Boy … I feel weird posting the Nanda interview. I seem to have the King Midas Touch In Reverse! I wrote about the coffee shop to kick off the blog and the shop has since closed down. I wrote about my girlfriend and Twitter, and she has since broken up with me and moved out.
What will happen to Nanda I wonder?
Oh well, another social media experiment I suppose.
Here is the interview in all of its glory:
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What is your name? Kiyota
What is your business? Performing with the group, Nanda
Where is your business located? Everywhere (officially Port Townsend, WA)
What were you doing before you started your business? Various odds and ends. Retail, sushi, landscaping, construction, traveling … etc.
Do you have a website? www.nandatown.com
Do you have eCommerce capabilities? Not yet …
Do you use secondary websites to promote your business (ex – eBay, Estsy, etc)? No
Do you use social media technologies? If so, which ones? If not, why? We use Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Tribe
Tribe is not among the more notable social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. What is Tribe, and how do you use it? Actually, we don’t really use this very much anymore because it never really worked for us. I’m not totally clear on how it works but it has something to with creating groups or “tribes” and then getting people to join it for networking. From what I understand it’s sort of a Burning Man/hippie technology.
For what purpose do you use social technologies? Networking, promotion, etc.
What types of technologies do you find the most useful? Probably at this point Facebook, but Myspace had a shining moment …
Why are you moving away from Myspace and towards Facebook? We still use Myspace regularly but Facebook seems to be a little more direct as far as networking is concerned, and it also sees to be becoming more popular … although, I don’t have the actual data to back that up, just the word on the street.
What factors do you consider before using a technology? How popular it seems to be
Where do you learn about these new technologies? Mostly word of mouth and online advertisement
Do you have a social media ‘strategy’? At this point we don’t work these technologies for client relations. For us, this means we’re using them primarily for fan base cultivation and networking. I’d say our strategy is constantly evolving around the shifting interests of our audience and the feedback that we get from our fans.
Do you network and share information with other small businesses? Sure, as in any business it’s all about people - so sharing ideas and tried and true information is one of the greatest collective strengths in our community of peers. I don’t think we really prescribe to the capitalist cutthroat agenda of extreme competitiveness and the keeping of trade secrets. There has got to be a more sustainable interaction that promotes a healthier and more fulfilling sense of success for any industry.
Do you think about the ROI (return on investment) of your social media technologies? Up until now the technologies have been free so it’s just a time investment, which is hard to quantify if it’s work you enjoy. At this point, the majority of the equity we have in our business is made of sweat. As for the return, this is also difficult to figure because the nature of our business at present is not very reliant on the quantity or dedication of our fans. However, we are working to have more of what we do be about the people that appreciate the art that is presented - so it’s probably more of a future investment.
Do you use traditional forms of advertising? We rely mostly on our manager going and “fishing” for clients as well as word of mouth and our website.
Will your social media strategy ever replace your use of traditional media advertising? That probably depends hugely on how terrain evolves. I think that any tool can be great if you really learn to use it to absolute mastery. Even sub mastery of that tool means staying aware of the most effective time to implement it, and garnering a respect for everything involved with it’s use and especially how it affects the community around you.
Anything else you’d like to add? I think that one of largest struggles that face any entrepreneurial endeavor in this day and age is how to be successful while maintaining the ideal that success is just as much about how you get there, as the financial integer that gets stamped on it. In the end there might be something more gratifying about how many quality or significant interactions the business has forged, versus how many commas are on the yearly gross.
I saw you have a fantastic new website. Can you tell me a little more about the site and how you created it? It’s the collaborative fruit of mine and Chen’s labor. It’s programmed in Flash and The graphics are all digitally created in Corel Painter, Photoshop and Blender. We’ll be launching a press/booking site soon that will be mostly html and done in Dreamweaver. If you were wanting more info let me know…
