Sharing is caring-the Facebook Edition

This is a Facebook post that I finished writing, and the beginning of my many changes for this blog, Sometimes, I may not feel like writing a whole blog post to get my point across. Sometimes it is those little nuggets of time that concludes a topic and the points made to drive it home. Overall, these changes I am making for my blogs are a long time coming, based on the fact that I have been blogging for 10 years and 4 months (but who is counting: Oh I am, LOL).

So does that mean you will see me posting more? Yes, it does, but I do not have a new schedule to publish yet. right now, as I get ready to switch this blog over to WordPress, the schedule is the current schedule, and I apologize for that. My website for P. Lynne Designs is almost finished, and so far, the launch date is still May 1st, not in time for Mother's day, but in time for me to become busier. Anyway, enjoy today's post, and if you are not following me on Facebook, please do. The page is the same as this blog, which is My Ambience Life.

I am trying to engage with my social media accounts more. I cannot say it is the easiest thing I have done. It takes work, dedication, and sheer will to do this, but I feel like it can be done.

Instagram and Facebook are today’s candidates. For Instagram, I signed up for platforms that will help me get this account from the current stats of 727 followers to 1000 follows. I have 273 more to go. I want them to be authentic and natural and no fakers. If you like what you see from my phone, wait there are more to come.

The major problem I am having is my phone. It is old, 2015 old. Now for some, it is the old, “so, what’s the problem?” Nothing, except companies who sponsor want the clearest, crisp photos from an influencer. The “dot all “I” s and cross all “T” s syndrome”. This is my term, not anyone else. Oh, it’s okay, I do not mind this type of requirement, it keeps me fresh on my equipment, and helps me look out for the latest thing without breaking the bank. For the moment while I'm a greenhorn at being an influencer, it is hard when you have a 4-year-old phone and money is tight, and you are on the family account. I am not saying that I am not grateful, I am only saying it is hard when there are limitations. A newer Samsung Galaxy would be nice, an Iphone would be even nicer. I currently have a Galaxy Note 4 and an Ipad Mini 3.

Facebook is getting better. I engage every day, but on Instagram, I do not. Would you believe I only have 240 posts? With Facebook, there are a ton of things I can do on this account as it is half business/half personal. I can turn off the business part at any time and Vice Versa. (Only in my head). I finally learned two months ago that engaging does not mean complaining about what your family, friends, and the government does on a daily basis.

I can go to my groups and observe rather than off my take on that person’s situation. I can ask a question and if no one answers it, I can move it to another group without making a big stink about it in the first group I asked the question in. I am trying the be a social influencer and if companies find my posts to be not to their liking, they will move on. This is the difference between being a troll and not being a troll.

So, this is it, a small take in my world and as one YouTuber named ShannaB puts it best, “as I grow my family”.

I never said that becoming an influencer is easy. Sometimes it takes a little research into your own little world to see what you are lacking, and that is everything in life. You may have people who point it out to you, but you are the only one who can change that aspect of your life, and if you are a Christian, you let God do most of that change for you.

Take care and God Bless you. Have a great weekend and Happy Easter.

Pros and cons to Instagram and Pinterest

I just pinned the last post onto my board.   It looks like this: 

My blog pin board (c) 2015 Pinterest.com.
Photo by P.Lynne Designs

Simple, right?  No so fast, and there are pros and cons to Pinterest. Some facts about the two websites:

1.      Did you know that not everyone is a willing participate?  Shocking but true.  There is this annoying law throughout the land called a copyright law, but in some cases, it can be very helpful, especially if you do not want something to be shared.  It is now required that all sites like Pinterest to have a code, that the person can place on their page that prevents another person from sharing that site’s images. 

2.      This from the Digital Marketing:  There are 70 million users on Pinterest (including yours truly), 85% are female, and 42% are adult women.  So if you are wondering how and who to market to as well as where to market at on social media, there you go.   But not so fast.  The numbers for men are growing.  In addition to those stats, keep this in mind as well:  4.8% are Americans who use Pinterest during work. The average time spent on Pinterest:  14.2 minutes.  So for marketers looking to engage in this group (and a few bloggers), you have 14.2 minutes to impress someone to pin your photo and read your post or ad.  That is a monthly average of 98 minutes. 

3.      Pinterest is very easy to use.  You set up an account, set your boards, and start pinning.  You fill out an application with all your info (except your street address, which I do not recommend you do, unless you order something and have it delivered), and you ready to start pinning.

4.      Time waster.  I will save this for later when I conclude all of the social media platforms, but, yeah, Pinterest is up there with Facebook as one of the biggest time wasters.  You can sit there, pin one or two ideas, and 30 minutes have gone by.  If you are that person, who can sit for hours and pin, set a timer on phone.  When those minutes are over, please stop, and resume your scheduled activity.  If this becomes a problem, I suggest you take a time out from the social media.

5.      It's your style.  I do not have to say that you need to have your boards like mine, because if you do not like my tastes, that is OK. 

Instagram pros and cons

1.      Facts: it one of the favorite social media among millennials (18-30). There are 300 million monthly active users, amongst those numbers, there are daily users of 70 million.  Surprisingly, 9% of teen girls have said they have been cyber-bullied through Instagram.  26% in the US use Instagram.  Among adult males and females, only 15% (male) versus 20% (female) use Instagram.  So again, thinking about this as you write your posts, and there is a way to get readers through Instagram.

2.      It is the best social media platform for sharing photos, next to Pinterest.  You can share what you ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, a movie you just saw, a craft project you just made, your child’s reaction to the latest movie trailer, a sunset…anything.  BUT…there is also this thing called over sharing. Please, for all things good and just, as must as people love Instagram, enough with the food porn.  If it is a great recipe you have tried to make, fine.  If it a new restaurant that you want everyone to try, good.  BUT, if it is your normal everyday routine of cereal, toast, and coffee, and you shared it for the 9^th time in a row, please stop. Not everyone is that into your daily routine.

3.      Instagram is private.  Please when you sign up for your account, do not put your street address.  You are not ordering anything, so therefore, they do not need your street address.  If you must put an address, please use city and state (no zip).  Otherwise, they do have privacy settings.

4.      Instagram is a positive influence.  I can hear the grumbles, but hear me out.  When you post a picture on Instagram with a positive message, you can generally “likes”.  It can brighten someone's day or life.  It can make a person feel good about themselves.  I have a whole subject to talk about this, but this is the very reason why a person should not cyber-bully.  Now who wants to see a picture of a puppy?

5.      Tagging a location.  If this an account for a minor, and I do not believe in anyone under the age of 18 having one, because of child and teen predictors,  but that is my opinion, please do not put even the city and state on their account.  Please educate your child on what to do, and how to it, if someone approaches them.

Some may wonder why I did not include you tube.  These two Social Media platforms are different than YouTube, which is in a whole different platform, since it is a video sharing program.  I will have something to say on this one.

6.)  (Update:)  I found a major con with Instagram.  People can get to your photos, copy them, and use them as their own outside of Instagram's website without your permission.  This week, A so called photographer named Richard Price, takes other people's Instagram photos, and alters them so that he can call them his own personal masterpiece.   He posted some recently in a gallery in New York, and one of them was sold for $90,000.  He cannot be sued, and it is out of Instagram's hands, because he is doing it outside of the site.  My opinion to this is, if you are going to share photos that contains you or the people you know faces on Instagram, be very careful, because they could end up somewhere without your permission, and there isn't anything you can do about it yet.   I hope the government is working on it.  As for now, I deleted all family pictures on Instagram, and sticking to places I have been, what I eat or the projects I have created.
I am not saying to stop using Instagram or to or don't have an account, I am just saying, be careful about what photos you share to the world.  I still like Instagram, because they are not the problem.

The next post will focus on how I use these platforms to gain likes and traffic.(Update:  May 30, 2015...)  Since I first posted this, I have decided to add the gain likes and traffic to this post.

Being a follower is the best way to gain likes and traffic to your own feed.  One of the things I like about both Pinterest and Instagram is once you follow a person, chances are that they will follow you back, and their photos will be on your wall, and likewise your photos will be on their feed.  You may even gain a new follower from one of their friends.  When you get that request, check them out before excepting.   There isn't much work you can do on these two platforms, in order to gain followers, but keep posting.  Do not post just one time, and forget about it.   Posting is your friend.

That is it for this series.  I decided not to post anything about Facebook, because for one, it's complicated, but not so complicated that you cannot just jump right in.  Just complicated to explain in two posts.  On word of advise in case you want a Facebook account or do not know what to do with the one you have, Stay away from the games.

A picture is worth a thousand words: Pinterest and Instagram part 1

 

Pinterest Logo (2015) Pinterest.com.
Instagram logo (2015) instagram.com

In continuing with this series of mine, which is all about social media and how I personally use them, I made an executive decision to spread it is out over a course of a few weeks, while keeping up with the rest of my posts.  The reason for it is so you can digest what was given to you, and if you are interested in learning more, I will not overwhelm you with information.  I also do not want to give you a whole bunch of fluff.  If you are the same type of learner I am, you would appreciate my teaching technique of “slow and steady wins the race”. 

I hope you were able to get the jest of Twitter in the last couple of posts.  I will do a recap at the end of the series for you.  Today and tomorrow, I will cover both the basics of Pinterest and Instagram.  The reason for me covering both at the same time is to me, they both do the same thing.  That is, they allow people to post photos to share (and share and share).   I have you know that these two are my absolutely favorites of all the social media, because I do not have to say but one or two sentences on what is going on in the photo.  Not only that, but if you are computer savvy enough to link a picture from Pinterest to a blog article or post you have written, your traffic will increase.  I have seen the numbers on my own posts.  I am starting to grow in this area, so it will take a while to get the traffic numbers I want from my blogs, but for the moment, I am happy with the results.  If you do not have a website or blog, do not worry about this portion, but I know you will benefit from what I have to say.  First off, Instagram.

Instagram is one of those apps that is strictly mobile.  With an Instagram app, you can take a picture, post it on Instagram, and bring people into a portion of your world.  I have shared family photos, work photos, even photos of what I have eaten.  The problem you have to watch is like all social media, you have to be very careful of how many photos you share and how often you share it.  My tip for you is to space it out, no matter if this is a personal or business share.   Again, you could be accused of over-sharing or spamming.  Make it short and sweet, but make it likable.

Pinterest is sharing what you like.  It could be a decorated living room, advice on how to save for a vacation or getting out of debit, a product idea, recipe, or a DIY project.  You like it, and you want to share it.  Simple, right?  No so fast, and there are pros and cons to everything, including Pinterest.   Those pros and cons will be talked about in my next post, but for now, you have to be very careful on what you share on Pinterest.

So this ends my post for now.  Next, I will discuss the pros and cons of both Instagram and Pinterest, followed by how I use each of them.    

Be careful what you "Pin" for, interest deleted

(Photo credit: Ruth Tsang)

I found an interest I love to do online.  I am a Pinterest phonatic (no this is not a typo, I had to find something to go with the word Pinterest).
The concept is pretty simple, you see an item you like, you pin it to the board (on their site of course), others see what you pinned, and they may want to re-pin it.  It is kind of like if Twitter and Instagram had a love child and named it Pinterest ( cue baby lullaby music): "Aw, such as cute little social media child.  It has it's mother's looks and it's father's short attention span."  OK, enough with the social media jokes.
Anyway, I was reading my email (yes I still have those things), and I got a note from them saying that they had to remove one of my pins due to copyright infringement.  "Oh it was nothing I did" they said, It was against a person who either pinned it from the beginning, or they re-pinned it from someone else who did the pinning.  Something to that effect.  In fact, I got two of those nastagrams.  (my word, do not look it up, it means a nasty email).
Here is my question:  If you (the guys who thought of this concept) have this wonderful site, which is a big hit, how can you forget there is a copyright law that as old as dirt?  They should know how people are.  After all, don't they have a Facebook account?   The folks in Washington are all over this, and would love to see courts active in slapping fines on people and shutting down sites that do not adhere to the laws of the land, especially something so trivial as a copyright law.  I got a pinterest account, because I read that I can push products on my boards, someone might see them, and will go to my website to make a purchase.  So as an Independent Longaberger Home Consultant and owner of MDN Creates (soon to be P.Lynn Designs), of course I jumped at the chance, and Longaberger did not have a problem with me placing the products on the board. So, as far as obeying the copyright law, I am good as gold, but I now need to watch what I pin from other places.  So far, only one was problem,it has been pulled, and that originally photo came from Photobucket.  "Wait a minute."  "They sent me an email back in the summer saying that they were shutting down."  "Does that mean they are back in business?"  I cancelled my account because of that announcement.  Well if they going to hold claim to pictures I take, then I do not need them.
Anyway, You no way of knowing if the picture on cats.com forbids you from pin a cute little kitten from their site, so it is always best to take your own pictures, create a blog, and pin it that way.  The best way is look for copyright information on the owner's blog or website.  If it says no copying except for personal use, just limit that copy it to your computer.  I know we all like to share, but it is the only way that you can keep the nastagrams out of your inbox.  You are going to forget, just like me, because we are human.   Just be on point and keep it real.  Re-pinning takes on a whole new meaning, and just trust your gut on this one.  Just ask yourself if it is worth sharing to your group of friends.
Over all, just be careful what you do on the internet everyday, rather it is your stuff or someone else's stuff out there, and you want to share it to the world.   Remember, know what accounts you have, because people can also send you a phishing notice about an account you do not have or once had, or they can be from the country of Niagara claiming to be the royal overseer to the king of many lying eyes, who have decided to to give you over a quarter of billion dollars of snake oil.  You need to claim it fast.    DO NOT CLICK ON THAT EMAIL!!!!. Be safe, Be Blessed, and have a wonderful evening.

P.S:  Document and give credit to the person or site you got it from always works too.