Navigating Social Media- 2025 Session 1 Overview
AGENDA: 7p-7:30p, January 29
1-Welcome
2-Overview of Evanston Made’s social media position and plans.
3-Review of Best Practices
4-Review of online/social media data safety precautions
5- Summary of Info Sheets and Checklists available from Evanston Made
6- Highlights of upcoming Pro Development and close
Evanston Made position:
Evanston Made is focused on utilizing available outreach methods to bring awareness to our mission of support for Evanston’s creative community and the work of our member artists.
All media options are explored and reviewed monthly and currently we will stay on Instagram and Facebook as we have +15K followers and access to sharing our artists’ work and our programming at zero cost. All precautions are being taken to make sure that risks are limited, and benefits are maximized. We will continue to explore and add focus to all viable means of communicating with your fans, potential clients and our supporters.
Best Practices for Social Media:
General – These best practices are not new news and have always been our “best recommendations” for navigating social media, reaching and growing your audience of followers and potential clients, and staying connected with the creative community.
1- Choose your narrative, your “look” and your time table and stick with it.
- Good Photographs
- Tell your story
- Be consistent- once a day, or once a week and stick to it.
- Use stories for fleeting ideas, fun one offs, and event promos
- Plan your profile feed to show the best of you and your work.
2- Accept that ALL social media platforms are not yours to control and data is broadly captured on any platform or device that is online. Always monitor privacy & security.
Social media is like building a house on the beach not your land and they may get washed away at any moment. Minimize risk, maximize the moment. Have a plan B & C.
3- Plan B- Diversify! Start with an email/Newsletter list. You need to be able to contact your followers, collectors, fans and friends. Use every opportunity to collect emails or secondary contact points with your target audience.Email lists are yours. Period. Even if you don’t currently have a website or blog or vlog or newsletter….start collecting emails now.
4- Plan C- That’s why we’re here. Take advantage of your benefits as an Evanston Made member which includes our reach, our contacts, our websites and our newsletter, Eventbrite and other networking.
Our outreach points: Total marketing reach, 2024 est. +500,000 people
Newsletter – MailChimp contact list
Evanstonmade.org
Shopevanstonmade.org
Donor/member management platform mailing list
Eventbrite
YouTube
Local Media, Daily NU, Roundtable, Patch, City newsletter/website, Northshore CVB, Envision Evanston, Evanston Now, plus Business Partner networks
Event Specific Publications- Plein Air Magazine, Chicago Gallery News
First Saturday Google Map
Threads
TikTok (tbd)
New focuses:
Bluesky
Substack
Privacy: KEEP SAFE AND WATCH THE ANALYTICS:
Best Practices for keeping your data safe/minimizing risk and maximizing goals:
We will provide a tutorial on the Member Services page on 2/1/25 and a PDF checklist for
specifically Facebook/IG but also some notes you want to check on Google (laptop) and your phone- particularly Apple updates that you need to be aware of monitoring.
1- All apps, computer programs, banking log-ins and every other thing you do on your phone, or online tracks data. This isn’t new. Data breaches are not new, but are becoming more prevalent. Facebook has always captured data, and never really fact checked anything.
Changes to address:
1- Check your followers regularly and unfollow and potentially block anyone you do not want.
2- Follow steps to eliminate as much data tracking and info sharing as possible. In both FB/IG privacy settings, there are options to disable tracking, delete connected websites from previous clicks and limit access to all your data going forward.
See reference list that will be emailed and/or is available in Member Services. Or Google as this info on how to improve privacy is readily available from many sources.
3- Check the AI tracking function on your Iphone. The latest install default allows Apple AI learning/tracking for every app on your phone. You can and should disable this feature. (these steps are also outlined in the checklist)