Face Book Likes Vs. Faa Views

Not all FAA views are humans. There are bots that visit the images to index the pages for search engines. So I'd take FAA page visits out of your equation. I'd compare FB likes, shares and comments to FAA favorites, shares, and comments.

My 2 cents. :)

I doubt either one really matter. You can't eat on likes or views only sales count. While it's true views can tell you if your marketing is effective, if you are directing views to you personal/artist websites, you really need to be using google analytics on those sites to get any useful info for your marketing.

One time I posted this shot here



and on Flickr. It's a one of a kind paint scheme (and pretty snazzy, too) On Flickr, it hit Explor and got more than 30,000 views in a few days. (Not sure how many were bots.) On Railpictures, I believe it got a few thousand views and most of those would be actual people. On FAA, it currently has 62 views. But all three versions do have one thing in common -- none have sold.

Yet.

Thanks for the input, Cynthia, David & Joseph.@Joeseph that makes me feel better, thought it was just me.

Have you found or created a group of people one Facebook inclined to purchase your art, in this case a photo of a bird?

If not, thats where your efforts should be focused.

Marketing is most effective when its targeted. A bird group on Facebook is a good place to start, but 350 likes in the grand scheme of making sales is somewhat narrow minded. Could a sale come from that? Sure....but admins of groups like that also don't like when you spam your sales links all the times, most of the people are there just so see photos, not buy things, and are turned off when its pitched.

What you need is your own business page, where people know you sell your work and sign up to see it that way and become fans of you. That way you can control the links, the message, and pay to make sure your own fans see you. Then you use the bird groups, and drive traffic to your own page from them and people who are interested in purchasing prints (which is a much smaller subset) like your page. You give them something to like for by advertising specials, doing one off sales, giving them behind the scenes stories and views of the art being created...etc. Engage the audience. Its a long term prospect to build a group of people who are fans of your art who may want to buy it, and it takes a lot of hard work.

So the long winded answer to the question is start building the audience now, because it takes years to be able to build an audience of people who are fans of you! That is who ideally you want to market to for effective results.

if you have facebook set to automatic, then your views which usually aren't counted will make it go up each time you edit. it also counts what facebook itself likes. so they saw it there, they just did not click on it.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Thanks Thomas, I do have this page on Facebook that I use:

https://www.facebook.com/LaraEllisPhotography?ref=br_tf

I also have this one:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Earth-Pulse-Nature-Photography/218456641507658

I tried to change the name of the Earth Pulse page to the newer one but it wouldn't let me so that's why I created another page and I use them both. Unfortunately don't have any extra money to put towards paying for any advertising at this point. I work at a campground so I'm pretty close to being unemployed in the winter months. I basically put any sales money I make from FAA into the photogaphy to equipment or programs when I can. I haven't sold anything since last October though so my funds are depleted at the moment to put towards any advertisements so that's why I'm trying all the free options I can find. Thanks again for taking the time to read my post and help. That's a great idea about starting a bird group. And you are right, the admins don't allow any advertising in that group where I got all those likes ont he woodpecker photo.

If I intend on selling on FAA I never post the image first to social media. Drive people to your AW not to FB first. Since November I quit posting pics direct and my view count has quadrupled since then.

Lara...it is not just you...I used to try to figure it all out and realized I was only going to drive myself crazy. I had to ask myself why am I here...I took the money part out of the equation because the truth is I could get a part time job at the local WAWA and make a lot more with much less time and effort involved....so I decided to stop thinking about it and just do what I love to do....and when something sells I am really thrilled...not because I have a few extra bucks in my pocket but because someone liked one of my artworks enough to want to live with it.

Ok you have the groups, great, what are you doing to drive traffic to them and get likes? You don't have to use money, it just makes it go faster if you do.

You also are just posting sales links...there is nothing for people to get to know, nothing for them to engage with, no story. Its SOCIAL media....ya gotta be social.

Lara, enjoyed looking at your work here--my mom was from Luray, I've visited there many times :)

I'm new here, and enjoying learning more about all of this. Thanks to everyone for the marketing advice.

Maybe invite more friends and others to like your Facebook page. You can also boost your page posts if you pay. You can pay 5 dollars and target your audience, so if you sponsor your post for 3 days, it will divide that money between those days and see how that goes, then you can add a couple of dollars to extend it to more days.

Thanks Mike. :)

Thanks Thomas is it a bad idea to use that post option when you make a sale in our opinion? Or are you just saying I should add more to the post? And thank you Bonfire, Val and Joann and Jessica for your input as well. And @Joann wow what a small world! Luray isn't exactly what you would call a big city or even a large town! And Val, that's a good way to look at things, I think I need to do the same. Since I don't much work in the winter since my regular job is working at a camp ground, I think I just have to much time to overthink this stuff. I'm anxiously awaiting Spring where I can get out and take more pictures.

Having friends like your page dilutes your exposure, especially when you don't have the money to boost the posts. If your friends won't buy your art, what is the point of marketing to them? If my posts are only going to go to a small percentage of my people who like my page, I do not want the posts going to my friends who are supportive, but won't buy the work (this is the reason I don't post my own Facebook links to FAA.....love ya'll but you aren't my market, and I don't want you diluting my pool of likes). I want it to be in front of the buyers. When you make a free post on Facebook, the first thing it does is take a small random percentage of the people who like your page and shows them the post, if they interact with it (like it, click on it, comment on it, share it) then it will begin to show more people. What it tries to do is grade the post, it wants to show posts people like interacting with, to more people. If you look through your posts, most of them have less than 5 likes, meaning their reach is really really low. People are not engaging with them.

To change that, you need to tell a story, you need to be a person to them, ask them questions, talk to them in a social way. If someone wants to buy a photo, they will look for the link, I stick my sales links towards the bottom, and I post the picture myself, with a story in the description, and remove the preview from the FAA sales link. The thing is, you don't want to come off as a salesmen on social media, people don't come there to shop. What you need to do is make them fall in love with it and say "I WANT THAT" and then they look where to buy it.

Bottom line, posting just the sales link with no story is not getting you results. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, you really seem like a nice sane person Lara! Time to try to step it up a bit!

At least that is how I do it. Most of my Facebook sales people message me and I fulfill outside of FAA because I can get a little better margins other places, 2 out of 3 posts garner me no sales, but when one takes off sometimes I get 2 or 3, you never know.

And as far as the sales links, sometimes I share em, sometimes I don't. When they go far and wide I make sure I share, its important for people to see you as someone who has a wide appeal.

Lara and Val, seems we are now in one boat, I had also very quiet time for last 3 months almost zero and its starting to get me annoyed as marketing doesnt work. At least for me for now - all things - I boost a lot to compare to the last year and nothing... Well Im turing my head into photosessions and weddings, otherwise it makes itching as dont actually understand whats going wrong and how to change it.
Lets hope for the best, but Im going to the fields of real photographer...just will be keeping my galleries on without spending more time here.

Thanks Thomas for taking the time to help me with all of this. I did not know that about Facebook and how friends dilute your reach when they like your page. I do have a small percentage of friends who share my photos, perhaps I should encourage more people to share. I think some people are afraid to share when they see a copywrite on my photos. I tend to post more of a story on my personal facebook page with my images and I should be doing that on my business pages more as well.

Thanks Jenny and Val, it does make me feel better that I'm not the only one. I'll continue to put efforts into free marketing in the winter months until it picks up at the campground and then I'll have my main job to keep me occupied again and I'll stop obsessing over sales ;-) . The upside of working at a campground is I'll have plenty of wildlife and scenery to shoot. :-)