Of all the online pottery social networking I participate in, I think I enjoy Facebook Fan Pages the most. Facebook posts are really turning into more than just "what I'm doing right now". They are almost like a mimi blog. For example, yesterday, Miri at Rincon Pottery posted a quick and informative paragraph about attaching handles and a link to her resource. What followed was many comments, much like a group of potters having an ongoing conversation. I also enjoy getting a quick update and photo on how the weekend show went or photos of new work in process.
I still love the Pottery Blogs, but I don't always have time to read through them all. Actually, if I start reading blogs I lose track of time and half my day disappears.
Twitter has pretty much left me scratching my head most of the time. I really don't give a flipping *&$@ where you're having coffee and I don't need the map link to where it is either ;) The #FF (Follow Friday) thing?? What the? I think Twitter is pretty good for sharing links, but other than that it's just ????? Whatever.
Youtube is great. "Simon Leach" does his thing there. I learned a lot from those videos he did when he lived in Spain. "Lucy Fagella" has a lot of lovely demos she did for Expert Village. "Clay Clips" with Bill Van Gilder is cool. I also watch Tammy Jo and Her "365 Day of Clay Cups" project. A new favorite channel is "John Britt" who is half comedian and half potter. So many excellent resources on Youtube.
Please share which online media source you enjoy most for keeping up with pottery.
5 comments:
I've been struggling with the same thing lately. My blog feeds have gotten completely out of hand, hovering around the 300 mark. I've started a project of sorting and putting them in folders, my daily reads vs. ones that it's nice to check up on if I have time, but wouldn't be a big loss if I just hit 'mark all as read'.
I've been spending more time on Facebook as well, but the complaint I have there is there's no way to really tag or save things so they can easily be found later. I do find it a lot easier to share more informal daily goings on than writing a blog post about it.
I use Twitter occasionally, and have found some good tips/resources that way. There's a bit of a slippery slope there too if you let your Following list get out of hand, or follow someone who tweets 10 times a day. Those people usually wind up on a List real quick. But really, a lot of people use their FB status the same way, so you probably aren't missing much by not being there.
I'm starting to think fb might be better than a blog since I haven't gotten any customers via my blog that I know of, just inqiries and questions from folks wanting info for free about glazes and how I construct pieces. etc.
The one caveat is I like writing and I like reading in depth posts by others, that's the draw of the blogs, lately it's reading blogs not about pottery.
So what to do, not sure, the times they are a changing and I feel it in the air.
My blog is my personal scrapbook, another artistic outlet for me. I am a youtube addict late at night when I can't sleep. Facebook and Twitter you can have, don't like either of them, boring and a waste of time...... I'm not interested in using any of these to create more business, I'm keeping it pretty local and Etsy is lukewarm for me right now.
I like reading and writing blogs, I spend more time on blogs than people know, which may be part of the reason I don't post frequently. I do check facebook regularly, this way I can find out where people are "checking in" and determine if I have enough time to raid their refrigerator for beer or something. I check twitter less frequently but do follow interesting links. I sell much more stuff locally than on Etsy but that is my fault for not keeping up with it.
It is a quandary, time on the computer vs production!!
Blog, clayart and facebook-talking, contact, support from fellow potters!, more sales on fb. Also sales via a forum I am on- more an online village! ( www.downsizer.net )
I have sold ONE pot on Etsy...and that went to Australia!! I should post more often, but I don't find that easy ( my computer wears a Learner plate!!) The fb "page" is good as I haven't limited the access to that. I've had a couple of sales via my website.
I'd prefer to sell locally, and have joined one co-operative twenty miles away, which is making small but steady sales.
We have not got the tradition of Art or Artisan Markets here yet, most are Craft Markets where over half are hobby makers- nothing bad in that, but they don't price realistically even to cover their own costs, so the rest of us end up as exhibits! There is the top end Art and Craft market, but that tends to be very expensive to attend or to purchase goods.
So why carry on? I suppose because I AM a potter, a maker,whatever else I do to get the £££ !!
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