Do people still hand out physical business cards at events or is it all digital now?
i should have asked before ordering 50, lol
EDIT:
Thank you for all the replies, I’ve got the answer I need but I’ll add some more information just in case anyone wants to know.
- I’m based in Europe and not Japan
- I’m working as a videographer and trying to build a film company
- I plan on doing more event coverage so I’ll bring them with to quickly hand out my contact details.
- The card has the following: Busines name, my name, phone number, email, and website.
- I had thought about adding my social media but couldn’t find a nice way to do it that matched the rest of the card.
EDIT 2: just now realised I didn’t complete the last sentence of the last bullet point
Yep. We just ordered a big batch for some upcoming events. Print is still alive.
I carry them because I’m a professional musician and I just get sick of spelling my name for people. It has my booking email, instagram, and phone number on it. Super handy.
Some people like to get super nerdy with them now. If I were in better shape physically, I’d probably etch my own out of some PCB copper clad and mix up some tinning solution.
Why does that require to be in better shape?
Disability. Plus no reason to when I never leave the house or engage with others in meaningful ways.
Engaging with people on Lemmy is meaningful, especially if it makes you happier.
Heya, I’m in a similar situation. Chatting with other people online is still a great way to learn and pass the time :)
Ooooooh…yeah, I read it as you saying it would be hard to do with no upper body strength, or if you were really fat.
By “better shape”, you mean you specifically as an individual. Thats what threw me off. I know nothing of the process, and thought you were saying I couldn’t do it, being fat.
Look at that subtle off-white coloring.
The tasteful thickness of it.
Oh my God, it even has a watermark…
Really thought I was going to be rick-rolled
Is there an alternative?
My wife is a tattoo artist, and she hands a decent amount of them out. But, really the point is that it has a QR code to her Instagram.
It is about the act of giving that physical thing to someone, like a present.
It helps with building a connection to people. It cannot be replaced by anything ‘digital’.
QR codes on cards really bridge the gap between the physical card and the digital presence.
“scan the one on the front for my LinkedIn, and the back for my OnlyFans” smirk and wink
Plot twist: They both go to OnlyFans.
I will take a small amount with me to trade events, and collect a few. There are still a lot of old school folks out there
Sure, if you deal with customer
It’s still a nice way to get someone coordinates, like who is the sales person, or the tech support tech, or the researcher.
If you go to conference/trade fairs people willstill exchange cards.
For a while I stopped bringing cards to situations where a card would be a thing and instead I put a QR code on a widget on my phone and told people to just scan that to add my contact info to their phones.
Results were… mixed? For a few people it was a cool conversation starter. Others fumbled a bit with what to do.
One guy, though? He was NOT amused. Apparently he made a big point of collecting all of his connections’ cards in binders, and cataloguing them, both as bragging rights and a hobby. I may as well have walked into his house and peed on his stamp collection. It was very awkward.
“the future is now, old man”
when I was a designer and printer, I loved collecting cards to compare prints, designs, paper stock, etc.
But that’s like a stamp collector being mad at email. Wait, are stamp collectors mad at email??
I carry some because it’s no longer a thing. My card has only the information that I know will not change: my name, email address, and mobile phone number. On the back there’s a QR code (which contrasts the otherwise vintage look).
I hand out perhaps one per month so not super often, and many times the most appropriate thing to do is to simply tell people my phone number. But sometimes, especially when we’re in a situation where phones are not nearby, it’s quite effective to hand over a pre-made card with that info.
The average reaction is “Oh, cool” so even if they toss it once they’ve copied the info (which, tbh, is my expectation) it will still have made the exchange slightly out of the ordinary.
Plus, sometimes they’re useful to stop a table from rattling, or leave a message for someone who’s not currently present, and so on.
I dunno. Paper ones are kinda like tiny junk mail to me, but with the added guilt trip of being tied to a real identity. If someone handed me a business card that was actually a sticker though, I’d be quietly delighted and think of them every time I saw it.
Yeah, they’re really handy. I work for a big company who deals with other big companies, it’s often very helpful to get a specific contact person’s info so a future request isn’t filtered through layers of bureaucracy.
Yes, for anyone who sells services in person, like a mortgage broker, notary, handyman, painter, etc.
I sell stuff entirely via the internet, never needed a card.
Depends. Are you in Japan?