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Building your brand with social media

My friend Nick Martin from Barnes MetalCrafters recently wrote a blog on the importance of having an online presence. I figured I’d follow that up with something I get asked about a lot, and that’s how to go from just being online to growing your brand online.

When I started Brown Dog Welding in 2008, social media was in its infancy, at least compared to the net it now casts. My vision, first and foremost, was to create a website that stood out from the crowd and represented my style as much as my work.

In a world of template-based sites, I wanted one tailored to my taste. The designers I hired for the task nailed it, and minus a slight refresh a couple years back, the overall look is pretty much just as it was then. I feel it has stood the test of time, something difficult to do in the quick-changing landscape of the World Wide Web. Although, with Google’s recent announcement that it will be giving preferential treatment to sites that are “mobile-friendly,” it may finally be time for an overhaul.

2008 was the last year that Myspace had more members than Facebook, and both had over 100 times as many users as Twitter. Instagram wasn’t even a twinkle in cyberspace’s eye.

I reluctantly joined Facebook because, well, it seemed like I probably should from a business perspective. Twitter came later, as my joining coincided with my friend Kenny’s college course on journalism/social media. He set up my account as part of his class, and then I took over.

Instagram started in 2010, and I didn’t join until quite a while later. When I did, I used a cocky username as a joke and posted only a single picture of my dog Woodson. I didn’t really think IG was gonna take off. Then I visited it again a few months later; I had a bunch of followers and figured I should start giving them something worth looking at.

If you are a small business owner, the ability to talk on a person-to-person level with your customer is a huge advantage. If you are an artist, your fans want to get to know you, your sense of humor, and your opinions, as the best art is personal, and you’re giving them a bit of your soul and your life along with your art. It’s not always an easy line to toe, but there are different expectations of you based on what you’re selling. Figuring out and understanding your “customer” and what they want from your online avatar is a skill in and of itself.

Each application has its own idiosyncrasies, and you have to take the time to sort out how it will best serve you. The psychology of the user is also a bit different in each case. With Facebook fan pages, there is no way to “follow back,” so there’s no expectation attached to a person “liking” your page. If a FB user sees a page they dig, they like it. Pretty simple.

With Twitter, especially, and Instagram, to a lesser extent, there’s a culture of tit for tat: “If I follow you, you should follow me.” Here’s where I’m going to suggest you do as I say, not as I do.

On Twitter I only follow accounts that I dig, instead of following everyone in order to attract a huge following in return. I use it as entertainment, and if I followed many more people, I’d have a hard time keeping track of the accounts I’m interested in. This has stunted my “reach” via Twitter.

With Instagram, I decided to test a theory that users there cared only about the content you produce, not if you followed them or not. So I don’t follow anyone. It cuts down on the spam “likes,” but there’s also a faction of people who just think I’m an arrogant jerk and therefore won’t follow me. At this point I’m kind of done with the social experiment, but I figure I’ve gone this far I might as well keep up the gimmick.

I do get a kick out of folks who tell me I take Instagram too seriously because I don’t follow anyone. Right, because you getting angry about how I use my account is less serious? The numbers play out, though. I’ve got twice as many Facebook fans as Instagram followers, and a fraction of Twitter followers compared to the other two. No expectation versus some expectation versus high expectation. I just wish it was only about content.

And, really, the best thing you can do, no matter the site or format, is to give people something original and interesting to look at and then let the chips fall where they may.

Social media caters to the “right here, right now” crowd, and while some folks have built large followings by consistently reposting others’ content or spamming their work onto larger sites, is that what you want to do if you’re selling “you”?

If you can be engaging and entertaining while consistently giving the fan or follower creative material to enjoy, you’ve found the sweet spot. You won’t have to ask people to share your work, they just will. And that’s what it’s all about: reaching a larger and larger audience. If you build a good product, if you create inspired art, if you make something that fills a need or desire, there are more than enough willing consumers. The key is to make them aware that you exist.

The great thing about social media is that creativity can make up for having little to no budget or time for advertising and marketing. Rather than having to travel to shows or take out ads, you can put your own brand on blast right from your phone or computer. I do it as I’m working, and I enjoy it. It’s one more creative outlet, and it gives my attention-deficit, addled brain a place to jump to now and then.

Without Facebook, and Twitter, and Instagram, I wouldn’t be able to make money as an artist. There just wouldn’t be enough time in the day to create and go to shows to peddle my wares. Nobody would have a clue who I was, and there wouldn’t be as much value in my work.

The Internet has simultaneously shrunk the world and increased your potential audience to practically infinity. Take advantage of it.

Anyway, if you want to see how I use social media, you can find me here: