Facebook Is Becoming Less And Less Important To Marketing Fine Art

Anyone who pays FB anything is a fool. Personally, I am not a big seller here with only a handful, but they were all through Facebook because I knew where to go for free self promotion. And now because of FB, I am going to be part of a town's month long celebration by showing and offering its local door poster and have work featured in another town's DBA brochure. Feh on giving Facebook a dime!

They phoned me up at home using my mobile two weeks ago

They have selected my art page (not 1stAngel which has more followers) to be offered a new programme they have started (I cannot remember the name of it)

They wanted me to agree to a budget of over Ł400 so they would push my art through Facebook to all members

Did you tell them to go ahead with that Abbie ;)

Is that 400 total or per month?

Louise, how does one go about getting a free account set up that is not just a silly personal page? I tried and could not find any other way than to pay so much per likes so I canceled! I am not on facebook and know that I do need to be in order to gain a little more exposure.

I paid for a boost-$15 dollars on my page last week. Lots of views, little conversion but one turned into a $40 sale, profit $25. It was a local sale so I attribute it to the boost as I have few local followers other than friends and family. I doubt this happens often and 9 times out of 10 might be a bust, I got lucky with this being my first paid boost.

"...I am not on facebook and know that I do need to be in order to gain a little more exposure. "


Phyllis,

I've been on FB since joining here over a year ago, and I don't think it's personally brought any over-the-top exposure. Just my experience though. :)

Ł400+ for that one session of so many days (I think it was around 28 days)

No I did not go ahead with it but they are phoning me again soon as I have a business meeting with my bank manager soon and made the mistake of telling them

I actually opened an account (again) on fb - and there it sits all lonely hearted - because I have absolutely NO use for a "personal" page with "friends and family" - and I'm with Louise - not paying fb a dime. I am so very tired of being nickel and dimed to death - but its only $x - people, other than me, are getting rich on just a few nickels and dimes. I got one just this morning asking for me to renew - it's "such a bargain" - I paid for a year and haven't seen ANY use in belonging to their program - everything they "discount" you can find on the internet with the same discount without paying that organization a "dime".

Facebook has never been a productive site for selling my art. Plenty of Likes from people I know, and a good place to share with other artists (if you join the right groups), but nothing I can't do without. It's not surprising to hear they are on the way out.

Over four years of selling, Etsy then here, I can attribute six sales to FB. Six is less than 1 percent of total sales and half of those were were small prints or cards.

Now, if even a third of the people that said they were going to buy something actually did I could get me a Cadillac. Once. One time. That is the total number of sales that happenex after someone said they were going to buy. I find people that are actually going to buy rarely, well never aside from that one, tell you before they do so.

Phyllis: Join pages and groups. I belong to two of my hometown's pages plus another town in NJ. I "Like" a page of a retail place that I can post to as well as others (for example, I posted my baby biker stuff to a women's biker page and got sales.). I do have my own "business" page and when posting to that, I tag friends. Those will then show up on their own pages for their friends to see as well as those not tagged that friends will "like"-those get seen as well.

Find other artists to "friend" and tag them in your uploads. Everything you do there is like a spider web and the more you do, the bigger the web gets.

Facebook is another plausible way for people to see our creations, and God knows we need as many as possible They (Facebook) don't seem to be doing anything different than anyone else by squeezing the access possibilities. Everyone's in it for a buck and it was predicted that they would go this way when they went public. They are just doing it in a methodical way. The age of "free" is rapidly moving towards a thing of the past. Even the "free" artist websites here (and this is no slam on FAA) were tightened up recently and the 25 image rule was reinforced differently.

To be recognized on the net is going to take lots more effort than ever before. The questions is... will you or I be willing to make the adjustments or have the wherewithal to keep up with it! Facebook is a Internet Highway main line. Is there anyone else? Decision making time.

Glenn McCarthy Art and Photography

I agree with Glenn. Facebook is just one avenue for marketing. If you want to be seen, you must utilize many different avenues. I have made some sales that I can correlate with facebook presence, but I cannot directly attribute them to facebook alone. I haven't paid for any likes, so I have approx. 160 likes on my fan page, which I've had for about a year now. Only 32 of those are friends. The others, I assume, are people who actually like my photos. I've made contacts through facebook, some of which may turn in to sales in the future, but who knows? I've also made contacts through FAA and my blog. There is no magic bullet. It takes persistence. Sales have been increasing slowly for me over time. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

FWIW when I did a Google search about using Fudgebook for marketing, one of the links that showed up was this, www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oVfHeWTKjag. After watching this video I wonder if there's any advantage to pay Suckerberg and his cohorts all the $$$ that get funneled down the Internet drain! Sorry, as you can tell, i'm not a big fan and Fudgebook is what it is, Fudgebook all the way!

@Abbie: I hope you will forgive me if I've violated any of the forum rules just this one time :)

Cheers!

i don't think facebook was ever that important. it was full of kids before. then the adults came and they left. and the adults are too consumed with posting funny pictures of stuff.


---Mike Savad

I used to make a TON of money off of FB...my personal page...all my fans that became "friends"...I'd have contests/sales/giveaways and they'd snap up my new work like mad....it worked great until I upped my prices for original paintings by 50% and stopped promoting them and started to push prints. My people who have been spoiled with inexpensive originals do not seem to want prints. So I got a Fan Page and that is worth about nothing. But I keep it there just in case people stumble upon it....

I agree the age of "free" is dwindling which is fine, but there needs to be a pay off for the money invested. I tried advertising with FB (a good month long trial) and it it yielded ZERO. So I won't spend money there ever again. No pay off. I am a maverick....I will try anything once even if I lose some money. Most of what I've tried has paid off huge, so the occasional fails are o.k. Facebook is a FAIL.

and because it's made of adults now, they are much less willing to be your friend. where as a teen will friend anyone at all. but the site isn't really set up as a business, the search doesn't work that way. and when you become their friend, all you get is another stream of cat photos and odd images of stuff.


---Mike Savad

Facebook comes down to communication... old people or young people. Networking is a two way road, not a one way advertisement just for you personally. Making it work is a time investment. It also means that you have to be perceived as actually "caring" for the people that you are interacting with... not just as a way to fleece money from them.

As I mentioned earlier... it is just one avenue of many. If you help to promote others... they will more likely help to promote you. The old saying about "word of mouth" in cyber form.

Glenn McCarthy Art and Photography

I'm 100% with you on that, Glenn. Interaction is key, no matter the platform or media.

Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

"when you become their friend, all you get is another stream of cat photos and odd images of stuff."

That's why, with the exception of maybe 5 or so people, all my "friends" are categorized as only "acquaintances" and they are set up for me so that I only see the "most important" of their posts. I don't want a page filled with kittens and ecards. If I want to see what they are up to, I go to them.

Forgot to mention to Phyllis: You set up a free fan page through your personal one. Link the fan page wherever you can-LinkedIn, forums you might visit, etc. Get your friends to "like" it and include it when you upload here.
Then when you have joined other pages, you can link the fan page stuff to those as well.

I've spent $10 on boosting facebook posts this year. Returns in image sales is over $500.

Bottom line, there is no other advertising avenue in the world that has more people on it, and you can get your work in front of thousands of targeted people for very little. To discount it because you don't have use for it is silly.

Most people in this thread saying Facebook doesn't work, or they won't get your money, etc haven't invested the time, effort, and energy to make it work. Its like someone coming on here after their first week with 10 photos and sayin "Fine Art America Sucks...where is all of my $ale$".

I think it might be good if you have the time, but I would rather be making art than marketing all my free time on the internet.
@ Thomas, you only spent $10.00 for the year and made 500.00? Why stop at $10.00 if its that great? I would keep spending if it worked that well.

Why? Because I get those results by using a local printers to realize discounts for people who like my page while giving the customer a "special" and if you are running a special all the time, you are JC penny's. If you constantly just spam people with stuff they don't want to see, they will disengage and unlike you, the key is consistent, relevant, interesting content that builds you a list of followers who are in your target market, then market to them selectively to make use of all the work you have put in. Its not a magic formula where you put your credit card number in, offer a print, and reap the rewards.....if it was everyone would be doing it successfully.

For me, FB tends to work pretty well.

When it comes to advertising, I usually boost a post about once a week or so - just the minimum five dollars. Whenever I do, I seem to get a small sale or two resulting in about five to ten in profit. Sometimes it's a sale on Zazzle, other times a greeting card or small print on FAA. I can't be sure the sales actually come Facebook, and they are usually not for the artwork the post was for, but after doing this for about five months, it seems pretty consistent. I also gain a few more followers each time. I tried pumping a bit more in a few times, but the returns didn't get noticeably better.

The bigger money though comes from illustration contracts I've gotten through people who found me on FB.

How can anyone be certain that FaceBook doesn't doesn't generate sales?

I sell through three POD sites online, get occasional orders through my blog or various forums, and have 'real world' clients who reach me by email, etc.

With the exception of two sales that I know came via FB (buyers contacted me), and several buyers who definitely found me through YouTube, I usually have absolutely no way of being certain how buyers find me.

As long as some of them might have originated on FB, I'll maintain some level of presence there.

Seems a no-brainer.

well most of my friends there come from this place. i have a few strangers that liked my work, but never comment on them, one person that liked my avatar, and a few random people. it's hard to know if i get sales from there, though people do see me some how. i wish i had more stats. but just going on the stream of content that goes by, i don't think too many of my pieces are seen.

in any case i still send things there, with a small cheap sales pitch or joke. because right now anyway, it doesn't hurt, and you never know where they end up.

---Mike Savad

I have so many commission requests right now I can't keep up from facebook followers........this January....only 2 1/2 months ago I was below 1000 likes ......today I'm a few shy of 4200 likes. I haven't paid to promote my page........but somehow I've managed to grow my likes by 3400 in just a few months......with that being said it has not generated sales here on FAA but I have made commission sales. On my page The organic reach is minimal ....my 4000 is just a spec a insignificant amount......I trudge forward continuing to promote myself .The commission requests I'm receiving on facebook are where I'm making my money right now.

I think it depends how you are using FB to market. My sales have tripled since doing what is in my thread here http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1763374

With still time left in this month... I have 14 sales (this month) I can relate to posting my aviation art in large FB groups that feature aircraft.

-Peter

I forgot to mention an author writing his 3rd book on the air war during Vietnam saw my art in one of the aviation groups on FB and has retained me for the book cover art.

I agreed to follow a few "brands" (for lack of a better word) on Facebook...

Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, The Eagles, The Colbert Report, and Tosh.O.

Now I get post from insurance companies, hotels, Wal-Mart and countless other brands I have NO interest in. What do I do when their ads pop up on my wall? You guessed it...scroll right past. I am sure these are the companies that Facebook convinced to pay (big) bucks to be on my feed.

Add that with all the "inspirational quotes" and food recipes everyone seems to like to post and Facebook is a diluted sea of worthless nonsense. I spend about five minutes a day there, just quickly scroll through to see if anyone actually posted something that MIGHT be interesting.

There is also strong evidence that your friends don't even SEE what you post on Facebook. I understand Facebook is a company that needs to make money but I think their strategy is going to kill the business. I would rather pay $1.00 a month for Facebook and be assured that every friend I have on Facebook actually SEES what I post as opposed to paying nothing and being flooded with ads for companies I don't care about and my post being hidden from my friends and followers. They could charge a monthly fee based on the number of friends and followers you have so a company that has 10,000 followers would pay more than I would but they would be assured people would see what they post.




I wish people would try the experiment I did and tell me the results. Post the following on your wall..

"If you can read this post please hit like"

That's it. Simple instructions. When I did it, I had about 20% of my friends hit like. I'd like to know what kind of return other's get.


I think permission based advertising is the smartest way to go. Thanks to a thread Frank Casella started, I signed up for Mailchimp and plan on using that to market to people that sign up to get emails from me at art shows. I would rather advertise to ten people that care about my work than to 10,000 that don't.

Really? I found one of my old paintings while cleaning my studio and posted it on my facebook page and mentioned about my find. almost right away, someone I don't know, commented and asked if it for sell. I email him with the price and it sold! ( this person turned out is friend with one of my facebook friends)

John...

I see posts that say "If you can see this hit like" from my friends. I very rarely hit like. It's irritating and I don't want to vault it up in the Facebook standings for others to see unless there is something with some meat on it. That "experiment" does not give any kind of accurate reading. It more than likely just peeves people.

It really depends on your relationship with the viewing audience. You once asked me if "character matters". On facebook it is how people perceive you... Folks who continually paste images with quirky sayings wear out pretty fast. I think others are looking a little bit more for some original thought.

My FAA facebook page is a gallery of other peoples images that I hand pick and share. I try to squeeze some of mine in the mix. It's a good thing to be found in good company.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/glenn-mccarthyfineartamericacom/112830052068502?ref=hl

Glenn McCarthy Art and Photography

I've never seen it before Glen. You rarely hit like. That very well may account for my 20% return. There could be people that saw it and didn't bother to hit like. Or there could have been people that skipped right over and didn't notice. Either way, are those people that will buy art from us? Can you advertise to them?

The problem is Glenn that even if YOUR post are something people may want to see, they now have to wade through inspirational quotes, recipes and ads from companies you don't care about. Your first-class content can be easily swallowed by the third-class crap that dominates Facebook today.

Now they want us to PAY to be part of that pile of third-class crap? Seriously?

I'm with Glenn. I don't click like on those posts either. I see them all the time and it appears to me as desperate plea for attention, lol. Facebook has an algorithm for what they show you in the news feed. The more you click on something, the more similar content they show you. You can also give negative feedback on ads they show you if you don't want to see them. I have done that many times and I hardly ever get ads anymore.

I find my photography page on Facebook to offer an excellent opportunity for networking.

Philadelphia department store magnate, John Wanamaker, famously said “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half.” (Forbes)