting to learn more about HOW to get your art out there and earn income with licensing, be sure to see the eBooks, calls and teleseminars available at www.ArtLicensingInfo.com
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