Social Media

How to Back Up Your Social Media

What would you do if all of the sudden all the data and connections you had on social media platforms disappeared? Personally, I’d need a paper bag to breathe into because I’m quite sure I’d faint or at minimum, have a hard time breathing!

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

How can artists get "the new word of mouth" working for us?

How do you get the word out? Does ‘word of mouth’ work for artists interested in licensing? What collection of things can we do to increase our visibility – both to the end consumer and to our first customer – the manufacturer?

I just read an interesting article by Steve Strauss – a very savvy small business guru I happened to meet through my boyfriend Craig. (Someone recently asked how he was since I hadn’t mentioned him in a while – he’s great in case you were wondering as well!)

Steve just began writing for AOL Small Business and his latest article is titled, “The New Word of Mouth”. I recommend you read it. Not only does he give interesting statistics about different types of media and the time it took them to reach the eyes of 50 million users… but he gives a list of hows & whys to do blogs, eNewsletters, social media and more.

I find it interesting and helpful to my business to step outside of the art box and learn about how and why other industries are implementing marketing strategies. Then I sit back and ask myself, “Now how can I use this in my business?”

As you know, I’m a big advocate of social media. Twitter and Facebook being my favorites, LinkedIn I’m still working on. (Time! I need more time!) Social media is a piece of word of mouth.

This blog is a word of mouth tool. So is my personal art blog. The websites. Videos.

While sometimes you might (or someone around you might) question how writing a blog post about decorating liquid soap with rubber stamps will further my business efforts, I believe every little bit helps.

I have heard artists say manufacturers found them through a Google search and their blog postings. Magazine editors have requested the ability to reprint blog post ‘how-tos’ in their magazines. Plus if end users begin to enjoy your digital content, they just might notice your products in the stores too and want to buy them because they feel connected.

So this post isn’t a definitive answer to the question, but more of a launching pad to get you thinking and deciding for yourself. What are you or could you be doing to make the word of mouth about you and your business just a little bit louder?

Here’s to your creative success!

– Tara

Weighing in on Social Media…

Earlier this week I was interviewed for a magazine article about small businesses using Social Media to grow their business. It won’t be a long article but I’m quite excited! (Press! Always a good thing!)

Anyway, I thought I’d blog about my thoughts on Social Media while some of them are fresh in my mind.

Before June 2008 (when I took the class about internet marketing) I was rather blog and social media resistant. The blogs I had seen shared some pretty personal information (in my opinion) and I didn’t want to do that. The circumstances of my son’s conception, inner thoughts on ex-husbands, spats with friends… I didn’t see how that would help me or my business without turning me into another “tabloid Tara Reed”.

But in the class they talked about how it all helps and reminded me of a very important point – I’m the one with the keyboard. If information goes out on cyber-space (at least on my websites, blogs or other social media) it’s because I chose to type it. I share what I want to share and keep private what I think should be private.

Sigh of relief. Duh. Makes sense.

So I chose to climb out of my comfort zone and give it a shot. I signed up for Twitter not really knowing WHO I would talk to or WHAT I would say, only that I’d try it. Ditto Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.

Fast forward to October 2009 and now I’m hooked. I also have some opinions about how and why to use Social Media. I’ll share my thoughts and maybe they will help you get some clarity if you are hesitant like I was or some more ideas if you are already here.

Why I Joined Social Media Sites

I joined because someone said I should. I joined to see what I could do in the internet marketing space. Connect with artists and share my experience in the art licensing industry.

I have connected with some amazing people. Built a community of artists and non-artists I never would have gotten to know, albeit ‘cyberly’ and not in person in most cases. Although I’ve met more than a few locally because of the internet as well.

How I See Social Media Helping My Business

Connections. Relationships. That is what business, friendships and community is about. “Social Media” is just a way for technology to get involved.

Social Media has helped me spread the word about my products, Ask calls, coaching and more for artists wanting to learn about licensing. It has helped my affiliates spread the word as well so I can ‘share the wealth’ with others. (I do love paying affiliate commissions each month – truly!)

Social Media has given me a sense of belonging. I have never worked in an office. I’ve been a sales person in charge of an entire state and working from home. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom… again, at home. Now I’m an artist and business owner… guess where I work? Yup. Studio in my home. I find Twitter to be like a virtual office. If I need to connect with humans I have but to go online and chat with people in the virtual cubicles around me. Awesome!

A little more detail about my feelings on each platform

Twitter – LOVE IT! Since June 2008 I’ve tweeted over 6,600 times I have nearly 2,500 followers. I’ve made friends on Twitter. Last winter when I took the Teleseminar Secrets class I connected with people on Twitter while listening to the calls. When I went to the “reunion” in March I felt like I was at a high school reunion. Even though I never met these people before you can really get to know them online. Of course some were a little different than I expected but many were not. How much fun is that?

Twitter has been a great resource for me to get answers to questions. I have thrown out questions about software, resources, even “anyone know what font this is?” and 9 times out of 10 get help. Of course you can’t join and have that work on day 1. You have to build the connections first – hmm… kind of like in real life. The friendly, social and helpful people often have a better network to turn to than those who don’t talk to anyone, right? Same thing applies online.

Facebook – also LOVE IT. Facebook is a great mix of everything. From the ability to connect with high school friends you’d never see without it to creating business fan pages to connect with your end user, Facebook has a bit of everything.

Now I may ruffle a few feathers with this next statement but I don’t believe in having your Twitter stream on Facebook. Unless of course, you are rarely on Twitter and therefore missing out on its true potential. You see, in my view, there is a different expectation on Facebook. I can’t tell you how many people will complain about their friends who “just say such random stuff I could care less about and fill my feed!” I reply, “I bet they twitter”. Twitter is about streaming – like texting. Facebook is more of billboard – here’s my deal for now. Of course there are comments and interaction but it’s different. I tweet way to much to stream it on Facebook.

LinkedIn – still learning it. I haven’t figured out how to use LinkedIn as effectively as Twitter and Facebook. I have connected with some people I used to work with when I was selling college textbooks – that was awesome! I have made some connections for my current business too. But I haven’t quite got my finger on how to really tap into it – stay tuned for an update when I do.

MySpace – sorry, I was over it pretty quickly. Once I started getting multiple emails from widowers and men who thought I had great eyes, was pretty and wished they lived in Portland, I got a creepy feeling. It felt way too much like Match.com which I was thankful for for a while but am happy to not need now! I think MySpace is for the younger crowd and have decided it isn’t a good fit for me.

Well this little ‘weighing in’ is getting a bit lengthy so I’ll stop there and do some more in-depth posts soon with more detail. The article will be in the November issue of the Oregon Business Magazine - can’t wait to see what it has to say! (of course my blog post is already double the article word count and I won’t be the only one offering opinions… that’s what I love about a blog. I can be chatty when the mood strikes!)

Here’s to getting and staying connected!

– Tara

How Ashton Kutcher Showed CNN that "Media" is a Whole New Game These Days!

I just read an article about how Ashton Kutcher and CNN had a friendly race to see who could get 1 million twitter followers first… you can bet that CNN thought they’d beat him by a landslide. I’ll give you the link to the article in the P.P.S.

But guess what? Ashton won.

He gets that social media isn’t the same old CNN media — it’s, well, SOCIAL. It’s about connecting with people on a more personal level, interacting, not just reporting the news.

This reinforced a conversation I had this morning with Rebecca Shapiro (on Twitter, @RebeccaShapiro) talking about how the world has gone flat again.

Until 1492, the general belief was that the world was flat. Christopher Columbus bumped into America and blew that idea out of the water. *Poof!* reality is turned on it’s head and the world is round.

2004 – the term “Web 2.0″ is coined and the social media emerges like a phoenix from the ashes of the dot-com collapse. (I’m generalizing here, don’t quote this as gospel) This is when Rebecca and I have decided the world flattened out again.

Before Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, people couldn’t connect as easily and instantly from all points on the globe. I got an email from and artist in Australia today who has been enjoying my blog… I just started blogging in June and I’ve never been to Australia so I’m pretty sure social media is responsible for the connection.

With this change in the way we can access people, interact and relate — we need to change the way we do business. No longer can you just put something online and assume customers will come to you. They have more choices than ever. They want to know, like and trust the people they do business with. Talk to. Social Medialize with.

And that’s why I think Ashton won the race. He was live-streaming, talking, reading tweets and getting to know us. CNN told us to follow them so they could win. I turn to CNN for my news but I spend 100 times more time on Twitter I can assure you.

So why am I telling you all of this? To get you to think about how you are working your business. How are you interacting with others, networking and getting connections?

Thankfully you don’t have to golf and belong to a country club to succeed anymore, you can sit in your pjs, online and tweet away! I’d be sunk, like my golf ball in a deep lake, if I had to rely on the “good old boys” way of networking because I have interest in golf. But give me a keyboard and I have some things to say!

But for now, that’s all I have to say about that! Have a creative day!

~ Tara

P.S. Rebecca is the founder of a very cool onlin community for women entrepreneurs. (Not just artists, although she is one) Check it out at: www.thesavvycollaborative.com

P.P.S. (Click here to read the article)