Are you overwhelmed with the amount of social media available to us? As quilters, there are so many opportunities to play on social media that we might never get any actual quilting done if we spent all of our time on the internet! Search "Social Media for Quilters" on Google, and you will literally come up with 8 1/2 MILLION results! What's a quilter to do? I am going to try to give you a few pointers on how I use social media, and, hopefully, you will find it helpful :)
 |
| If you want to follow me, just search bar and of the following: Lone Tree Designs, Sewing with Sandi, Quilters Cottage. |
I use predominantly three social media outlets on a daily basis. The first is Facebook. Not only do I have a personal account for family and friends, but I also have a business account for my longarming business Lone Tree Designs, a sewing group called Sewing with Sandi which has members from around the world (screened applicants must answer a few questions and I check out their personal page to see if they are actually quilters before I accept them into the group), and I manage the business page for my mom's quilt shop in Kearney, NE Quilters Cottage. Each morning, I start my day with a cup of coffee and my laptop. I check each of my pages, make any updates that I want to make, and read all the comments that have been made. In addition to my administration of these pages, I also follow many quilt related groups including specialty groups on Tula Pink fabrics, wool applique, specific quilt shops, and quilt "celebrities" like Bonnie Hunter and Angela Walters, plus countless others! I also have allowed notifications on these groups, so I read through and see what's going on out there in quiltland! This process usually takes me through my first cup of coffee.
During my second cup, I check out Pinterest. If you have not yet discovered the fun of "electronic hoarding", I highly recommend it! Pinterest allows me to create my own "bulletin boards" for all kinds of topics including: quilty stuff, recipes, healthy living, gardening, fashion, and all kinds of things. You can "follow" people on Pinterest just like you do on Facebook, and you can also follow specific boards belonging to other people. I follow lots of longarm quilting boards, quilts, and funny memes. I scroll through the home page, and I find pins that are from all the people and boards that I follow and pins that are suggested for me from Pinterest based on the things that I pin. It is so visually and creatively stimulating to see all the ideas out there! If, at any time, I want more information or to explore the topic in the pin, I just click on it and it takes me to that page. I can also send pins that I think are interesting or helpful to my friends and family:) I frequently "pin bomb" them early in the morning, and then later in the day when they have time, they can see what I sent. You can follow me on Pinterest at: Sandi Griepenstroh Lone Tree Designs.
After my second cup of coffee is finished, I am DONE on the laptop for the morning. This is to say, I drag myself away and head to the sewing room to start my day of longarm quilting for my customers or working on my own projects. In the process of doing that, I utilize my third media choice, Instagram. You can follow me on Instagram as RenaissanceSandi. On Instagram, I post pictures of my work in progress for anyone who follows me and is interested in what I am working on. I have my Instagram account set to download those photos and hashtags to my Lone Tree Designs account on Facebook so that anyone who doesn't use Instagram can also see my work on my business account.
So, that's pretty much a summary of what happens during my days as I work from home and how I use social media. However, after my quilting day ends, I once again grab my laptop and go to Facebook, Pinterest, and if I have time I will check out some blogs. If you are reading this, you have discovered blogging! It is also a way that we could spend entire days just staring at a computer screen rather than getting anything else done! There are so many interesting, informative, and helpful blogs out there on quilting. I encourage you, in your spare time, to scroll through my "Blogs I Read" section on my blog for some of my favorites!
My final word on this topic is that I haven't even scratched the surface! I have Twitter, but find it to be more of a time waster than it is worth. I get emailed notifications for just a couple of my favorite blogs, including Quilting is My Therapy, Stash Bandit, and 50 is Not Old (a fashion blog). I choose just these few because I don't want to spend hours sorting through emails every day. Email is a whole other topic, so I will save that for another time! Enjoy your social media opportunities, but remember all that information is there to INSPIRE us to ACTION!
