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Ning Mosberger-Tang

9 Years Ago

General Faa Questions

Hi, I'm fairly new to FAA so please let me know if this is not the right forum for this discussion...

I'm a photographer. So far I'm loving what FAA has to offer - a great/supportive community and creative sales/marketing tools. I have a number of questions before uploading more photos, though.

First of all, does keyword sponsorship really help bring visitors to your photos? It's pretty time consuming to do, and I'd love to hear everyone's experience on the effectiveness of doing that.

Secondly, does Limited Time Promotion help bring visitors to your photos? My promotions are showing up on the Special Promotions page after a couple of hours, but I wonder how many visitors are seeing them. LTP is not showing up on FAA's customer landing page - the link is hidden in the "Products" tab under "Miscellaneous" menu. I don't think new visitors on FAA will know that the link even exists. Does FAA do any kind of promotions (via emails, website or otherwise) for ongoing LTPs?

Thirdly, I have just lost a canvas print sale to Australia today because the shipping cost is a whopping $312.06 while the canvas is only costing $120. I don't blame them for not going through with the purchase! What can I do to sell outside of the US? I can't imagine selling anything outside of the US at such a high shipping cost.

Finally, I have a question about competitions. I would like to host a competition of my own (looks like a great way to discover other artists). Is it OK to ask/suggest people to vote for my photos in another competition as an entrance criteria?

Thank you!

--ning

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Thomas Zimmerman

9 Years Ago

Keyword sponsorship.....doesn't hurt anything, but I don't think its a huge bane to your images. Keep in mind you are not the only one sponsoring, and you share that sponsorship with others.

Limited time promotions I've never tried.

There is already a UK printing center to help that issue in Europe, at some point I think more will follow. These things take time.

Competitions I would say no that wouldn't be a good thing to do.

 

Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

sponsoring helps about 1%. it depends on the keywords and how many use them. it helps the site more than anything else, and you have to sponsor all the other flavors of this site.

limited promos allow you to sell cheaper images, but only for a week. that area needs work because its harder to find now, and your buried in there. i don't use those at all now.

mostly americans can buy it. some will gawk at the shipping others will not. if you know the person buying it, tell them to get a non-gallery wrap, because the shipping is far cheaper, i have no idea why though. shipping can be expensive though due how fragile these things are. but unless you know that shipping was the reason for the loss, it could have been anything.

no its not alright to ask people to vote for your stuff as a requirement, i am almost certain that you would be erased from the site if you tried doing that. if you want to host a contest that's fine, but not for those reasons.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Joseph C Hinson

9 Years Ago

What keyword are you thinking about sponsoring? For example, I would not sponsor "landscape." Limited Time Promotions are a good way to post to social media to advertise. They don't make it easier to find you other than that. So far, any time I sell a LTP, it's been one I have posted about. Shipping costs are out of our control. It sucks that you lost a sale, but what can we do about it? As for the contests, do not solicit votes. That makes you look bad and FAA frowns upon it. I love entering and hosting them, but I don't care if I win or not. Just have fun with them and don't take them too seriously.

The best way out of the questions you were asking to sell more on FAA s to pay the 30 bucks, get unlimited uploads as well as your own Artists Website page which you can direct people to visit instead of the FAA page. Same basic page, but t will have no outside links for folks to get lost at.

 

Bradford Martin

9 Years Ago

My first 3 sales were to a person in Australia. Paper print rolled in a tube.

 

Ning Mosberger-Tang

9 Years Ago

Thanks for all your responses! Mike - I know the buyers and they told me why they dropped the sale (it was through LTP). I'll ask them to order the art print instead. Hopefully the shipping cost will be much better!

And yes, the next thing I will do is to sign up for the premium account and upload more photos!

Joseph, I have indeed sponsored "landscape" :) as it's on the top of the FAA suggested list. It's the most popular keyword on the site too.

LTP offers a great way to sell canvas prints at affordable price without compromising the artist commissions. I am surprised that not more people are taking advantage of that. I'm planning to run 3 promotions simultaneously all the time - if I can manage it timewise. Other than the time it takes to set up (which actually isn't too bad), I wonder if there're any downsides to it at all? I'm running my first three right now and have just created a gallery to lead people to it. Since I set it up yesterday, I have sold 4 prints via LTP (not counting the lost sale from Australia!)

--ning

 

Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

landscape has probably - every single member in it, it rotates each time, you'll never be seen unless you use a phrase.

the problems with ltp is:

limited sizes, and you can only sell the one size if i recall
hard to find, no search and sold, expired etc - are still listed on top.
only certain images will fit on it, its a certain ratio
buyers won't know to look for them. if you already have one in mind then that's great.
you can only set a certain number of them at any one point, limited amount to sell of that image and total images up
it only lasts a week
and people have to want those certain images.

i've never sold one using that. but then again people will buy my work at full price. many don't sell well using them, some sell better. its a lot more work since you have to keep creating new ones. works better if you have a popular blog.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Ning Mosberger-Tang

9 Years Ago

So I have heard back from FAA that it's not OK to use competitions to get votes for another competition, so that's that. However, FAA said it's OK to solicit votes via discussion groups *and* especially social media. I think they really want to use competitions to raise awareness of FAA and attract new artists and potential buyers to FAA. A creative marketing strategy:-)

--ning

 

Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

however you shouldn't solicit votes anyway because it annoys us and we would rather vote for anyone else just out of spite. and if its for the tv contest, that should only be made in dedicated threads. you can do it in social media, but do it too often, you may lose friends that way.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Ning Mosberger-Tang

9 Years Ago

I agree Mike. However, how can anyone get 250+ votes (for the TV contest) without soliciting votes? I think the way the contest is set up, it's asking people to solicit votes. I don't like that in principle, however, I have to give it to FAA for trying all they can to raise awareness of the site. We need more quality photos and many, many more buyers to get onto FAA. If something like that gets more artists and buyers onto FAA, it's good for all of us. Contests like that do have such an effect and I'm already seeing it happen (I'm guilty for participating and winning one just a few days ago).

We are all here to (hopefully) sell our work and get more audience for our work. I'm glad that FAA is doing what they can to bring more people to the site, despite my mixed feeling of popularity contests. If anyone believes that their work is good, I urge them to put their personal distaste aside and consider getting the votes so the overall quality of the winning photos will improve. And that's going to be good for all of us in the long run.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Mike!

 

Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

you have to solicit votes for that contest, but you can't do it here unless its in a dedicated thread that one person made. you would have to bother people on facebook and such, which is the main point of the contest.

actually more artists is bad, because it weakens the amount of sales you could make. the hope is to find buyers. in any case, in all the time it takes you to advertise 1-3 things over and over. you could have advertised 100's of others. and the people you bug will only know this is for a contest, and they may not know its even for sale.

i was in the first contest the site ran. and it was nothing but back stabbing toward the end. votes were taken back and traded like currency. it left a bitter taste in my mouth, and i didn't bother entering last year (not pushing for votes anyway), and this year, pass.

this contest isn't about having good photos - it's about getting votes, and nothing more. hopefully the winner will have quality.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Joseph C Hinson

9 Years Ago

My point about not sponsoring "landscapes" is that it's one of the most (over)used keywords here and likely is already being sponsored by a lot of folks, too. I'm not sure f you were seeing your images up top because the sponsorship was working or because the system recognized you like Google does.

 

Rudi Prott

9 Years Ago

I have never sold through LTP. It is too hidden.

When You use contests for marketing You may recognize that the number of clicks are very limited and most of them are from other FAA members not buying anything.

I have seen some threads about the kind of contests You want to run. All were seen in a very bad light! Don't do it.

If solicitation for the tv contest: it is good for FAA not really for You. The three photos which have reached the 250 yesterday are not outstanding in my opinion. I have voted for 20 better ones. I only do participate to be seen.

 

Adam Jewell

9 Years Ago

I think the goal of that contest is to get artists to promote FAA on social media. There will be enough photos that get 250 votes that some good shots will make it to the final round. They may not be the best in the contest but they will be good shots.

 

Tracey Vivar

9 Years Ago

Hi All, Where do I go if I decide to enter the TV contest? Also, does joining Groups help at all or is it just internal (FAA members) exposure? Anyone else running into dead groups, images just sit in "pending" mode, no new inclusions for months?? I think these should be shut down if the group administrator is asleep at the wheel.

 

Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

the contest page should have it, probably the top most hugest box.

joining groups has nothing to do with contests, not that one anyway. this is for outside exposure, artists usually don't buy from each other.

there are many dead groups, if you have issues, mention it to abbie and she can give them a slap with a fish, or whatever brits do to groups that seem dead.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Joseph C Hinson

9 Years Ago

Tracey;

You can report dead groups to Abbie or Frank Casella. There is a group for admins that gets some of these reports as well --

http://fineartamerica.com/groups/group-and-contest-administrators.html?sort=true&key=lasttimestamp&direction=ascending

 

Mary Bedy

9 Years Ago

Artists do buy from each other, Mike. I've purchased about 10 items from fellow artists.

However, you're right that it isn't the main sales driver here.

 

Ning Mosberger-Tang

9 Years Ago

Adam, I agree with you. Hopefully there will be some good ones make it into the juried round.

Tracey, you can sort groups by the number of members and recent activities. I only join the ones with a large number of members and are active recently. Even after doing that, a few groups kept my submissions pending for days so I dropped them. After a few days of trials and errors, I am able to compile a list of active groups that are actually featuring my photos. It's very time consuming for the group administrator to go through hundreds (or more) photos a day so I really appreciate their efforts. If I get featured in a group, I ALWAYS go through a few galleries of the administrator and comment/like/favorite a few photos I like. I try to leave thoughtful comments instead of "Great", "Nice", etc :-) It's time consuming but it's a way to show appreciation of the administrators for their volunteer work.

I think my photos got some extra exposures by being featured in groups. In addition, it doesn't hurt for a photo to carry badges of honor - if a buyer sees that your photo is featured in, say, 'Artistic Photographer' group, I think it won't hurt even if (s)he has no idea what that is:-)

Hope this helps!

--ning

 

Tracey Vivar

9 Years Ago

I too like to check through the images of the administrator & leave decent comments. Have already quit one flower group which had No activity for several months. The ones in question now have been dead since Christmas. Thanks for all the input. Actually found the TV contest, thanks.

 

This discussion is closed.