what's up guys this is Ben from life and 360 I'm here in beautiful Samoa on a
video shoot and I'm going to welcome you to episode 4 of vlog in 360 and in this
episode I really want to talk about networking and the power it has online
using something that's free to all of us and that is social media and Facebook
I've been really fortunate to experience a lot of success in my short 360 career
and I put the vast majority of it down to social media Instagram YouTube and
Facebook and in this video I really want to emphasize the power of Facebook in
networking with like minds and really finding the community that is the most
similar to you that you can share your work your experiments with and learn
from and really grow and share your insights working towards a shared goal
in understanding cameras understanding the technology and breaking through
barriers in this new amazing space that nobody has really broken through in yet
and it's something that has massive massive potential and silly as it does
sound to use Facebook seriously Facebook is where it's at if you embrace Facebook
and use it really smartly you're going to find a lot of success and you're
going to get one step closer towards making 360 your career so in this video
I'm going to go through some of the key areas that you need to consider in order
to really skyrocket your success in the 360 field using Facebook
just recorded a vlog in 360 episode at this beautiful temple that looks like an
orange squeezer and I think I just see the whole video right sound rolling damn
so I'm here next to a giant lemon squeezer that's pretty cool isn't it and
something I really want to stress is that each social network has its own
potential for getting you knows and it's important to understand which one does what.
Instagram Facebook and YouTube are the most important for Instagram it's
all about creating amazing work and the discoverability is highest
however with Facebook for networking potential is the highest if you don't
use Facebook groups yet you need to really start considering this because
whenever a new 360 camera gets released a new Facebook group will be created
where users of that camera will join and they'll post their experiments their
feedback ask questions and everything you could possibly want to know about
that specific camera so it's really important to have a look on facebook
depending on which becoming your own search the keywords and find the group
that everyone is active in join it and become an active member of that
community so the very first one was the Ricker Sadie users on Facebook because
the theta s was the only consumer specialty camera available to us now
there's lots of them obviously but that group just grew bigger and bigger and
bigger I was there when there were only a few hundred members and now there's
acting maybe five thousand plus and that is a highly highly active community
people posted tiny planet photos and interactive 360 photos videos but also
new experiments people are making new contraptions for their cameras they're
using 360 video in new and innovative ways and I find whenever I go to that
Facebook page I'm inspired so much by the stuff I see that it leads me to
creating better work and it also keeps me informed about what the latest tips
and tricks and software apps everything and that's just one camera like I said
there are groups for every single 360 camera
are Samsung gear 360 groups there are gel me medium me Sphere group there's a
huge insert 360 group honestly I would sincerely attribute so much of my
success to joining these Facebook groups and learning from other people and then
trying out these things that these other people are seeing myself with my camera
and getting awesome results like they got and then I share that with the world
now I've been benefiting so this is a huge huge thing you can do that will
really accelerate your growth and get you shooting 360 professionally even
faster. Is this a secret attempt to clear up my email and Facebook and Instagram
inbox maybe this is cool because while these groups are filled with users of
each individual camera they're also built with the engineers the marketing
team the directors almost anyone that works at a specific company will usually
join the Facebook group so they can see what users are saying what users are
requesting and what needs fixing in my experience the instant 360 group has
been the best the whole team's active on their posting every single day
what they're up to the new cameras they're working on they're always asking
for feedback but they listen they go out and they'll say what do you guys want to
change about the camera what do you want to see improve let me know and they will
add it to the firmware and then there'll be a new firmware download a few days
later so they are highly responsive so it's really an amazing tool for firstly
feedback on cameras and things you like to see improved inspirations in seeing
what other people are doing but also this is a really good way to get your
problems solved if you do have an issue with the Wi-Fi of your camera or it's
overheating or any small thing that you can't figure out an answer to yes I'll
try and help you guys as much as I can but I can't always do it unfortunately
I'm getting so many messages every single day is getting way out of hand
I can't manage it anymore so this is a really good alternative to that because
there are people even smarter than me in these groups that will help you to just
post your problem there you there will be other people that have
gone through a similar experience but I just haven't experienced all the
problems out there so I may or may not be able to help you whereas you will
definitely get help if you join one of these groups and like I said there's a
group for every camera so instead 360 have many cameras Samsung
have a few cameras now there are groups for each specific camera so you can talk
to people in depth about your specific problem and get a specific answer this
is also an awesome way to meet people make friends because realistically
if you're really passionate about 360 like I am you're going to find like
mine's one those groups that probably am more in common with you then a lot of
your current friends do so you might want to even friend request some of them
and add them to your social circle this is an amazing way to network with the
people with the absolute most in common with you on planet earth so I was
looking through the into 360 Facebook group one day and my mouse hovered over
this guy he was commenting and his name was Wade Angelo and I noticed that I'm
he was from Australia and there aren't many 360 shooters from Australia so he
immediately caught my attention and I thought he was commenting on a lot of
the same stuff that I was commenting on so I ended up shooting him a friend
request and now I've just met up with him in Melbourne and we've actually
become quite good friends what did you think when I first um friend requested
you yeah I mean it was actually a bit of a bit taken back because obviously Ben
is quite an influential in the 360-degree ecosystem with the tiny
planet photography and a lot what he's doing behind the scenes so for me it was
actually been humbling I felt there was a lot of opportunity for us to explore
any form of collaboration so for me it was actually a great opportunity to be
able to say I rather being that kind of person hiding behind the scenes like
most of us are because we're probably frightened to actually explore and talk
about what we're doing there's opportunity to be able to talk and
discuss different collaborations or ideas and and really look into how we
could probably do something commercially just in general I mean really like
doing finally Medicaid on bring the 360 ecosystem into the strategy especially
from Australia yeah and have you have you added any other people say that you
met on an Facebook group and added them on Facebook and networked with them
absolutely are there's been many opportunities where I felt that there
might have been someone who added value to what I was doing and obviously at the
same time I wasn't someone to be selfish and say well I'll take that time to be
able to network with them and talk about me but the idea is to actually create a
win-win scenario for networking so if you find that someone there I could
influence or they can influence me there's an opportunity to reach out to
each other and connect them and grow them together yeah and what was the
moment that you've decided that you would break through the kind of social
awkwardness of adding random strangers and then and use Facebook to your
advantage instead of as a procrastinating a procrastination tool
alright it was you Ben oh it was you had you all everyday and it was there
was a time in my career where I changed from being in branding and working
website development to doing something that was a bit more innovative in terms
of telling stories and 360 compliment of that but I also found that I was
networking as much as I should and I happened to stumble across in that point
of time one of videos that Venice produced which was about working within
Facebook groups and actually networking them and looking at actually suppose
curating and slowly unfriending people that might not be of benefit to you in
terms of your networking in specific particularly into business as well so
yeah when that happened it is all about timing and I got that pretty well and
yeah yeah and um the themes of that video like I really I really do want to
stress in this video as well like um we accumulate so many people on Facebook
that have almost nothing in common with us but we've we found them just because
it's the polite thing to do because we met them while we were traveling or at a
wedding or something and then we follow their stories forever whereas there are
people with so much more in common with you and to be honest I think Wade is one
of the people on planet earth that I literally have the most in common with
so to be able to find that person very easily through a Facebook group and now
meet up and and chat business and and creativity and and the future is such a
powerful thing and it does take the balls to get rid of those people that
that you you will kind of accepting as your quote-unquote clear
answer yeah yeah but you were kind of accepted as your peer group which really
had nothing in common with them so you owe it to yourself to find the peer
group with the most in common with you and in my experience that has been
through Facebook groups because 360 is one of my biggest passions it's not my
biggest and I know the people with the most in common with me gravitate around
those Facebook groups whether it be for the into 360 camera the hricko the gel
me or just general 360 video groups they're all there and if you want to
take your um peer group and and totally transform it so it's more 360 oriented
more VR oriented this is a very smart way to do it because then you create
real contacts that really are people the most like you on planet earth add more
value and I think it's in real time so I mean the beauty of this now is that you
don't have to worry about sending emails to people it's a matter of seeing that
they're expressing interest in that particular field and you can reach out
to more to matically and say hey I like what you're doing or vice versa let's
catch up for a chat and yeah and it's quite instantaneous and that's what I
think for me what's most exciting cause because once Ben and I have spoken to
each other and has been mentioned reached out to me initially quite
quickly and we converted that into this and then never the opportunity to reach
out here in my hometown to sort of plug Melbourne yeah I'll show as a Sydney
rivalry thing between Melbourne Sydney but yeah and I'd better get done was do
it but the idea was to actually connect and actually meet face to face and
explore that further about yeah all sorts of opportunity and I must admit
like on Facebook there seems like such a silly place to network because it's like
where people post like cat memes and and bit like silly little videos and whatnot
and it doesn't seem like a professional networking place like you it seems like
the place to go would be LinkedIn let's go to LinkedIn and network whereas I've
never made one serious contact on LinkedIn ever right I would have
probably 1500 LinkedIn connections I've never had like a serious contact
eventuate from that whereas I've had I'm going to say hundreds of serious
contacts come from just adding quote unquote random people from Facebook
groups and it for me it's just a smart way to network you've got to get past
the silliness of this and of it and the awkwardness of adding
strangers because if you do if you get if you get past that barrier and they
then become your peer group and then like it's not awkward anymore and I felt
that that was where I've struggled with before is that I'm , um Ben has come
to see I'm a quite an extroverted character but I was with social
networking for me I always saw that as a way of just kind of you know cat means
and stuff of a life being able to reach out and breaking the barrier and
understanding that it's not you know nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of
it's to actually ask and reach out to people and you'll find that if you are
in the same forums and groups that we discuss yeah that they have something in
common so all sudden when you go hey by the way or did you know this they're
like yeah and all sudden it just starts a really great conversation and that's
where it led to these types of conversation now because Ben and I have
something in common Australia is um I suppose is new ground for 360 content
yeah so that's why I suppose we were drawn to each other quite quickly
because we can go well we can explore and and there's not many of us so again
reach out and grow that community through Facebook groups yeah
yeah and even if you don't want to meet in person even online like it's a second
best I guess like is interacting with people and really kind of getting a feel
for what people are doing and like using that as inspiration to really um break
new ground for yourself and try new things take on new projects um I find it
very inspirational I know Facebook is a place you go to
procrastinate but it can be also a place you go for inspiration and for me um
it's become almost 100 percent inspiration zero percent procrastination
because I can't help but being inspired when I'm going to these groups and
seeing what people are doing and there's no procrastination there I'm not looking
at irrelevant stuff to me it's all 110 percent relevant to 360 and in real-time
so you'll find that if you are following certain post as well and you do push a
notification to follow that post you've got to get people commenting along the
way and you're like oh oh well I'm not able to join the conversation right now
I'm able to have a look and read and continue to contribute in what you think
is going to add value for them or like your opinion and constructive criticism
soon which is always a good thing so I'm going to put a link to each of the
existing Facebook groups right now and I'd really highly encourage you to join
one if you haven't already become an active member of the community it's
going to accelerate your learning and growth out of control and it's a huge
life hack and a huge creative hack if you're always
learning and hearing from people and being inspired by them you're going to
have no choice but to get better faster so I'm going to put those links down in
the description to each of the major 360 camera groups so please join at least
one if not two or three because they're going to be amazing and change your life
social media marketing is something I'm extremely passionate about so if you do
want advice about your own profiles I'm excited to announce to now offer
one-on-one coaching via Skype because head to my website you can book in a
one-hour Skype session and I'll go over all of your profiles and let you know
how you can really maximize your chance of success through having strong
profiles and planning the right connections as well as just finding the
best strategy for your Instagram Facebook YouTube so you get noticed the
fastest right guys I hope this video was helpful don't forget join the Facebook
group as soon as you can until next time keep capturing your world in 360
don't forget to subscribe to us on youtube or on facebook Instagram and Twitter and if
you want to learn how to create 20 class like you've seen in this blog be sure to
pick up a copy of a my ebook it's called life in 360: A beginners guide to tiny planet
photography . It's going to teach you how to shoot awesome tiny planet
videos like you've seen here as well every single tiny planet effect you
see on my Instagram account also we have a share account so be sure to tag
hashtag life in 360 in your Instagram tiny planets and I'm going to share the
very best ones and show the world the world's best tiny planets so definitely
put your plans forward as a contender ok guys greetings from beautiful Samoa and
I'll see you in the next video bye