Choosing Social Media

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Jimlad

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Until they all merge into one app called "Twitumblinstergrambook" I'll have to pick and choose what social media sites I use, because who has the time to use them all? Thing is, I don't know how best to choose, and was wondering what sites you use and what for?

I currently use the following:
Facebook for family, friends and ex work colleagues polluting my life with baby photos and inspirational quotes. I've neglected my official art page recently.
Twitter for almost nothing, but I get the occasional new follower for some reason. I'd like to post more artwork there.
Tumblr as an experiment. A very quiet one.
Pinterest for collecting things, I'm enjoying this more than I thought.

I'm on other sites that I never use too, and an experiment with something to post to several sites at once just sort of died.

So I suppose, for posting artwork and sketches and interacting with other artists/designers, I'm torn between Twitter and Tumblr. One seems more active while the other seems more visual.

What do you use and how? And do you have any advice for someone drowning in the sea of choice?
 
I'm the same as you Jim (tho not tried Tumblr yet). I did the whole LinkedIn thing too and on Twitter recently, but as a means to actually finding
the odd new client, I've rarely if at all, got any work from them. I went on my FB page the other day and saw I'd suddenly got well over a hundred likes,
mainly from South Americans somehow(!!) I might try Behance a bit more, but it's like you say, who has the time and is it worth it anyway?
 
I'm on Twitter but I've not tweeted for ages as I don't really get it coz I iz ovr 15 innit.
I've started using Pinterest because it's easy.
Not on Tumblr (don't think I am).
Tend to use FB for mindless ramblings and Photoshopping friends photographs to humiliate them.

I tend to use Behance a lot as again it's dead easy and I've had a few big jobs from it.
Also started using Creativepool a bit more.

I also Dribbble occasionally. :blush:
 
I think I'm finally starting to untangle and come to terms with how I want to use different social media sites. I can't join them all, and I can't use any of them as an all-purpose outlet either. So here's how my thinking is at the moment:

Twitter: I'm getting new followers so I may as well use it. I tend to tweet creative stuff or retweet games industry posts.
Facebook: Memes, friends, Doctor Who, the usual crap.
Behance: I WILL use this more! It has sharing buttons to send posts to other sites, so it's pretty valuable.
Pinterest: Memes, comic art, stuff I like, all collected. Like a big set of bookbmarks.
Tumblr... oh what to do with you... bye bye. I may keep it around just to share stuff from Behance automatically.
LinkedIn: Online CV. Anything else will link from Behance.
Dropr: Delete
Carbonmade: Delete
DeviantArt... I wonder if I can share stuff from Behance? If not, delete.
Meetup: How do I make these people stop emailing me! Delete.
Google+ : I have one for work I need to keep. But my other one goes unloved. Still, I have Gmail so I'm stuck with it.
Overgraph: Multi-posting tool. Doesn't work. Delete.
Nabaroo: Anyone else using this? It's new. I might delete it.

Jesus there's so many these days!
 
Jim, if you think you have it bad with social media think about me, the whole idea of social media is to be active but I'm pretty much on nda's with all my work so what do I post....I'm pretty sure people don't want to see lots of random cute kitten images....oh wait....

nabaroo, never heard of it but looks little better than pinterest lol
Twitter - can't say I've ever really bothered with it
Pinterest - I want to get into it more as a bookmark/mood board type thing but I have this thing called bookmarks in my browser lol
Facebook - hate it with a passion
linkedin - never bothered with this because I can't link to other businesses because it would breach my nda's....
behance - I may look into this a bit more but still likely to have issues with nda like everywhere else.

Not to mention the t&c's on some sites give them free rights to use our work however they want without having to pay us.
 
I run an online vintage shop and have found that most of my follow/sales come from Instagram.
My twitter just gets updated with whatever goes on IG, and my facebook use comes in second.

IG all the way I say.
 
I realise that this is a slightly older thread, but maybe we can bring it back to life since it is a pretty crucial topic. So when it comes to choosing, yes you need to narrow it down (posting to 20 different mediums is spreading yourself too thin). You also need to keep in mind the audience for each medium. The people checking LinkedIn are not the same people checking Twitter. Or at least they check these platforms for different reasons. So when posting content, it needs to take the readership into account and the time when they will most likely be reading it, since posting alone isn't helpful if most of your audience won't see it before other posts move above yours in the newsfeed. It is also not helpful to post the exact same thing across each medium. You need to tailor it (especially when one medium only allows for 42 character posts and another is significantly more). It seems like it will take a lot of time, but it really doesn't once you get the hang of it and are using the right tools. I've used Hootsuite before to manage posting schedules across multiple platforms, which made my life so much easier. There are a lot of tools out there - this article lists a few that could be helpful - but ultimately anything that allows you to manage all of your platforms from one location is a good idea. Being able to schedule posts in advance and have them automatically post is also helpful. I would go insane if I was trying to handle all of the social media one at a time without any tools. I'm sure something exists too to alert you when people have responded to your posts and allows you to quickly send a response back, almost in real time, but the tool is escaping me right now. Could just be a setting...again, like I said, I'm not an expert. I think that social media is an exceptionally good tool for marketing and brand development. If your aim is to get new clientele, then you absolutely need to be focused on your social media marketing. Too many people shrug it off as not so important and then miss out on a lot of potential.
 
I've used Hootsuite before to manage posting schedules across multiple platforms, which made my life so much easier. There are a lot of tools out there - this article lists a few that could be helpful - but ultimately anything that allows you to manage all of your platforms from one location is a good idea. Being able to schedule posts in advance and have them automatically post is also helpful. I would go insane if I was trying to handle all of the social media one at a time without any tools. I'm sure something exists too to alert you when people have responded to your posts and allows you to quickly send a response back, almost in real time, but the tool is escaping me right now.

A tool I don't particularly use massively, but is useful, Epoxy. Epoxy allows you to link a Twitter account, Instagram account, Facebook page, YouTube account. It'll automatically send posts to your linked Facebook page when you publish videos on YouTube, then it'll alert you of who liked/shared/replied to your posts across your accounts and you can respond to things directly in one place.

I used to be a big fan of Tweetdeck, but not anymore since it's all Twitter now.

Things I use:

YouTube, because I create/stream and watch videos (far far better than sitting watching TV and having to pay £148 a year for it haha)

Instagram, have multiple accounts on there, one for my song writing/inspiration posts, and also that just happened to get full of me following husky, wolf, cat and other pet accounts haha
Then another as my main where I post whatever I feel like, and following all band accounts and youtuber accounts etc.
Then my third main, where I just bung all my random selfies because I don't want to spam selfies on my other accounts haha. And on there I just follow close friends.

Facebook, stopped using it on my phone and only check up whenever on my pc, thanks to Facebook forcing everyone using the mobile website chat to have messenger. If it wasn't for my Facebook groups and my pages, I would stop altogether.

Twitter, mostly just I liked/posted a youtube video and having some engagements with other YouTubers.

Google Plus, I like Google Plus, I like it's close connection to my YouTube, but then I have no reason to use it.

Tumblr, probably going to start using it a lot more when I've updated my site and got Tumblr even more integrated. Then I can go sharing this and that things I find of interest on a good looking page on my site.

Social app I use mainly, Discord. Used to use TeamSpeak, but I like Discord being not just mainly VoIP centered, but made as a replacement to Skype and TeamSpeak and other similar apps, not to mention administating a server compared to TeamSpeak is a breeze. Love that I can have it openly accessible to, just go to mydomain/chat and you're there in my server in the browser.
 
I use Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Stumble Upon, and Google+. For social site like Twitter you will hardly come across with the valuable output i.e traffic and user engagement of your post. However in sites in Pinterest, StumbleUpon and Instagram their is good returns i.e. user engagement.
 
I'm on Twitter but I've not tweeted for ages as I don't really get it coz I iz ovr 15 innit.
I've started using Pinterest because it's easy.
Not on Tumblr (don't think I am).
Tend to use FB for mindless ramblings and Photoshopping friends photographs to humiliate them.

I tend to use Behance a lot as again it's dead easy and I've had a few big jobs from it.
Also started using Creativepool a bit more.

I also Dribbble occasionally. :blush:
Hey Scotty, when you say you use Behance a lot (forgive me if it's a daft question), how do you 'use' it? Do you just upload projects, appreciate other people's, follow people and comment? Or is there something else you can do?
 
I just use it to upload projects like an easy portfolio because I'm dead lazy.

I do appreciate other peoples projects and that's a sure fire way to get followers and appreciations in return but that's not really the reason I do it.
I've found a lot of companies use it to track down talent and I've got a few gigs through it.
I'm working on one right now that came through Behance.
 
I just use it to upload projects like an easy portfolio because I'm dead lazy.

I do appreciate other peoples projects and that's a sure fire way to get followers and appreciations in return but that's not really the reason I do it.
I've found a lot of companies use it to track down talent and I've got a few gigs through it.
I'm working on one right now that came through Behance.

@scotty Do you find it's more effective for Illustrators rather than designers? I'm guessing all your gigs have been more illustration based?
 
I'd say it's probably the same as there's everything from Photographers to Motion Designers and everything else in-between on there.

You're feed (or whatever it is) usually ends up a bit tailored to you. A bit like Pinterest as if you are say a 3D designer you'd probably follow other 3D designers and so on and their likes/follows show up on your feed.

I treat it as a secondary portfolio but it's great for inspiration and it's FREE! :D
 
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