Announcing Our New Facebook Group for I Like You Picture

One of the things I've always wanted to have is kind of a sense of community. Since I started the photography blog, then, you know, was it four years ago now, Lee, that we started this podcast? And recently I'm also getting active on YouTube again. And I plan on keeping that going, but what's missing is a sense of community. And that's what we're going to talk about today

on I Like Your Picture. I'm William Beem. Welcome to, I Like Your Picture. The show that helps you improve your photography with visual storytelling. What is visual storytelling? It's a method of approaching your photography with a knowledge of who you're trying to serve with your photos and what emotion you want to make them feel. We encourage you to concentrate on your subject,

light and background to create a photo your audience loves. I'm glad you found us. Hi, my name is William Beem and Lee is trying to crack me up. Well, I'm the Lee, that's trying to crack him up And I want to let you know Lee is a bad ass because she drinks her Pepto Bismol straight from the bottle. Doesn't use the little cup that comes with it.

They never get the measurements right for your needs, you have to do it. She just chugs it. Hey, today, we're going to talk about the sense of community that I was talking about. So basically the three things we want to let you know is that we started a new Facebook group. Our YouTube channel is active once again, and finally we hope you'll join us.

I kind of want to get started with this and dive right into like, why start a new Facebook group. This is one of the things that I probably wasn't planning on using a Facebook group for community. I've actually had some other software that I was thinking of setting up on a site that had a forum and kind of like a Facebook vibe to it.

And then I was talking to different people in the industry and they said, you know what? It's going to be an uphill battle to do it that way. Go where the people are. Go start your group on Facebook. I'll actually like groups. That's why I go to Facebook really is to participate in the groups. I don't necessarily go there for my stream or the various discussions that are going on,

or even keeping in touch with, you know, various friends. I mean, that's nice when it happens, but I see a lot of those folks. So I think over on Instagram, and maybe we have more conversations there on things they posted on Facebook, it does happen. But mostly when I go to Facebook, I'm going for the groups because I'm less likely to get stressed out by people's opinions on politics and other issues like that in a group that I am on the feed.

I agree. And I mean, I'm even more extreme than you are. I considered several times over the past few years, just deleting my Facebook account, because I don't use my newsfeed anymore. And even with keeping in touch with friends. My friends know if you want to talk to me, call me. So I've got that approach. The reason that I've kept that is because I've got a few groups that I really liked to be a part of.

And I wouldn't say that I always participate actively and I don't necessarily go on Facebook every day. But it's nice when you have a specific question that you don't have to wait for office hours or wait for one person to respond to how many different questions. This way, you've got a community. And I think many, many heads together have carry a lot more experience, more ideas.

And I think that's the benefit of being in a group with people with similar interests, but different experiences. Another part of it is I've had a Facebook page for quite some time. Facebook is not really sharing messages that are posted to pages to most of the people that are out there. But I think groups is where Facebook is going. I think Zuckerberg posted about that himself.

I think you get more of a reach and you get more of a community on a Facebook group than you do on a Facebook page. So I'm not getting rid of the Facebook page. A matter of fact, I've just linked it to the group. I am going to start sharing more things on the group. It's better, I think, for conversations and discussion,

not necessarily just back and forth between me and you, but also between other people who joined the group. It gives me opportunities to go in there and maybe do some Facebook live sessions. I'm thinking about doing some Q & A hopefully, possibly doing some training on there, but mostly it's just an idea of trying to get us in community together or what we want to talk about.

That's really kind of leading us into my next point is who should join this group? And, and by the way, the group has the clever name. I Like Your Picture. So look, if you're a fan of the podcast, obviously we welcome you. If you're a fan of what I'm doing on YouTube, we welcome you. And if you're a photographer in general,

we'll be happy to welcome you. And that's what the discussions are going to be, we're going to keep things on photography. I am really more into my portrait photography these days, but I've also been doing some lessons lately on some things that are more travel photography related. I know Lee is doing a lot of her food photography, and she may come in and share something every once in a while,

if she's in the mood. I'm interested in that. Food, photography groups are actually rough. I found to join. And if he just went into the community, I mean, some of these people, when it links to your work and everything, I thought, you know, my whole idea of being in a group is not to feel like I'm constantly having to one up the next person.

I'm sure it may be these groups aren't like that, but it certainly gave that feel of when I read about what they want. I thought, should I, shouldn't I? Nah. Yeah. For more relaxed environment where I can get benefits. I think I would benefit more from something like this. And that's what we have in mind for this group is it is for photographers.

If there are any discussions that are going off topic, I'm sure there are other groups where that sort of discussion is more welcome. But I found one of the things that the, particularly this year in 2020, that I really liked is groups that would stay on topic. If they got off topic with other things that are in the news, I kind of lost a bit of a safe Haven. Or other stories,

just general stuff that's totally off topic is... That's one of the intentions behind this group is we really want to have a photography community and keep it within a photography community. And I don't think I need to go any further with that. I just basically says, we're here to talk about things that are involved with photography. If you have a passion for another topic,

I'm sure there is another group would support it. So are you going to let us know in the group, like give us a heads up on if something new is coming or if there's new videos or if there's, you know, I didn't know any news, um, would that be a good place to go in? I think so. I mean,

I've been sharing some of that on the Facebook page that I have for William Beem photography. I think that it's good to just kind of drop in like, Hey, there's a new episode of the podcast. Hey, there's new video every once in a while, but I don't expect that to be the purpose necessarily of the group. What I'm looking forward to the group really is community and understanding what people's issues or concerns are with photography.

Looking at some of the photos that other people share and learning how they did some of the things that they have done with their photography, helping people out, if they have questions. And I think that is something that we can do in a friendly way. And it's just one of those things, like if we have like a critique session, and this is just off the top of my head,

I haven't planned this out yet. The idea is that when somebody posts a photograph, it's not necessarily an invitation for a critique. It's like, here's my photograph. You know, if you have any questions about it, if you like it or something like that, that's fine. But it's not a place for you to go tear somebody else's photo apart because of the way you would have done something.

I think that's an opportunity for you to go take your own photograph and say, okay, here's what I did. And we all learned from looking at the different methods. If people have questions and you want to ask them, that's great. But as far as critique, I would say, that's only if you ask for a critique and, and you know,

like I said, I just want it to be a friendly place for photographers. And I'm hoping that this, this works out that way. So I think that's part of what you should expect from the Facebook group is discussions about photography, critique if you ask for it, maybe say that I will go in there and do some Facebook lives so we can do some Q & A,

maybe we can drill deeper on a topic if that's of interest to the members of the group. And I want to learn from you what you're looking for and try and find a ways to be present in the group and provide help and assistance or foster that community as best I can. It sounds good to me. Oh, and by the way, my questions here are genuine because I didn't know this was happening.

William just came up to me today and said, I started a Facebook group, so cool. What's it called? I Like Your Picture. I went. Oh. And then he said to me, and if you're nice, I might let you join. So that's why I had a few questions. Lee has to be on her best behavior now if she wants to get into the group just so you know,

the group is private. In other words, you can get in. It's not that I'm trying to exclude anybody. The only reason I made it private is to try and keep the spammers and the people who aren't truly interested in photography out. So when you go to the group, it will ask you three questions. They're not difficult. And quite honestly,

if you answer those questions, all of the questions and you have been on Facebook for more than one year, it will automatically grant you access. I mean, you won't have to wait on me. And that's just the way I've set it up. Based upon the rules that Facebook has, it means that you've been on Facebook and you've been trusted with this account for at least a year.

Yeah. And that's really what we're looking for. We're looking for real people. Who've and if you haven't been around, don't worry. You can still join. It's just a matter of you answer the questions I have to go back and review if your account is less than a year old, but that's just means that it may take a little bit longer until I get there,

but I don't plan on, you know, waiting too long. I'm on Facebook every day. So I should get a notification and be able to review those things on a daily base. Yeah. Unless it's where you can be thankful I'm not managing it because it'd be a week. Lee had a previous job where she was a community manager for another company.

And let's just say that Lee does not want to be a community manager again, Because one of the areas I had to oversee was the Facebook group. And that wasn't the main reason I was there. But I tell you, it was probably the biggest draw on my time. Look, I didn't spend that much time on Facebook, but the groups are what attract me.

So I actually was interested when you said that there was a group, It is a group. And the group that you work for is for a company that was a large membership. They had over a million subscribers on YouTube and it was a thriving, growing business. I'm a guy with a wife and we're working on around here. I got a feeling that we're probably going to have crickets for the first few bits of time that has any new group starts off and I've already come in and said,

all right, where is everybody? I said, your first. Now, if you are one of the first ones, Facebook has a little bit of badge for you for called founding member. So I think that's only for people who start up within the first week and I click this thing off on Saturday. So you've probably got until Saturday, if you want to go in and just claim your founding member badge,

that's my understandings. Does it work over a time period, or does it work over the first so many people who post? I think it's over a time period, you know, and I'll have to look that up and find out, and I'll put that in the show notes. Speaking of show notes, I want to let you know, I'll mention the group name here,

but it's also going to be in the show notes. And that is facebook.com/groups/ilikeyourpicture. I will come up with a short link for that off of Williambeem.com. And we'll put that out in the show notes as well too. But once you get there, please go ahead. You're welcome to join. I'm looking forward to meeting everybody and seeing you in the discussion group.

Cause I'm really nosy with photos. I don't know. I just, I've always liked looking at pictures. We do. It's like we, we both have Instagram and we don't really post that much on Instagram. I've I'm not a person who's, who's really figured out the Instagram puzzle, but I love going in there daily and just looking at everybody's photos.

And I hope that you'll share on this group. I don't claim any ownership or any copyright or anything at all to your photos on the group. And because I don't own Facebook, I can't claim anything like that. I'm just a user as much as anybody else is. So don't worry about that. If you, if that's ever been a concern for you,

we're, we're not looking for your photos to take and use any place else. We would never do that, but we would love to see them. Now, the other thing I wanted to bring up is what's happening over on YouTube. I think I brought this up. Back on April 1st. That was my last in corporate America. And I am doing the photography thing full time now,

which has given me time to go ahead and try and build up my presence on YouTube. I am starting off with a series of videos on Luminar 4. Basically, this is like how to get started and how to get going on. Luminar 4. I think it's a very interesting tool. There's a lot of capability there and I hope you'll check that out. You'll see that there's a series playlist and it starts with the video,

I think, called Getting Started on Luminar 4. And then I'm going through each of the different tabs and the sections of tools and kind of showing how I use them and what capabilities they have and what you can do with them. After that, I'll be looking at other things. I might be looking at some stuff with Lightroom some with Photoshop, some with off camera flash,

maybe also with Topaz tools. I'm really enjoying Topaz Mask AI, Topaz Sharpen in a series of the Topaz tools. But I'm also looking for your feedback, which is something that even though the videos are going to be on YouTube, the party's going to be on the Facebook group. Let me know what you're looking for and that'll help me provide something that's useful to you.

Yeah, I think that's about all we wanted to share for this week, but I just want to repeat again. The Facebook group is available at facebook.com/groups/ilikeyourpicture. Hey, thank you so much for joining us on. I like your picture. This week is episode 232. So show notes are going to be available at williambeem.com/episode232. Go ahead.

Over there, leave us a comment. Let us know what you think about the idea of the Facebook group or if you want to you can click the link that's on those show notes that takes you over to the Facebook group. You can join and then tell us what you think of it there. See that's clever, huh? Thank you so much. We'll see you again next week.