Keep talking... you're making me famous

You know the saying... keep talking shit, you're making me famous? Well it's actually true in a very distinctive way on facebook. When you post a message on facebook, and someone likes you post or comments, it actually boosts your post so that more people can see it. So not matter what someone said about your post, good or bad... it gets seen more. So if you don't like what someone said or did, don't comment because your only helping their post get seen in the long run. On the other hand, if you do want to boost your friends post, like and comment on it so it gets seen more.

All those celebrities out there know that any publicity, good or bad is good publicity. Every scandal, every picture in a magazine... it all helps them letting you know who they are. When no one is talking, no one cares. It's a good thing to keep in mind next time someone writes something rude about you online. Keep talking... you're making me famous!

Online sales require more than just a good product

When it comes to selling online, it takes more than just the product in your hand and a snap of the item crumpled on the floor. I experienced this when selling racing swim suits online. I noticed that someone else was selling the exact same swim suit, only their price was $29 and had no bids after 5 days, and my starting price was $39 and had a bid after only one day. So what made my swim suit better when it was the exact same swim suit? The picture and the listing made the difference. They used a shot of the suit crumpled on the floor taken by their phone, I used a shot of the swimsuit I had researched for and found online. It was an older version of a brand name swim suit that wasn't sold much anymore online but you could still find the info and pictures for it if you really looked. I did a lot of research to find the right images and description but in the end it payed off because buyers are more interested in seeing professional images and a better description.

Their image of the swim suit

My image of the swim suit- though a little pixelated and I had to do a little photoshopping to make it look right, still a much better picture and more appealing to buyers.

Facebook now charging for personal page posts

I have to say, I was quite shocked when Facebook decided that in order to reach a large amount of fans on your business page, you now have to pay to reach out to the fans that you tried so hard to collect in the first place assuming that you would be able to reach them easily with your business page. But now Facebook is offering this for your personal page as well. They have a button now on your post that says "promote" it then wants you to pay $7 in order to make your post "important news" on your friends newsfeeds.

This seems like the beginning of Facebook slowly becoming a paid site which will ruin the while concept of Facebook completely.

I'm wondering what the push is for these new methods of making Facebook users pay? Are the billions of dollars Facebook is making off advertisers not enough? Are they just getting greedy? Or are advertisers backing out because, in my opinion at least, Facebook advertising is less effective than google advertising.

I understand hitting up the advertisers and small businesses for cash, but hitting up the typical consumer Facebook user is just going overboard. What is going to be paid next? Does this mean that my posts aren't going to be seen by as many of my friends if I don't pay?

The big question is, what do I really get out of paying the $7 to promote something to "important news" on my personal page. Lets say I want people to know about my small business or my event, am I really going to make $7 worth of profit from advertising to under 1500 friends? Not necessarily. Maybe if I was a medium sized business with a personal page but I'd say the majority of people are not.

Now I'm just wondering what the next social media site that's going to be coming up if Facebook wants to keep hitting us up for money, I know everyone will be gone soon enough. Maybe google plus? I'm not a fan of their layout but I'm also not a fan if paying for posts!

Facebook coupon offers

I think I like this new promotional tool on facebook business/fan pages. You can pay to offer a coupon to your network and you can choose how many it reaches. I don't like the fact that it has a limited reach, because I feel like when I got all those "likes" on my page, I should be able to reach them like I would with an email address only on their facebook wall. But the good thing about the coupons is that if someone see the coupon and clicks on it to redeem it, it comes up in their friends newsfeed that they have redeemed a coupon from this business.

It's cool for me as a consumer because then I can see some offers that are out there that my friends were interested in and it's cool for me as a business because my coupon code and like to my page gets posted on that persons page so all of their friends can check out my offer as well and possibly go to "like" my business too or redeem the offer. I will probably use this each time I want to post about a coupon code for my online jewelry sales business. I like that it reaches out to more than just my fans, it can reach their friends and friends of friends too. That in itself if worth it more than just letting my fans see a post. Also, the fans that click on the offer are more likely to see my future posts in their news feed than they would have before because now they've shown interest by clicking something I posted.

Before/After Photo editing

Photo editing in photoshop is an interesting technique. I feel like I'm always learning more about fixing colors and lighting and how to warp things into the way I want them. It's not just something you learn by doing a few hours of editing, it definitely takes a lot of practice to make it look right.

Here is a picture where I did a lot of editing. I had to change the middle girl's jacket completely because the client wanting a different colored jacket on the girl. Then, I changed the zippers on the girl on the right to black thick zippers instead of silver colored thin zippers. Lastly, I took out the girl on the left because the client decided that she wanted this image with only 2 girls instead of 3. There are other small changes made throughout the image like lengthening the girls pants or taking out extra pockets on the black coat on the left, but overall the image came out great and the poster is being hung in the window of a women's clothing store in Beverly Hills, CA for fall 2012.

Skype for business

For several years, I have been working with a client strictly over the phone doing design work. In the first year, it was me just sending him .jpgs through email back and forth and him calling and asking for changes. This took up so much time and it would get frustrating trying to understand what he wanted and I kept having to send him a bunch of new versions. He kept asking me to come up with a way that he could see my screen and work over the phone.

I had been using Skype previously because a friend told me about it. I realized that they had a way that you could share your screen through the messaging feature. It calls from one username to another, so it's not charging you for a phone call. Skype only charges you for a phone call if you are calling a phone line, not when you are calling another skype username within your country.

Skype has made it so much easier to communicate with my client who is now several states away from me. He can see my screen and tell me to move around text and pictures the way he wants them while I am on the computer doing it at the same time so he can see it. It has become a normal everyday type of thing to use Skype for work. He doesn't have a microphone on his computer, so we still have to use the regular phone to speak to each other, although if you both have speakers, you don't even need a phone. If you have a business where you need to show someone a design or information on your screen without being right next to them, I would suggest using Skype.

Online forum creation

There are a lot of websites now that let you create an online forum free. They let you host it free on their website and give you a custom URL attached to their domain. You can always buy your own .com domain and have it forwarded to the domain link they give you.

I recently tried out out called www.lefora.com 
It's not too bad, they don't spam you with ads all over your forum. There seems to be pretty good protection from spam bots joining your forum. They make each person that joins your site click through a bunch of ads with promotions just to join but afterwards, it is pretty clear from ads, except for some text ads at the very bottom that your barley notice.

Forums are useful if your trying to communicate with a group of people all at once. For example, when your throwing an event, you can create a forum to find out who wants to attend, who wants to perform, who wants to work, get every one's opinion on a topic, etc... It also helps create buzz for the event because talking about it hypes up the excitement of going to the event.

They are also useful for weekly or monthly clubs, sales groups, groups that want to discuss a topic like art or doing charity. Forums have been around for a very long time on the Internet. Much longer than facebook and myspace. It used to be harder to start a forum, get followers, etc... but it was like a private group facebook page where you share ideas, funny pictures, talk about current events, etc... There are a lot of forums out there today dedicated to computer tech support also.

One negative thing about starting a forum is that once you get a group of people on there and things start rolling, they really start to suck you in and somewhat waste your time in the same way that facebook does. Also, if you were the creator, you may want to check back often to administer the board. You have to decide what you want to allow on there and what you don't want to allow as far as topics, NSFW (not safe for work) posts, bad language, rude things people say, etc. On one hand, moderating a forum too much, you can lose some people with too much censorship, but not moderating it enough, you can also lose some people because they may not be protected from being harassed. If it is something to do with a business or event you are running, you may want to be on there enough to moderate the negative posts. Just be careful what you censor, because people will call you out of you censor your board too much also. It's all a balance.