I Thought I'd Give It A Shot


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  1. #1
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    Default I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Well, it's finally happening. I'm coming up on the date that I'll be eligible for retirement. This is one of the reason I bought my Tormach 770, my metal lathe and some of the other metal working related machines I've acquired over the years. I figured I'd most likely go crazy if I didn't have anything to do after I was retired. I've already lost my hair. All I have left to loose is my sanity; and I kind of want to keep that. If I lost my sanity all I'd be able to do with the rest of my life is maybe run for some political office. That seems to be where all the really crazy people go now days.

    With the help of some of you guys here I've been able to traverse the learning curves I've faced as I went about learning how to use my machines; so much so that I was able to start making specialty parts for specific air rifles that I've been selling online for the past few years. It was never anything really lucrative but, this is mainly because I was making them whenever I had the time. I still had to work my regular job to pay bills and such. Those little parts I've been making were just a sideline thing that I dreamed of some day making a little money off of if or when I retired. The word, "Retirement" means different things to different folks. To me it means I still have to work to make ends meet but, in theory, I won't have to work as hard; and if I don't have to work as hard I'll have time to concentrate more on making my air gun parts to sell.

    Now that the date draws near for my retirement, I've decided to Give It A Shot. I've start selling my little home made do-dads on Ebay and not only on the Yahoo Group site I started a few years back. I also recently started a twitter account in an effort to get a little more notoriety or exposure for these same Match-Grade-Trigger parts I've been making. Selling on Ebay is easy enough but, I don't have a clue about what I'm doing on Twitter. It's all new online territory to me. If you get a chance to drop by that sight, make sure you look up Umarex Octane or @UmarexTim. Maybe you can give me some pointers on that too, like you've given me some useful pointers on machining.

    I've been slowly transferring some of the pics and topics from my Yahoo Umarex Octane Shooters Group, over to the twitter account. The Yahoo group site has so many glitches that I though it wise to start looking for another venue for our group members to share info on.

    Do any of you guys have a twitter account? What kind of advice can you give me that isn't as over-my-head and technical sounding as alot of the YouTube videos I've been watching in an attempt to get up to speed on this twitter thing?

    Thanks in advance.

    MetalShavings

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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Honestly I think your business would benefit more from an instgram feed. Customers eat with their eyes and LOOOVE shiny machined parts glaring at them. It encourages opening of the wallet.

    Best of luck in your new venture!



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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Thanks Scott:

    I'll check into that Instagram thing. I'm not the most Internet savvy guy in the world. I'm having to learn all of this as I go along. It's about the same way I learned how to use my Tormach 770 and my other metal working tools.

    MetalShavings



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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    If you have a website, you could add the URL to your profile.

    bob



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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Quote Originally Posted by rowbare View Post
    If you have a website, you could add the URL to your profile.

    bob
    I don't have a website per se. I have a Yahoo Group Site that holds most of the content I'd be using on any social media pages I may decide to sign onto. I did include this Group Site's web address in my twitter account but, beyond that I don't know if it made any difference in the overall scheme of things concerning the parts I'm making and selling on my Tormach 770. It certainly didn't hurt anything so maybe it will help somewhat down the road.

    I did check into that Instagram thing a little bit but I started getting Information-Overload-Syndrome so I'll have to get back to that once my mind clears up a little. All of this figuring out of the uses of Twitter and Face Book and Instagram does a number on a tech-retard like myself. I have to take it a little at a time.

    I think I must be dyslexic or something because all of the video tutorials on how to use social media in its various forms just goes right over my head. I'll have to keep plucking away at it at my own speed; which is normally very slow.

    MetalShavings



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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Instagram for sure. #instamachinist is a pretty big community. Im on twitter and FB very minimally compared to instagram

    https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/instamachinist/

    There are also so many different makers on there, its a pretty great resource. I also see a lot of people selling directly on Instagram. I ,and others here im sure, can give you lots of suggestions of people to follow.



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    Default

    Congratulations



    Quote Originally Posted by MetalShavings View Post
    Well, it's finally happening. I'm coming up on the date that I'll be eligible for retirement. This is one of the reason I bought my Tormach 770, my metal lathe and some of the other metal working related machines I've acquired over the years. I figured I'd most likely go crazy if I didn't have anything to do after I was retired. I've already lost my hair. All I have left to loose is my sanity; and I kind of want to keep that. If I lost my sanity all I'd be able to do with the rest of my life is maybe run for some political office. That seems to be where all the really crazy people go now days.

    With the help of some of you guys here I've been able to traverse the learning curves I've faced as I went about learning how to use my machines; so much so that I was able to start making specialty parts for specific air rifles that I've been selling online for the past few years. It was never anything really lucrative but, this is mainly because I was making them whenever I had the time. I still had to work my regular job to pay bills and such. Those little parts I've been making were just a sideline thing that I dreamed of some day making a little money off of if or when I retired. The word, "Retirement" means different things to different folks. To me it means I still have to work to make ends meet but, in theory, I won't have to work as hard; and if I don't have to work as hard I'll have time to concentrate more on making my air gun parts to sell.

    Now that the date draws near for my retirement, I've decided to Give It A Shot. I've start selling my little home made do-dads on Ebay and not only on the Yahoo Group site I started a few years back. I also recently started a twitter account in an effort to get a little more notoriety or exposure for these same Match-Grade-Trigger parts I've been making. Selling on Ebay is easy enough but, I don't have a clue about what I'm doing on Twitter. It's all new online territory to me. If you get a chance to drop by that sight, make sure you look up Umarex Octane or @UmarexTim. Maybe you can give me some pointers on that too, like you've given me some useful pointers on machining.

    I've been slowly transferring some of the pics and topics from my Yahoo Umarex Octane Shooters Group, over to the twitter account. The Yahoo group site has so many glitches that I though it wise to start looking for another venue for our group members to share info on.

    Do any of you guys have a twitter account? What kind of advice can you give me that isn't as over-my-head and technical sounding as alot of the YouTube videos I've been watching in an attempt to get up to speed on this twitter thing?

    Thanks in advance.

    MetalShavings




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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. I guess I'm one of those who joined the internet party late in life. I think I was in my late 30s before I even touched a computer.

    Heck, I was in the sixth grade the first time ever talked on a telephone. Not because they didn't exist but, back then only rich people had telephones. Now I carry a telephone in my pocket and don't know how to use one-quarter of the features that came with the phone. It's nearly the same with my computer and the internet. Throw in the social media wildcard and it gets far to complicated far to quickly for me.

    MetalShavings



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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Congratulations on your soon-to-be retirement!

    Another vote for Instagram. I was on Twitter for awhile, but really didn't care for it. Instagram worked much better on my phone, and it's a simple click-and-post kind of app. One suggestion though is if you have a business related account, keep everything you do business related. There's nothing worse than getting posts from someone on a political rant. Leave that stuff to your personal account.

    I feel a website with a functioning store is a must. It's also much more professional for your customers to get an email from "you@YourBusinessName.com" than a Yahoo or Gmail account. Tie that email to your phone as well since you don't want to be going days without checking it. Having only PC access makes it easy to miss emails from customers. I answer emails while I'm shopping, out on the town or just goofing off in the garage...my response time is a few hours, not days like it used to be.

    Good luck in your adventure! I hope to be where you are within 10 years.

    Juan


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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    I think people gave you good advice on Instagram. Get a phone with a good camera and you can keep people updated with just a quick pic and some description. You may or may not make a lot of money, but enjoy the journey. I wish I had more products in production at this point, but the satisfaction of making things and learning something completely different from my day job has been incredible. Very enjoyable. I'd mostly forget Youtube and Facebook. Youtube requires lots of time most of us don't have and good video editing skills. Facebook leaves you open to likes, dislikes and general obnoxious stuff. Maybe maintain just enough Facebook page to provide business info and link people to Instagram for updates.



  11. #11

    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    I've owned an online business for around 4 years now. I know you are trying to avoid it, but having a working website (domain and host) with a working store is a massive advantage. Supplementing that with Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, or whatever is just a nice way to get some additional attention. Why does a dedicated site help? The appearance of trust and reliability is probably at the top of the list. The ability to clearly define products and services (not just from what you offer but also from a legal/liability standpoint) is huge in consumer confidence. The benefits really multiply from there and websites can be easily built these days, even with stores attached.

    I'm 32, I consider my business a hobby business, but one that I hope to retire on. It's something I tinker with daily, I have built on it over the years, and the idea is that it will continue to grow. A big part of that business is in the mechanical, design, and machining fields.



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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    I went ahead and started an account on Instagram. I'm just now figuring out how to post content there on my PC. I've heard you can do it from your cell phone but for me that's just another learning curve hurdle for now. Baby steps; I don't know if it means anything at all in the overall scheme of things but I opened up that Instagram account today and I got my first follower today.

    The strange thing is that I opened up that twitter account about 4 days ago; maybe five, and I now have 4 followers; maybe five. I can't make any sense of it. I'm not even going to try to make sense of it. I'll just keep plucking away at it and maybe I'll learn by osmosis.

    MetalShavings



  13. #13

    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    TWITTER is the easiest social media platform to use.
    It's basically just world-wide Text Messaging.
    You can follow people or interests you like, and soon other people will start following you.

    The people following you will see your Tweets (Messages).
    And, likewise, you will see the Tweets of the people you follow.
    The Hashtag feature ( # ) works like a search. If you hashtag a word, then it will come up for anybody searching for that word.
    So if you want a lot of Air-rifle followers. Maybe you should put #Airrifle and #Airrifles in your Tweet.
    The @ symbol is before a users name. So if you want the attention of someone, you can include that in your Tweet too.
    If you wanted to grab TORMACH's attention, you would include @Tormach and #Tormach in your Tweet.

    Don't fret. It's an easy learning curve. You'll get it. The more you play with it, the more it makes sense.



  14. #14

    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    if you have a business related account, keep everything you do business related. There's nothing worse than getting posts from someone on a political rant.
    This is VERY, VERY good advise.
    Keep your Business account focused on business, NOT POLITICS.
    It doesn't matter if you're Left wing or Right wing. You will turn off 50% of your customers with Political B.S.
    What kind of business would turn-away 50% of their customers?
    Just look at what's happened to the Media, The NFL, Hollywood, and Late-night talk shows.
    Half of their paying customers, GONE.



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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Thanks everyone.

    MetalShavings



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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    It's only been a couple of weeks since opening up a Twitter account. It started out OK but now I see what others had warned me about.

    I was hoping to connect with like-minded Umarex Octane shooters and air gunners in general and I actually did at first but, it didn't take long before the majority of the tweets I was getting were made up of all manner of political rants from folks who's monikers described them as avid air gun enthusiasts, hunters, outdoorsman, etc. At this point it just doesn't seem like it's worth my time to keep up with it all so I just took steps to deactivate that twitter account.

    The Instagram account I started at about the same time seems to be a little more niche-oriented at this point. I'm not getting the constant feed of anti-this and anti-that I was getting from the few followers I'd managed to accumulate on the Twitter site. The few Instagram account followers I now have on the other hand, appear to be a little more focused. The air gunners are really air gunners and the outdoors people are really outdoors people. I'm not getting the barrage of political commentary there that I was getting from the twitter feeds.

    I'm sure it meant something important to the authors of those tweets but to me it was just a jumble of anger and hate mixed with genuine concern. Don't get me wrong; I too despise alot of the things going on in our country and the world but those who continually harp on everything that's wrong in the world well, in doing this they seem to completely loose sight of all of the good that still exists.

    The absolute worst thing for me was when I found myself getting sucked into these "War-Of-Words". Few things can screw up an otherwise good day like getting into a literary shouting match with someone who most likely has no real clue what they're arguing about. They gave every indication that they were just arguing for the sake of arguing. I thought it best to just clear out of that environment.

    MetalShavings



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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Instagram is mostly Ahole free with real people not hiding behind their keyboard,

    <img src="https://ivxo1q-dm2305.files.1drv.com/y4mENMmTr_Cabc7pR0FUdB6gtbADq2JbuG4_rGy0eBQvLJx19pTi6TqMUIJN0xgOyDIc0gWoxYhS38HpbSTFGdfaK-o42IOU6jczrhDpfpCOTNGL1X6hvZCbgj0y35gqmq1YGTrWwShYGV-C7lXA2esy0Pi_WfnBSyroDLSGXwce4uSr1U7op7srdi78rispHCa_K4aFlTlJPVkkNWMfgh_Tg?width=60&height=60&cropmode=none" width="60" height="60" />

    Being Disabled is OK CNC is For fuN


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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Quote Originally Posted by daniellyall View Post
    Instagram is mostly Ahole free with real people not hiding behind their keyboard,
    Yea; that seems to be the case as far as I can see. I'm sure there are plenty of "A-Holes" there. It's just that you have to deliberately go looking for them to find them were as on the twitter site they seemed to come looking for you. I really don't have time for that. If I wanted to deal with that type I'd go visit some of my relatives or maybe my former work manager.

    MetalShavings.



  19. #19
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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    Some off what some people say is mind boggling, people going to the point of threatening to kill someone because there video or post is similar to there heros its F uped, its good living in a country where a person does it 3 times they goto jail or the nut farm.

    <img src="https://ivxo1q-dm2305.files.1drv.com/y4mENMmTr_Cabc7pR0FUdB6gtbADq2JbuG4_rGy0eBQvLJx19pTi6TqMUIJN0xgOyDIc0gWoxYhS38HpbSTFGdfaK-o42IOU6jczrhDpfpCOTNGL1X6hvZCbgj0y35gqmq1YGTrWwShYGV-C7lXA2esy0Pi_WfnBSyroDLSGXwce4uSr1U7op7srdi78rispHCa_K4aFlTlJPVkkNWMfgh_Tg?width=60&height=60&cropmode=none" width="60" height="60" />

    Being Disabled is OK CNC is For fuN


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    Default Re: I Thought I'd Give It A Shot

    I'm a huge airgun fan so I'll check out your site. I have a large collection of PCP air rifles for hunting and target shooting. It's an awesome and very addictive hobby!

    The key words to remember for getting good online results is "landing pages". You want people to be able to reach your site through as many other sites as possible. Posting links on forums like this is a good idea. Do it on as many forums as possible (including airgun forums like Airgun Nation). This way, people will be more likely to find you when they search for airgun stuff on google.

    Note how CNC zone threads always come up in the google search results when you search for anything CNC or milling related. More landing pages!

    Also, make sure to post lots of searchable videos on YouTube with links to your site in the description - again - more landing pages to help people find you. Post links to your videos on your twitter, Facebook, instagram etc pages. Post links to your twitter, FB and instagram pages on each of your videos to maximize landing pages.



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