Maybe it's just me not being around anymore, but it seems like the world of puppetry and many of the sites that were in my bookmarks are starting to become ghost towns, updated less often, etc.

P&S always remains as my go-to destination, that still hasn't changed

Having a kid (and being a work @ home dad) has all but slaughtered my puppet time, let alone video shooting and editing. She does LOVE when I bring a couple characters out though to play around. So recently it got my brain ticking again. Maybe watching the Henson show the past 2 weeks helped spike it all at once.

I just don't know what I want to do. Build more, write more, etc. It's not like I'm flush with free time like the old days to horse around as much. Damn kid! How dare she steal my free time and thunder!!!

Happy Friday
 

Well some sites have slowed down a bit but others seem to have picked up steam. For example the FB Group Puppet Makers Group has exploded of late with members.

Well some sites have slowed down a bit but others seem to have picked up steam. For example the FB Group Puppet Makers Group has exploded of late with members.

FB has slowed a lot of forums down. I know from the car forums I run that they took a huge hit in the past 2 years from FB groups.

My biggest issue with FB groups is old content. Want that tutorial so-and-so made 4 years ago good luck finding it. In a forum like P&S you just hit the sub-forum and search or click through a few pages.

I'll check that FB group out but man I can only take so much FB in my life.

I think there will always be an audience for forums like ours although they may not have as big of following as some of the FB groups. Like you say content on FB can be lost and everything is more right now and quick replies or likes. This is one reason why when I am advised I need to build a FB audience or why I have not connected PandS in with FB more. This may sound a bit insulting but I don't mean it that way, but I prefer quality over quantity. In other words I would rather have 10 engaged users that are posting helpful relevant content rather then 1000 followers who either just hit the like button or re-share things.

Now all that being said I still stand by my "advice" to puppet companies and builders that they should build a social media audience.  The difference is that they have a product to sell I don't.  When it comes to selling or promoting yourself numbers to count. For every 100 fish in the pond you may only be able to catch one and that one you may have to throw back so there needs to be a lot of fish in the pond.

Oh also should mention that Puppet Hub is still going pretty strong. While their Forum which is highlighted in the top left column does not get a lot of post the Latest Activity feed below the image slide show has new entries pretty much every few days.

Not a fan of FaceBook.  To get started, it is very much a pyramid scheme where you need your friends and family to like and then share the page.  Not only that, FaceBook only shows your feed to a small number of your likes.  And it is about to get worse as they are planning on dropping that in favor of only promoting those that pay to be promoted.  At least, that is how I read their announcement.  Which will only invalidate the "like" button in the first place. 

I agree. FB is very superficial.I had this discussion with a group I am supposedly part of, it was pretty big considering the market, then facebook was suggested, and it all but died. When the owner came to shut it down, I suggested we continue, and they were surprised by the numbers still there. It seems everyone thought everyone else had migrated to FB , but that was not true, and they just stopped talking , thinking there was no-one there, but there were...Now that group struggles as the software is buggy and not maintained much. There is substance here on PAS. and good archival stuff.It caters for all levels of expertise and interest. Keep it up Shawn.

I think there will always be an audience for forums like ours although they may not have as big of following as some of the FB groups. Like you say content on FB can be lost and everything is more right now and quick replies or likes. This is one reason why when I am advised I need to build a FB audience or why I have not connected PandS in with FB more. This may sound a bit insulting but I don't mean it that way, but I prefer quality over quantity. In other words I would rather have 10 engaged users that are posting helpful relevant content rather then 1000 followers who either just hit the like button or re-share things.

Now all that being said I still stand by my "advice" to puppet companies and builders that they should build a social media audience.  The difference is that they have a product to sell I don't.  When it comes to selling or promoting yourself numbers to count. For every 100 fish in the pond you may only be able to catch one and that one you may have to throw back so there needs to be a lot of fish in the pond.

Shawn I tell my clients that every week. Engagement is 100x more important than numbers, especially in the beginning when you are trying to root into any new market/social platform. FB is also changing and trying to monetize as much as possible now. FB Pages have a fraction of their reach from a year ago. Groups are doing much better than pages overall but it's only a matter of time before they find a way to strangle that too.

Puppet company is no different than any other local/smb company or brand. If it's a performance-only company that relates to any other service industry when you really break it down. I could go on and on I've been doing that side of things for 15+ years now with everything from karate dojo's to IBM's partner network.

But hey.. my goal of a thread with general conversation WAS sparked by my first post so for me, mission accomplished

Not a fan of FaceBook.  To get started, it is very much a pyramid scheme where you need your friends and family to like and then share the page.  Not only that, FaceBook only shows your feed to a small number of your likes.  And it is about to get worse as they are planning on dropping that in favor of only promoting those that pay to be promoted.  At least, that is how I read their announcement.  Which will only invalidate the "like" button in the first place. 

That's the thing. They KNOW friends/family really is no way to kickstart a business. That's online equivalent to word of mouth which your real friends and family would do for you anyways! They want to to sink down $500 to start building a targeted 'fan base' but the truth is only about 20-30% of those will even be targeted. So for every $100 you pay into FB expect to get back about $20-30 in value. The rest you are just making sacrifice to the Zuckerberg gods.

I agree. FB is very superficial.I had this discussion with a group I am supposedly part of, it was pretty big considering the market, then facebook was suggested, and it all but died. When the owner came to shut it down, I suggested we continue, and they were surprised by the numbers still there. It seems everyone thought everyone else had migrated to FB , but that was not true, and they just stopped talking , thinking there was no-one there, but there were...Now that group struggles as the software is buggy and not maintained much. There is substance here on PAS. and good archival stuff.It caters for all levels of expertise and interest. Keep it up Shawn.

As a guy who did BBSes as a kid and now running forums today, I love the forum format. I use Tapatalk for P&S when on my iPad, or mainly here at the desktop. I joined that 1 FB group and instantly saw a pile of things not related to my interests, spam posts, etc. I'll probably have it on unfollow by weeks end and just check it once a month.

Been down the FB group stealing sites thunder. PITA to shake it back up. When you lose power posters, it's an immediate hit.