Week 16: Wrapping it Up

 This has been quit a journey for me, delving behind the scenes of Social Media. Finding out how much a Social Media company knows about me and what I search for and how long I stay on a page or a post, and how important that can be to a business to know. Not just my information of course, but any potential client or customer. This has been an eye opening adventure to say the least.

Personally my use of Social Media has become radically more self aware. In the beginning I would’t even question why I was seeing certain adds show up in my feeds. I would just “guess” that it was because I looked for certain things on the internet or that I had clicked on a similar add before sometime in the past. Even as I started The Painting Dummy, I wasn’t quit sure as to the extent the changes of how I view Social Media would change. Now as I have planned out next month’s Social Media Marketing Strategy, I find myself looking at Social Media as more of a Tool than anything else. Learning how that Tool works and how the tool can change from platform to platform has been interesting and valuable.

From a point of just starting out, The Painting Dummy has very few followers right now, but with only very few posts I wouldn’t expect any more. The future has so much potential for growth that I’m not so much afraid of not getting any more followers, but that I hope to create enough content to keep all the followers satisfied and engaged in wha I am trying to do.

My viewpoint of Social Media started out as a fun place to get lost in for hours. A time sink to experience with friends that I’ve never met. From learning so much this far, that viewpoint has changed a lot. I see Social Media now as a communications platform and a very powerful tool for business, no matter the size of the business. I even think it can be a better tool for small businesses just starting out. The learning curve is a little steep, but the layout cost can be managed very easily.

At the beginning I was poking at an idea of a business, kind of like a macaque poking at a termite mound with a stick. I knew something was there, but not quit how to get it. Now I’ve been given a road map on how to get where I want to go. The rest is up to me and how much time and effort I’m willing to invest in getting to my destination. The road my wonder a bit, and there will be sight seeing involved, but at least now I have a guide.

The best Social Media platforms I’ve found for The Painting Dummy I think are FaceBook and Instagram. With how visual painting table top miniatures is, the best way to share and teach is through images. Both platforms lend themselves easily to visual story telling with writer word detailing to explain any nuances the images might not get across. Both have a video option I am planning on adding in the future that I think will really add to the value of The Painting Dummy.