FB, IG and YT

ferider

ferider

Platinum Member
Feedback: +154 / =0 / -0
Joined
Jun 20, 2018
Messages
13,870
I just wanted to put this out here, without going into the detail of my reasoning (might be for a different forum).

I'm neither on Facebook (since last Nov), nor Instagram and I don't watch Youtube videos anymore. If that is the only place where you are posting your latest work, you'll miss me as a customer.

There are many alternatives: I love it in particular when photos are shared directly in threads here on BF.

Just some personal feedback for the great knifemakers that I've come across in the last two months, while I've been looking for a couple of custom fixed blades. Of course, who cares about me as a single client, but I'm guessing that I'm not alone, so you might miss potential customers if you use one of the three companies above. A lot of them.

Roland.
 
I haven't used Facebook in almost 5 yrs, and don't have an instagram account. Youtube, for me, is primarily for music and how to videos. My exposure to knifemakers is limited to this forum, and an occasional email from a few. The ones that have flat out stated they only sell on instagram now have removed me from their mailing lists, at my request.
 
ferider said:
There are many alternatives: I love it in particular when photos are shared directly in threads here on BF.
Click to expand...

The alternative you’re suggesting is more time consuming and utilizing an outdated platform. That’s why a lot of makers use social media. In the time it would take to get on Blade Forums, type out a narrative, upload pics to an image hosting site, copy and paste all those links, only to find that the website lagged and either didn’t post your thread, or multi-posted it, that same maker could have opened their IG app and posted a quick video explaining and showing everything they wanted.

Plus it instantly reaches everyone they want it to. Here? Wait a few days.....
 
Jsega51 said:
Plus it instantly reaches everyone they want it to. Here? Wait a few days.....
Click to expand...

It doesn't anymore, which is exactly my point. I'm not alone.

I said there are many alternatives, BF is only one. For my photography, I use smugmug, for instance. Pretty easy to make a webpage with it. There are other social media sites that you could use, as well.

SDknifeguy said:
You must be pro constitution! Lol
Click to expand...

Well, yes, but it's not my only issue. For example

1) The moment you upload a picture on FB, it's not yours anymore. You've given up your copyright.
2) FB gets "anonymous" health data from quite a few hospitals (depending on Zuckerberg funding). If, as a patient, you use FB and Google maps on your next visit to one of these hospitals, FB will make the link between the health data and your name. Just an example, these days, data correlation is almost unlimited, its amazing what information is available to corporations, and how it is sold.

Etc.

Roland.
 
Last edited:
I think a lot of makers use Instagram because it's so integrated and easy. I can take my phone, take some pics, open the IG app and post in online in a blink. Done and back to making stuff. And you pretty well will all have your phone with you and be able to respond to messages via the App.

Or; you should shoot with a nice DLSR, connect that to your computer load the images over to some photo software, then upload them to to a hosting service and then share them online. And since FB and IG are same thing you can cover both sites with one post.

If you're one person who just wants to make knives then the easy way is best.
 
ferider said:
It doesn't anymore, which is exactly my point. I'm not alone.

I said there are many alternatives, BF is only one. For my photography, I use smugmug, for instance. Pretty easy to make a webpage
Click to expand...

But it’s the easiest way to reach the most amount of people with minimum effort. Your other alternatives are just more websites, forums, etc, and it’s simply too time consuming to post the same info across all those platforms. You can’t reach everyone so most people are realizing they have to keep up with technology.

I have no issues with Instagram at all. Makers are able to post amazing amounts of information that would be a total F’n bore to read on BF, simply because it’s so easy to post short how to videos and pics. If every maker I follow on IG tried to post that info here, they’d crash this site or any other method you recommend.
 
I’m just giving you feedback as a possible customer. Again, there is other social media sites.
 
ferider said:
I’m just giving you feedback as a possible customer. Again, there is other social media sites.
Click to expand...
You're much better off appealing to customers to move platforms than businesses. I own a business and primarily advertise through social media. Facebook is generally reprehensible, but I have the analytics and that's where our customer base is and, apart from direct word of mouth, generates more client visits than any other source, so we maintain a more robust presence there than anywhere else. IG is a somewhat distant second, so we stay active there, but rarely spend any money to advertise there as the analytics show it's just not worth it. No other platform that we're on is even a blip. If you get customers to move, businesses will react, but moving to them without a customer shift to push it would be a laughably bad business strategy.
 
I returned to posting on Bladeforums, ONLY after figuring out an efficient method to do so within the BF servers. Because I'm a photographer working in bulk, I can reduce file size easily.

Photo hosting sites are troublesome. Read my Fototime saga on this page.

The LARGEST selling and exposure base is now Instagram. If you only have xx amount of time, that's where you get the most bang for your buck. I simply cut and paste from IG into BF. I have a program which posts to (4) social media sites at once: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook. I need efficiency. So do makers.

Traction: Social media = Primary --> Bladeforums = secondary.

It's 'old school', and yet there are many of us who are old school. :)

Good luck. It's a narrower resource these days.
 
Insipid Moniker said:
You're much better off appealing to customers to move platforms than businesses. I own a business and primarily advertise through social media. Facebook is generally reprehensible, but I have the analytics and that's where our customer base is and, apart from direct word of mouth, generates more client visits than any other source, so we maintain a more robust presence there than anywhere else. IG is a somewhat distant second, so we stay active there, but rarely spend any money to advertise there as the analytics show it's just not worth it. No other platform that we're on is even a blip. If you get customers to move, businesses will react, but moving to them without a customer shift to push it would be a laughably bad business strategy.
Click to expand...

Great input and not really contradicting what I'm saying. When is your data from ? Would also be interesting to see the FB potential customer profiles. My gut feeling is that many US customers are moving (India too; rest of Asia is a different story).
 
https://www.fastcompany.com/9059853...econd-quarter-in-the-united-states-and-canada

"Facebook’s daily active users decline for a second quarter in the United States and Canada
: :
Facebook’s global user base continues to tick upward, with 1.84 billion daily active users worldwide, compared to an analyst forecast of 1.83 billion. Monthly active users were 2.8 billion versus expectations of 2.76 billion.
But when broken out into regions, Facebook’s figures show continued signs of fatigue in the United States and Canada, where daily active users dropped from 196 million in the third quarter to 195 million in the fourth quarter.
Notably, this marks the second quarter in a row that Facebook saw its daily active users decline for the North American region.
: :
In its 2021 guidance, Facebook warned of challenges to its ad business, including new privacy rules implemented by Apple in its latest iOS update. "

So obviously it depends if you cater to the US or not ..... And I'm just guessing that many of the users that are leaving, like knives better than the ones that are staying. And regarding the Apple/FB/Google fights, I have a hunch who will win, and it's not FB or Google.
 
ferider said:
Great input and not really contradicting what I'm saying. When is your data from ? Would also be interesting to see the FB potential customer profiles. My gut feeling is that many US customers are moving (India too; rest of Asia is a different story).
Click to expand...
My latest analytics are from February and they extend back to October 2014. Our clients are all local, and I've seen no indication of customers moving away from Facebook. Since January a higher percentage of new clients have indicated they came in due to the Facebook page than normal, honestly. The US is extremely large, so maybe there's been some shift away from Facebook in certain regions, but I can pretty much promise that we would feel it very quickly if that kind of shift happened in our area and it simply hasn't.
 
I am not active on Facebook and though I do have an Instagram page, I usually only follow knifemakers so that I can keep apprised of their work, not necessarily to buy. I know that I end up missing out on a lot of knives because I am not on Facebook - the folks there seem to have the most recent info and are able to take advantage of releases far quicker than I am as a result.

However, with that expediency, comes a considerable amount of toxicity that I have no interest in taking part in. If dealing with such cesspools means that I sacrifice some peace of mind just so I can get a few "have-to-have" knives, then - no thanks, I'll keep my peace of mind.

All that to say, I don't think dealers and/or makers are suffering by not widening their scope outside of social media. I suffer as a consumer but that is my choice.
 
I don’t think that you are really missing all that much. Maybe on the odd knife here and there but so what? Have you really run out of knives to buy? I haven’t , and my social media is pretty much all right here. Let’s face it (see what I did there) society is mostly comprised of idiots (present company excepted of course) and every single one of them is on social media.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top