You can literally trace back our history and get an understanding of what our philosophy is, what we offer, why we offer it and get a fair sense on how we operate if you browse through our social media.
We have come a long ways and we have evolved over that time.
We are no different than anyone else starting a small business and trying to make their way to a comfortable level of success. How that is achieved, is based on the avenues people take. It's what you want to be known for and how you get there in doing so. That is always part of the marketing strategy when you are a young jedi in the marketplace.
Social media has its place in society because we have come to accept new methods to market ourselves. The way businesses operate changes with time and there is no question that social media is a big player in that change. As time went on, popular social media sites began to grow and found ways to open the door for marketing businesses, big and small. We recognized the potential long ago when we began our Facebook Page in 2013. Sigil Occult Jewelry had already been existing prior to that but we made it official that we needed to grow with the help of social media. About 2-3 years later, we were on Instagram and that slowly took us to a new level. Everyone got a chance to see what we were offering and they were supportive in helping us create products that they (the market) wanted to see. This was long before "Satanic" became a trend.
Today we find ourselves with lots of new social media platforms than we ever imagined. When we first opened our official Facebook page, we were late to the game. It took us months because we needed to do the research and find out if this was going to be a viable solution for us. Instagram came later and yet again, we did not jump in immediately. We heard the news about collaborations with brands and people who were often referred to as "influencers". Again, seemed like a great idea but we still held back and did our research. Eventually we got on Instagram and everything went smooth. Now there are more social media sites that operate differently and we have considered some and have opted out of many too. Pinterest is one that we considered but it has all been abandoned up until recently that we decided to maybe start posting some content again. You can go to our Pinterest account and check out the original content from years ago. The pics are stunning for their time. It's sorta become an online museum of photos at this point. They look sharp, clean, and impressive as is our products. However, we are hardly active on it these days as we feel it does nothing for us. At least, not on a grand scale of things. We keep the account alive and active but hardly contribute to it these days.
Next we have Tik Tok and that is the subject of today. We are not on Tik Tok. Tik Tok has been plagued with controversy lately and it is a very serious matter. One thing I need to mention is that for the first few years of our existence (as a business) we would often be opinionated when it came to many subjects, especially politics. Now, we hate to get political with this post but it's hard not to get away from it because it is important that we share something that is not being mentioned when you hear about the controversies that come with Tik Tok.
We have all heard the stories about Tik Tok policy that says that when you download the app, that your phone becomes an open source of data about you and ALL activity you do on your phone. We all know that a few years ago, Facebook was getting grilled in Congress over the spying scandal with Cambridge Analytica. I will not make much references about that story but it's rather long. You can do a Google search and read all about what happened there. Facebook was spying on you before and they have now limited that. Then came Apple with added features on their iPhones that block social media sites, especially Facebook and Instagram from using your phone to gain data from you. Back then, they pulled so much data on so many people back then, they literally knew YOU better than you know yourself! Google was also getting into the data game when they used to have their own social media accounts called Google +. So long story short, even your phone would listen to what you say when you were not being active on your phone.
When it comes to spying on you, you probably think your life is just a simple life, right? You go to work, come home, browse sites or social media to read or search for something. You hardly think it's anything important. 99.9% of people think that it's not a big deal when someone finds out that you filled up your car with gas on your way to visit a friend or grocery shopping. It's just mundane stuff that you do all the time. It's nothing important, right? Who cares if they know about some friend you were talking about with other friends, what do they know? They don't know anything, right?> WRONG! They do! They know more than you know. You see, it's about the collection of data from the masses. Yeah, individually, it may seem pointless but when it comes to putting the data points together, you will see things like trends. You can draw conclusions as to how our society functions and how they can make an impact. That is what they are after. They don't care if you skipped leg day at the gym. They don't care what your favorite fruit is, right? It's not sexy. Its useless information...or SO YOU THINK. And that is the part that when they share these conspiracy theories about Tik Tok spying on Americans is not being told. They are not telling you the full scale of what this leads to. They are not interested in spying on you because they think you are a CIA Operative, NO, they are gathering data points to find ways to gain from the information.
Perhaps you were around the Bush Administration years. Do you remember "The Dumbing of America"? Where it's here and its in full effect. We are so dumb to the reality of what is happening. We simply think it's harmless and could care less if they spy on us because why? We are making a few dollars off social media?
Yeah, I said it, a few dollars! I know we have a large increase of entrepreneurs out there, perhaps more than ever in history, but many of them will not become big companies. In fact, 96% of ecommerce businesses fail within 3 years. Most of that 96% fails within 6 months. I understand that Tik Tok is popular. Its entertaining as fuck! There is potential to capture eyeballs for someone trying to market their products but it is NOT the sole method for marketing. Plus, don't get me started on the algorithms. I am sure you heard all of this before. So here's the question, why are we against it?
We are not against Tik Tok in a way that you might think after having said all that I said. It has a purpose just like YouTube or Instagram. Its highly entertaining. You all know our history by now. You can read older blogs and read about how many people would love to copy our brand and our concepts. We have had our jewelry designs copied many times over. Not only that, our website name was also copied and replicated in attempts to get online traffic to go to the wrong site. Yes, this really did happen. Even now, when it comes to Satanic jewelry, there are people out there that copy our concept. We can't even MENTION what we are working on next because they would love nothing more than to jump ahead and beat us to the market by introducing their version first. Typically a version or item that we mentioned we were going to introduce. If this happens in America, it can happen overseas too and we will be butting heads with a nation of people that want to take us down.
Make no mistake, we get our products and our concept copied here in the U.S and also in other countries, China being on of them. When it comes to Tik Tok and the controversy of spying on its users, who do you think they would like to have come on board and download their app? Sigil Occult Jewelry and its followers.
If you are a business, they would love for you to share your content and see how the followers react. It's all about the data points. How does one company go head to head with a country? It's impossible to win. You see, this information is also being copied and absorbed on Amazon too. Ever wonder why not every item we carry is not listed on Amazon? We stopped years ago because there is 3rd party APPS that you can add to your browsers so when you are visiting the Amazon site, they can see what products are being sold, how many are being sold, how much is it being sold for, and how much money that product is making for its sellers. It is out there and we also have it too. It was used against us and we stopped introducing new designs on Amazon since. However, they did get away with at least 4-5 designs to-date.
Tik Tok will follow businesses that are successful in the products they sell and will eventually get knocked off and sold for prices far less than the creator of an original product and destroy their business. Once they are gone, the product can continue to exist with China dominating the market. It is a long-play game of strategy and politics that can affect us all in the years ahead. Tik Tok is still new and growing fast. This is the concerns our government officials are referring to but are failing on delivery of the message. This is where people fail to understand the problem with Tik Tok. This is why we are not on Tik Tok. Its because it would be much easier to allow them to literally take a stake at us.
I know many people out there do not care. There exists a lot of hatred towards the government and anybody with a business. Keep in mind, we all start out with nothing and make hard investments to get to where we are. Having a business does not make everyone rich. Businesses are started for freedom and that freedom comes with responsibilities for those that depend on your business too. There is always competition on this earth but some don't play fair. Their agenda is to strip you of your creativity and beat your at your own game. A country with a different set values and freedoms that we get in the U.S. Its one thing to be competitive but its another thing when your creativity is stolen. It is very difficult to recover from that.
I will end this by saying that just 3 days ago, when I mentioned that I would be posting this story on our blog page. Our APPLE ID account had an attempted hack from China. We had to change our password and add additional securities to our personal computers and back up information that is not connected to the internet. Maybe it was coincidence or may not. It was indeed strange and felt like a warning sign, no doubt. After this goes live, only time will tell what comes of it next.
Now you know why are cannot afford to be on Tik Tok. We would be an easy target to steal our ideas and our projects. Its bad enough that we already deal with some of that but it could get worse and that is what's at play here. We cannot take that chance.
Xerxes
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