Social Media 1.0
I’ve done some research and it looks like the main social media I need to be in is the ubiquitous Facebook as well as Instagram, Twitter and maybe Pinterest. These seem to be the most suitable and what most people recommend for the type of promotion I’m aiming for. What I need to decide next is do I promote myself, or through my personal social media accounts, which I have mostly yet to create or in some cases fill out the ‘forgot my password’ to reclaim a long abandoned account. Or do I create a business account and a brand to go with that, or in fact several brands. Now the general consensus is to promote yourself, people buy from people, especially in the artisan or creative markets. There is also a general consensus that you should create a brand and stick to products or services that can fit into that brand harmoniously with each other. That poses a problem as some of my ideas certainly do not sit harmoniously together, they don’t clash horribly it’s not like I’m selling fur coats alongside PETA bumper stickers, but they certainly have nothing in common. The reason being that I plan to use what I call the snowball effect. As discussed in a previous chapter the snowball rolls down a hill collecting snowflakes and gathering momentum and increasing in size. The business model is similar, lots of little projects that feed into medium sized projects that feed into large projects that ultimately pay off. This is where the issue lies, although each layer has items in common the small projects have little in common with the medium and then also the large. So the decision needs to be made whether I brand each layer differently or not, or at all and just keep myself as the brand. As yet I do not have an answer so I’ll have to come back to this point later
Here is another point – keep moving forward. I previously read and advise you read the ‘business plan on a beer mat’ by Mike Southern. He states that you need to just get on and do it. Worry about the tax when you make money, worry about HR when you employ people, don’t procrastinate and worry before it’s happened just get on and do it. I know what he means and aim to follow that advise, I’ve made many plans, in fact this one has been written down a few times, not in its present format but similar, there are checklists and plans and diagrams and doodles all over my notebooks but little has been done. Also you can plan out an idea and write a business plan for the bank, projected earnings and all that stuff but until you actually get up and do it you never know whats really going to happen. Also if I took this plan to a bank they’d probably laugh!