We will now interrupt the regularly scheduled program for this Good Old Blades micro podcast. I've been asked this question quite a bit lately, and it is uh related to knife making uh and the uh like the the reliance on social media. Um and uh I've espoused the fact that the the algorithm, as it were, uh for social media and the platforms in general have not favored the knife maker. Um and any any really anybody who's doing um uh uh crafts that could be related to um weapons, and I use air quotes there, um, and uh for quite a while, actually. Uh it used to be uh in the earlier days of social media where uh algorithms didn't really exist as much um as it related to the ability for you to be seen by people uh naturally, right? And and kind of the way that it goes in social media um platforms is that uh in order to propagate content, a social media developer or provider uh will uh display your content uh to uh maybe unlikely um um sources, right? Um, you know, it used to be back in the day with with Facebook that when you created a page or a group, you got to kind of choose uh what area of expertise you were in and what your audience generally was, and then it would it would try to strum up uh click-throughs in order for you to get advertising, all right? But the problem is is that as legislation changes, as the public view changes, social media a lot of the time augments these search algorithms or these um impression algorithms. So that way you get seen by more specific um uh people or or demographics. And in the uh the malicious case or where they're trying to juxtapose their um their algorithm against their acceptable use policies in terms of service, what you probably find is that they won't stop you from using the platform, but they will severely limit your exposure to the point where it you might be the only person seeing your content. And we've seen that a lot with uh Instagram, especially uh because they're pretty transparent about uh you know flagging content and having people sit behind the scenes uh you know disputing those things with uh content providers. And and I've had to ask myself the question if if a platform um allows this kind of restriction of content, how beneficial is it for a business owner? Because at the end of the day, I think that it's business ownership and sharing your uh your craft first, and second is the connotation associated with what you do with those things, like what context are those knives or scissors or anything being used, right? And so uh that that is a problem for the knife maker because there is uh a narrowing down of the social media uh platforms that are allowing this content because um really because of the social stigma around it. Uh that is a problem, and it is a problem for you. And if you're continuing to to eke out a living, uh drawing uh you know income or attention from social media, uh you've probably found over the last four or five years that it's gotten progressively harder. It used to be where you could post something up uh on Instagram, let's to say, and you might have a thousand extra followers. You know, somebody mentions something on one of their uh their own Instagram pages, a mention of you or whatever, and you might have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. Um, that is no longer the case. In the case of knife makers, especially, uh the the concept of shadow banning um has been around for a long time, but I think that people don't really understand that uh a shadow ban uh is a de facto uh a banning of your content uh being seen by other people without you actively knowing about it or with other people knowing about it. It's a way to deprioritize your content to the point where it neuters your exposure. Um that is being done, but it's not being done in the shadows. They're basically sending a very clear message that this content is not welcome. And if you decide to uh use this platform, well, you know, you have what we see today. Uh, for instance, I used to be able to grow my Instagram account pretty regularly. I'd have I'd have people randomly come through and and like content or uh follow me or whatever, and and that that grew organically. And more at the more effort I put into nurturing uh content and doing it regularly and kind of uh appealing to the user base, uh, the more often I was seen. Uh no longer. Um I have to be very, very stringent about my my update processes, about what content I'm updating, and um that that becomes very difficult because I'm catering to a an unknown quantity, and it it just it's almost impossible. It's a waste of time, really, because most of that effort doesn't actually equal knife sales uh for me as a you know a quasi-business. Uh it just equals me pushing harder against the algorithm to try to produce um you know some some form of of sale out of it, or at least some form of reaction where I get a following. And so look the reality is that um I'm gonna say about 90% of the people who follow me are probably other knife makers. Uh they fit into fans, they fit into people who are trying to uh steal ideas or plagiarize, they're um you know, uh accumulated into people who just want to see new ideas to get gain inspiration, you know, whatever. Um it's all it's all basically in industry espionage of some sort. There's very few that are customers, and even fewer still that actually buy something off of those platforms. And and I've had to wonder for a long time if that's the case, uh not not why I slowed down on social media, but why I I even care about the monetizing it. And the the reality is that most knife makers have lost the the opportunity or the ship has sailed on being able to monetize their products through social media and they have to think about it differently. My recommendation is to keep pretty vanilla on social media to just share content and whatnot. And if you're going to segment your sales, do that on a private website. Um, you know, stand up a website, it's pretty cheap. Um if you just want a pretty vanilla um e-commerce experience, you can do it for you know uh a one knife a year, um, as you know, de facto, I think. Um there's lots of different platforms. There's uh Wix, there's uh Shopify, there's Square uh Squarespace, uh lots of different places uh that you can build a website and e-commerce experience, and then you can tie in uh merchant providers with credit cards and PayPal and do all of your shipping and everything like that. Um it's not it's not super, super difficult to navigate, but it is time consuming, especially if you don't really understand uh some of the rules of e-commerce and you know web development, although a lot of this stuff is drag and drop now. Um but there's also a lot of you know uh people out there that can provide um uh a service where they build it for you. Um I've done that in the past, and mostly I just do it uh with like material trades or knife trades or things like that. Uh, I don't I'm not interested in profiteering off of my ability to design websites and build e-commerce experiences, mostly what I'm looking for is an offset to the time I would otherwise spend making knives and whatnot. So you can kind of get the idea there. But the the most important thing is that what you're looking uh for social media to do is to be a sales funnel to your website that you actually own. So as long as you kind of play nice with the uh the um machine that is social media, uh you can actually use it as a directive uh to your website and to uh make sales. And it never really violates that uh the content specifically because um you are not actually trying to use the platform to monetize, you're only using it to showcase your work. Um, you might still run into issues with being, you know, sh quasi-shadow banned, uh, but um you know at the very least, uh you're not relying on that traffic. And eventually you create an engine where people know that if they want to see sales, they sign up for your newsletter or they go to your website directly, you know, they can look you up on search engines, so on and so forth. And they they're using social media to direct um themselves places uh versus trying to actually buy uh buy con uh you know buy your your wares through the content that you're posting. Um I I think that that is uh the healthiest way to look at it. Um you're not often going to get sales from other knife makers, although it does happen. Um most knife makers are the ones that are following you because again, they're they're really just looking for um industry knowledge or tips and tricks or things like that, which you know intrinsically is not bad, but you know, when you have people that uh start to scalp ideas and things and then uh you know cut into your market, you do have a little bit of uh um competition then that you're developing by sharing um you know not only the insider um tips and tricks and things, but then also um, you know, the finished products and you know the the inspiration photos and whatnot. So um keep keep in mind that social media needs to be tempered by the outcome that you're trying to achieve. A follower does not equal dollar amounts. And what you'll find with these influencers, quote unquote, um on most of these platforms is that they are not actually uh driving a ton of influence. Not everybody's a Taylor Swift that actually drives that fanaticism to products. Most people don't. It doesn't matter whether they have, you know, 10, 20, 100,000, you know, 500,000 people, a small percentage of those might actually care about what you're doing, and a smaller uh group still might care about what your um, you know, what the price point is. So, you know, you have to temper marketing and sales and in the context that you're using the social media for uh with how much effort you're going to put into it. And I would recommend you spending more time uh with your head in your craft and maybe posting things up. Uh build some build some sales channels with dealers. Um, that's a better option. Consignments, you know, uh distributed out with between local um knife shops and things and uh you know national ones that might not be in your state. You like do something to break up this monopoly that social media has on our craft and the ability to sell and to be able to fund it and uh and really look at the the followers uh as just a a widget. It really means not that much. Uh you know, 10 to 15 good customers that come back to you and buy everything you have is worth way more than 100,000 followers that might might barely feel the necessity to put to hit a like button or whatever, or maybe follow you. It does not equal the kind of attention or the kind of validation that you might be looking for, and it means far less now than it did before because most people don't even see what you're posting out. So I hope that helps and it's educational. And if you have questions on this, you know, I I work in technology all the time, and a lot of these things make sense to me. There's a a lot of you know technical reasons why this stuff happens. Um, it's not always the um malevolence on the social media provider, but they do have a business to run and they do have um, you know, uh, you know, legalies and things like that that they're following, in addition to personal agendas um of you know the the ownership and people who are making these rules. So just remember that, and not everybody is against you, but there's definitely a lot of people that are not for you. Um, and you know, they're not they're not trying to promote you. And if that's the case, you need to find a different circle of friends or um you know avenues to sell your stuff and to be the largest advocate for your work because a lot of people won't speak up. And other makers, you know, they'll follow you, but they won't speak up and try to uh market your stuff. Um you got you gotta you know work through that by yourself. You gotta build up your brand and your business and your sales channels, and then you have to be um protective of that because that is the way that you're you're selling it. Always try not to keep an egg in uh too many eggs in one basket because if that basket breaks, then you know you're gonna have problems as we see on social media today.