Thomas' CSIT 155 - Fall 2020 Class Blog

 I chose to go with Twitter as I am more familiar with it from my own personal account. I set up a fresh account for The Painting Dummy. With only a couple of posts for now, it is still like planting a flag for my venture. I like Twitters ability to use hyperlinks to share information as well as images, short text communications (tweets), and even sharing videos or animated gifs. This does up the complexity compared to Instagram, but I think the freedom to communicate with more variety of media in one place makes up for a slight learning curve. I have never used Twitter for marketing, so this will be a first and look forward to seeing the results. Right now I will be looking to expand my brand awareness , as most of what I am planning on creating will be more tutorial like content for my blog, Instagram, Facebook, and even Youtube channels. Using a Twitter account to drive brand awareness and communicate with news and previewing upcoming content, like a shorter e-newsletter that “archi

     I was able to leave comments on these fellow blog posts: Terry_Andrew  Narvaez_Nicole Jioras_Kyle Caprow_Marla Burke_Gregory

 With such a visual business like The Painting Dummy, I would expect to send an e-mail newsletter about once a month. The long interval of time between the sending is allowing for time to create content for the website and social media outlets. A shorter interval would create quit a time crunch for the work involved in modeling and painting steps. A newsletter for this business would be as informative as possible and could include: painting techniques - showing how certain techniques are done construction - wether a hard build or showcasing a special ‘Kit-bash” basing - material ideas and techniques for basing your models kinds of paints - new paints on the market, comparing and contrasting paint manufacturers tools - new tools, new tool techniques, glue - best types of glue for the materials we are working with I think anyone that would sign up to follow this e-mail newsletter would like the information I could provide as another opinion or new way of doing a technique they haven’t se

 For this blog, I think I can break this genre down into a few categories to stay better organized. “Building a Miniature” - How I put certain miniatures together. If some miniatures are easier to build than others. What tricks I may have for building some different miniatures. “Prepping for Paint” - How (after finishing a build) I prep the miniatures for paint. Why I use certain primers. Do I fill gaps. “How I Paint “ - first category would be showing and explaining how I am painting a certain model. The techniques and paints I am using. What brushes I use. The techniques I’m using to lay the paint down. “Paints I Use” - showing what paints I use for different techniques. "Finishing a Miniature" - what steps I use to seal and finish the miniatures I'm working on. Each of these categories I could easily split into sub categories for even more organization and to make the blog easier to search. Whatever makes searching and reading a blog or blog post easier to search and

 Reaching for the human element in a business blog post makes the business (what ever it may be) more personable, more relatable, more welcoming. This may spark more interest in your audience and even allow more people or customers feel better about sharing your content and so reach an even larger audience.  Not every post needs to be a human interest piece, but neither does every post need to be cold and just pushing a sale or for a conversion. To me I think adding a piece of me into a post that can make it more relatable to my audience is almost natural, like meeting a group of new people and finding a common interest with a few of them. I would make some of my diy posts more about how I solved the problems I was facing in the painting or assembly of the models that I am showcasing. The niche genera I’ve chosen lends itself to more of a personable approach as it is more of a personal hobby to many more people than a business.

 For my instagram posts I used the Hashtags that I thought best suited the images and type of posts. #warhammer40k #warhammer #gwpaint #paintcollection #bloodforthebloodgod #proacryl #proacrylpaints #warhammer40k #berzerker #khorneberzerkers etc These Hashtags I found by looking at other hobbyists on Instagram and how they tag their posts. These are specific to the hobby and to the images that are being posted. This I think narrows searches for potential followers / fellow hobbyists. I tried to post in the mornings, which seemed to get to most traffic by noon. I think it’s that first coffee break perusal of instagram people do in the mornings. I think going forward I will be posting or setting up auto posts to hit that part of the morning (between 9 and 10 am pacific time). I learned quit a bit from this exercise. I learned traffic can ebb and flow like tides, so finding the right time of day for posting in your niche or genre will organically raise your views and audience awareness of