social media

When I'm trying to meditate, or breathe my way through yoga, or focus on The Now, I often find myself drifting into a fantasy of being interviewed by Vanity Fair, Ira Glass, Teri Gross, or even Playboy. You know those quick little Q & A's that some magazines do? One of the questions they always ask people is what characteristic is most important to have, and what traits they most value in other people. If I were asked that question, my answer would be "integrity" and "bravery." Playboy bunnies almost always answer "honesty." How do I know that?  I just do.

Of course if I were being interviewed by those people-- and I'm still holding out that it could happen someday-- I would not be asked either of those questions, I would be asked the question I always get, which is, "What is your advice to an artist starting out?"  I've already written a bunch about that topic right here.

I'm always thinking about that question, and refining my past answers, and coming up with new responses. I have a new answer right now.  My new answer to the question of what I advise artists starting out-- or who are already out and on their way-- is to get very skilled at social media.  And when I say "social media" I am referring to the social media juggernaut: the facebook, blogging, and the twitter.  And Flikr, which I guess is social media, but I look at it more as online image storage. And I'm rooting for Google+, which I adopted right away because it is so much better than facebook.  But I'm not going to get into that right now.

I've been trying to write an informative and interesting post about this topic all week, and every post I've attempted totally sucks. There is so much information about social media out there already.  I know I have knowledge to share that is helpful for the artist, but my brain keeps overloading.

 Then, it occurred to me as I was writing a third sucky draft on this topic, that rather than try to figure out what I should write about social media, I should use social media as a way to let you tell me what you want to know, what's helpful for you.  So I set up a discussion tab on my facebook fan page, and then I was promptly informed by facebook that they are discontinuing the discussion tab soon because they think the best way to encourage discussion is by people leaving comments on your page.  That is just one reason why I get so sick of facebook, they are always trying to control how I use them.  So we'll keep it simple by starting the discussion right here in the comments forum.  Post any question, answer, comment, or thought about social media you have below.  Let's get the discussion going!