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Thanks for featuring my Spring table setting as picture of the week. It did bring some increased traffic to my site and hopefully that will add to SEO efforts so sales can follow.
I think Jo Ann’s assessment is spot on. I spend way too much time checking various board to make sure I’m not missing something important and I’ve cut a few out. I don’t need more!
I find the FB groups I’m on are hard to follow too – kind of like Twitter in that the random topics drop down the page rather quickly when it’s active. It’s hard to find and follow conversations when it’s a large group.
Go to your plug-in page on WordPress and scroll down to see if they got deactivated during the upgrade. I think that was happening with the cart and and it needed deactivation after every theme upgrade.
@klsbear wrote:
Thank you for all your efforts to promote SS on on FB Michele. Here is one of my favorite images for Christmas. It’s never too early to make your party plans!
http://www.karensarragaphotography.com/image/christmas-restaurant-table-setting/
Edited to add this second option. We may be past Christmas when you get to this point in the list so here is a similar Spring image as another option.
http://www.karensarragaphotography.com/image/pink-tulips-on-a-spring-table-setting/
Hi Michele – I just wanted to re-post my image of the day offering. There are a handful of requests from mid November that were passed by without posting. Since we’re past Christmas the second option with the Spring image would be the one I’d like to offer up for a future image of the day.
Your efforts in maintaining the FB page are really appreciated. Thanks, and wishing you a wonderful 2014!
Thank you for all your efforts to promote SS on on FB Michele. Here is one of my favorite images for Christmas. It’s never too early to make your party plans!
http://www.karensarragaphotography.com/image/christmas-restaurant-table-setting/
Edited to add this second option. We may be past Christmas when you get to this point in the list so here is a similar Spring image as another option.
http://www.karensarragaphotography.com/image/pink-tulips-on-a-spring-table-setting/
@jsfoto wrote:
@steveh wrote:
Here is a shorter version – more aimed at buyers, but with a para about becoming a contributor:
…
SteveI think it’s a good idea to take the shorter version … too much text might drive people away.
I agree that shorter is better. I’m wondering if we should break it into two posts as well. One for buyers and later one for contributors.
Here’s my stab at some further edits to the buyers version. I mixed it up a bit and put a little more emphasis up front that we are selling stock images. I think some sort of Call to Action at the end would be a good idea too.
What is Symbiostock?
Symbiostock is a network of illustrators and photographers each with their own individual sites selling stock imagery. These sites are fully networked together so one search reaches out across the network, returning images or designs from several sites that match your search criteria, much like the image search features on popular search engines.
Buying directly from the artist
Symbiostock offers images for all your creative projects, blogs, ad campaigns, greeting cards, etc. You want it, we have it. Looking for editorial images? Got it. Exclusivity? Check. Illustrations? Right here. Our prices are competitive because there’s no middleman; you’re buying directly from the artist. Think of it as “fair trade” stock images. There are no subscriptions or credits to purchase, you pay only for the images you need at the size you require.
Searching the network is easy!
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[*]Searching on an individual artists page will return results from that artist and many more from the network.[/*]
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[*]Use our central search page, http://www.Symbiostock.info where you’ll find advanced search features like orientation, copy space and color. You will instantly search across all 170,000 images in the network and be linked straight to the artist that can meet your needs.[/*]
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[*]Add the Symbiostock search engine to your Foxfire search options with the this Foxfire add on[/*]
[/list]Help spread the word
“Like” our page and share on your own pages. Be sure to come back and share some comments on your Symbiostock experiences and show us where you’re using our artists work on the web.
First we need some kind of launch message announcing who we’re about. It should contain a link to Symbiostock.info as the main search page.
We can Pin this to the top so it stays there for 7 days before dropping onto the chronological timeline. We can also Highlight it by giving it a Star. This enlarges it to the full width of the screen instead of the smaller left and right format of the timeline. (after posting, hover over the post and a small grey drop-down arrow appears in the upper right with options to manage the post)
I would also look at the marketing description work that Michele, Ron and others worked on awhile back (here). It’s long so I think we need an edited version, perhaps break relevant parts of the info into a few consecutive posts.
Another ongoing post topic could be Search Tips for using Symbiostock.info highlighting various features.
We should also make use of the Milestones feature when we hit various numbers of contributor or images. You can include the event, write a story and include photos.
I’ve been doing a bit of research into managing a page and here are a few things I’ve learned.
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[*]All Admins have the ability to create content. It looks like those given the role of Content Creator would be posting as the page and if you have the role of Moderator you would be posting as yourself[/*]
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[*]We have the ability to set it up so posts need to be moderated before becoming visible. This would be one way to make sure we’re not getting post overload with too many in one day[/*]
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[*]We have the ability to schedule posts with a date and time. If we can approve posts and assign a posting date and time at the same time it would give us a queue of posts and take the pressure off of having to add content daily[/*]
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[*]We do have the ability to allow or disallow photos in comments so having a call-to-action to post your favorite new image, holiday image, nature image, etc. via a comment reply would be one way to include images from everyone[/*]
[/list]Michele, thank you for taking action on the conversation started in the “declining views” thread over in the SEO column. (anyone interested in catching up on that conversation can see it here http://www.symbiostock.org/topic/163/decrease-of-visitor-numbers/page/5/)
I like the global concept for the header. Only thing that comes to mind for me is perhaps a bit of variety in size on the thumbnails, maybe as if they were rotating around the globe, larger as they come to the front, smaller as they rotate to the back.
A few thoughts on your questions re: how the page will “run”, who will post, etc.
Admin roles:
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[*]2-3 people with Manager rights – that allows for managing who has access to other admin rights. Good idea to have a few back ups in case anyone drops out or just gets too busy to manage so we don’t lose access to the page[/*]
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[*]2-3 with Content Creator rights (maybe more). They can post content, moderate comments, etc. Anyone with a desire to create an article can submit to a content creator. We can always add more content creators if we want to.[/*]
[/list]Regarding content:
We should define our target audience so we’re consistent in the direction of our posts.
Are we targeting only potential buyers or as a secondary audience will we occasionally have posts to attract other experienced stock artists that want to join Symbiostock? What about the occasional post about copyright to address the casual FB fan that may stumble on our page because they like the images?What type of posts?
Interviews with Symbiostock members?
Promote a variety of images on a theme? Seasonal, on trend with news events (elections, economy, healthcare)
Perhaps a call-to-action asking designers to come back and show us how they used purchased images from a Symbiostock artist.Facebook recommends posting once a day to keep up interest. That may be a challenge. I have a hard time posting on my own page more than a few times a month. If we can start by posting a few times a week that wold be a good start.
Once we get some content admins can start to “like” other pages as Symbiostock to help spread the word and comment appropriately on pages that may attract buyers back to our page.
I’m willing to be an admin. I’ve “liked” the page using my own page ID so I think you can grab me from there to make me an admin.
I’ll send some pics for you to consider for the header. Let us know if you have any creative direction, ie, looking for a travel pic, a food pic, a holiday pic, etc. and any color direction too if you’re working with warm tones, cool tones, etc. so you don’t get a bunch of unrelated images to sort through.
@shelma1 wrote:
Ok…I tried a group, and a group requires that I invite friends, which means I’d have to friend people on my personal page, and then we would all have to join from our personal Facebook pages, not our business pages….unless I’m missing something? Groups members also have to be approved to join.
I just tried searching for the group and it’s not showing up when I search Symbiostock. Is it set to private?
@redneck wrote:
I’m not a group admin but I know that groups can be set up as ‘open’. All you have to do as a visitor is click “join group” and you’re in.
It’s probably just a privacy setting to tick.You’re probably right about that but I’ve only been part of closed groups.
I still think we should consider a page instead of a group though as you get access to the page insights that show visits, clicks, etc. It lets you put a header on the page too and other touches to make it look like a commercial endeavor. When I visit the groups I’m part of it’s just an endless news feed. Although that could be the way it’s set up too.
I think the Page option is the appropriate way to go. Click “like” and you start getting the posts in your news feed.
The group option is more closed and private and our goal is to get the word out. With a group we would either need to invite someone to join via e-mail or wait for them to find us, request to join, and wait for the moderator to approve the request.
I agree that groups create a sense of belonging (I belong to a group from the town I grew up in and it’s great for that) but the process for joining is kind of like having to register on our Symbio sites. We want to eliminate the registration and let people join up just by “liking” the page.
We should have a couple of mangers for the page that can manage roles, in case one person drops out there will be others available with full access. We can also have several in the role of content creator that can add new info and topics, and have several as moderators. This link explains what each can do. https://www.facebook.com/help/323502271070625
Thanks! I’m going to check it out too. I’m sure I’ll pick up a few useful tips.
Two items to add to the list.
Under Suggestions, the “scrolling network” option (see poll here). The poll results are heavily weighted towards turning it off altogether but if it’s just as easy to make it an on/off toggle then everyone would be happy with the results.
Under Cosmetic – the thumbnails in the Latest Images are not centered in the blocks like they are on the Featured Images.
I’m not experienced in coding but in looking at the info in Firebug I noticed the following:
Thumbnails that are centered have the following lines listed in bootstrap.css (line ###)
289
4981
4970
343
Lines 4981 and 4970 reference thumbnails and auto left and right margins, display block, etc.In the off-center thumbs in Latest Images it shows lines 289 and 343 but 4981 and 4970 are missing. I sent an e-mail to Leo pointing this out hoping I was right as to the reason for the off-center images and he could make a quick fix.
