By Jef Saunders
As moderator for one of this year’s Conference roundtable discussions, my focus was on a topic that fascinates me: social media. We’ve all seen examples of piercers advancing their careers and representing the industry very well by utilizing social media outlets effectively (see Bethra Szumski’s article in The Point #58 “Pinterest and the Triple Forward Helix”); unfortunately, there have been equally viral social media gaffes, such as videos of piercers using biopsy punches and referring to surface anchors as “implants.” With all of the possibilities for both meteoric success and horrifying blunders, a larger than-expected group of piercers met to discuss this topic.
My approach as moderator was simple: I’d bring up the name of a social media website and allow the roundtable participants to take the dialogue where they wanted. A brief synopsis of our discussion is below.
Yelp
It seems as though there was very little middle ground with Yelp and the attendees; they’d either had spectacular success, or Yelp and its reviewers have seemingly gone out of their way to make life more complicated for them. Of particular interest was the amount of genuine, positive reviews that seemed to disappear, while suspicious negative reviews stayed posted. Many of the attendees felt that Yelp was so inaccurate and biased toward negative reviews that they didn’t like participating on that website at all. Others found Yelp to be one of the best weapons in their online arsenal. When good reviews were posted there, they had clients visit on a regular basis because of them.
Facebook Personal Pages
This was a particularly interesting discussion for piercers and also for any other professionals who work with the public. I posed the question: “Do you add clients as ‘friends’ on your personal page?” For some piercers, Facebook became solely a marketing tool and any illusion of privacy quickly disappeared. Some went so far as to delete family members and friends to focus on Facebook only for professional networking.
On the other hand, legitimate safety concerns were raised. Could having such a public persona result in a piercer being harassed or stalked? Some attendees felt that was definitely a possibility, and kept a very private Facebook page for this exact reason. Still others tried to have the best of both worlds, having a “piercer” Facebook page and also a private, “friends and family” page.
Facebook Fan Pages
Interestingly enough, the way Facebook charges and promotes posts changed just before the 2012 APP Conference, so our discussion focused on two things: The first was how to moderate discussions and comments on a business (Fan) page; the second was the frustrating changes in policies that have just made maintaining a Fan page more expensive. The new “Promoted Post” feature, in particular seems to have struck Fan page owners as gouging them for something they had been getting for free.
The Body Modification Learning Forum (BMLF)
Rick Frueh’s creation has undoubtedly served to introduce more piercers (and other body modifiers) to the importance of minimum standards in health and safety, jewelry quality, and proper techniques. It has also left a lot of forum members smarting from the online tongue lashings they have received. For both reasons, we may all be in Rick’s debt. Essentially, this discussion was less about the BMLF in particular but rather how piercers interact with other professionals in online forums.
Rec.arts.bodyart, BME, and Tribalectic forums were all brought up during this discussion. The dialogue diverged in many directions, but the upshot was, when posting or commenting in a forum with other professionals, have thick skin and an open mind. If you make a mistake, you will hear about it!
Of potential concern is the number of piercers, especially new piercers, who use online forums as a substitute for a hands-on apprenticeship. While the forum is a valuable tool and resource, the roundtable attendees voiced unanimous concern that using the BMLF in place of an apprenticeship is ill-advised and potentially dangerous.
YouTube
Is it a good idea to post videos of piercings being performed? Is it a good idea to allow a client to videotape you while you work? This topic alone could have filled an hour or two. What was very clear is that, at this point, YouTube is brimming with bad piercing videos. In many cases, poor health and safety practices and techniques end up being on display on this huge social media powerhouse. One question that remained unanswered is whether or not it is important to stem the tide and be larger participants, showcasing our safe piercing for the world?
Unfortunately, the roundtable was only able to briefly discuss Tumblr, and was unable to cover other social networking tools like Pinterest, Instagram, and older sites like Myspace. The piercers that participated brought an amazing amount of insight, and I couldn’t be more grateful. I left with changed attitudes and a better understanding of how to use social media and networking websites to my benefit. These are a permanent part of our industry, and those who utilize the internet well are giving themselves an excellent opportunity to be representatives for safe, healthy, beautiful body piercing.
