150?

Read this link, then come back and tell me your thoughts.  I'll wait for you to finish...  

link to www.economist.com story 

It's pretty interesting to think about, really.  If I have five hundred friends on myspace or facebook or wherever, I still don't visit them all.  I make an effort to skim over the day's updates from everyone.  I try to reply to those posts that I find interesting.  But still, I don't ever get around to visiting ALL my "friends".  I have a few that I see there name and wonder how they even got onto my list of friends in the first place.  Now, how is THAT a friend?!?

I've got a close network of people that I routinely converse with, and an even closer network that I consider to be part of my inner circle.  Electronic social networking has not made me into some sort of mega-friend, and I am pretty sure that many of these "friends" rarely even notice my updates.  

So, what does this have to do with photography or Dallas or Jason Janik?  Not much... at least not directly.  But it DOES deal with the overall umbrella of your photography business and how you market it.  This is the deal:  

Just because you have five hundred or a thousand friends on your social network, it doesn't mean they are all going to be there for you.  Don't think you can send out some e-blast about your upcoming art show and all thousand will come running to buy prints.  Don't look at facebook as your salvation.  Don't expect a thing from it, and you won't be disappointed.  

Instead, consider any extra help from these networks to be a bonus. They give you one more tool in a fight to let people know about you, your photography, and your upcoming events.  A handful of new myspace friends came to my art show last year, thanks to my bulletins and emails.  People I had never met, except in the virtual world.  A few new jobs/photo shoots developed from connections made on myspace, but it didn't spawn a tidal wave of work, allowing me to retire early.  No matter how many times I can make a blog, bulletin, or email, some "friends" will not respond - or even bother to notice it.

However, I do see these networks as useful tools.  They make communication more efficient, and I have developed "real" friendships with a few of my virtual friends.  But, they are just one tool of many used for networking and not some sort of magic answer to all your networking problems.  Building up a large number of myspace friends can help you market your business, but I stress the word HELP.  It takes a lot more to actually succeed.