Aug 29, 2009
Idaho Ink
There isn’t a whole lot in Hayden, Idaho, but we did manage to find some very cool people and do a bit of trade work. We stayed with Dave Van Etten who let us crash in his basement. Dave and his family were super nice and even cooked for us. We also had a chance to meet with Jesh Barlow and Ben Tran. Even though we are in a small town, everyone we met with here is working with clients across the country, these guys are all super legit designers. It was very cool to see people living where they want, but working with clients from across the country.
On a completely different note. Martin decided it was time for another tattoo and found a pretty rad shop (Dan’s Tattoo Shop) that was down for some trade work. Martin busted out a simple splash page that redirects to Dan’s myspace page (where he gets most of his traffic) and in return, Martin got some fresh Idaho Ink. Check out the Video/Photos.
We’re heading to a glacier, about five hours NE from Hayden, ID. Getting on the road now.
I think this is one video I will skip…..
I love working in trade. I love tattoos. I love websites. But, I really feel like you guys did this guy a disservice by not recommending that he think about his website as his home-base despite the fact that he generates a lot of traffic via MySpace.
The fact is, MySpace is not only vastly decreasing in popularity in the realm of social networks, but MySpace is not legally his site. Not only could his MySpace page be away at any point because of a TOS violation… MySpace could disappear entirely too. And then all of that time spent on promoting his shop on MySpace is a total waste.
The same goes for Facebook, Twitter, and any other of these social networks.
It’s best to think of your own website as your home base. The place where you are sending all of your traffic. The more time you spend in social networks, the more fragile your web presence becomes.
So instead, think of social networks as outposts that can be used to generate traffic leads and direct that traffic to content on a website that you own and have total control over.
This guy had it backwards and you guys didn’t do anything to correct him. With a little more work explaining why he should spend more time sending traffic to his home base, you could have probably gotten a full sleeve done.
Example: http://www.dollar-bin.com
I want to add: to your credit, judging your web activity here and on Twitter, it seems like you guys already “get it.” I just can’t figure out why you wouldn’t apply the principles you’re having success with to one of your clients.
This is awesome! Im from Spartanburg SC, so I can empathize with the lack of design work available there. Also your “road trip” is an inspiration! Keep it up.