If I Were To Join Just One More Social Media Site Which Should It Be?

I get alot of exposure on Twitter, I google+ too but twitter seems to be the hitter

I have never done any of them but Facebook. Have never been drawn to Twitter. Was a member of Pinterest but closed my account because the whole premise bothers me and seems like it just encourages copyright infringement. But, I will be following this conversation with interest...

i have no idea. each one you join you have to put work into it. usually i join the site that the kids leave and only when its popular. i think there are hundreds of sites, but not all are popular. and if its not popular, no one will see it.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

IMO Twitter, but you have to give and take. Block anything distasteful or those selling Twitter followers.

Pinterest. It is quick to do, I simply copy my keywords, Pin the image with said keywords and poof, done. It generates a LOT of views for me though I can only directly link one sale to those. I am sure there are more though.

Oh, no interaction required on P.

YouTube -- I've had more sales that I know came directly via YouTube, than any other social media. I get more hits from Twitter, but they seem to be just bots, not potential buyers.

~ Wendy
http://www.art166.net/artist-sos.html

I use FB and am just barely gearing up to use the groups, which means bit more depth of use now.

I use Twitter and am learning how to respond. I just asked someone directly through DMs if they would
like to buy a work of art from me. They got into buying the work. I could see them looking at the piece they
said they liked. I use GA to see on my AW. They then tweeted back to me they need to basically sleep on it.
I joyful said I appreciate them sharing their interest in my art. Left it at that. If they buy, they will get back to me.

You have to do that level of work sale by sale.

I am getting more involved with G+. I love the layout. The drawback is how to interact on G+ communities.
I have two applications in to museums. BIG IF, if I get into either one I can most easily advertise to a lot
of other museums and museum staffs my success. This MIGHT begat more success.

Linkedin I have an account. I am gaining more contacts every week now. But I barely use it. I did redo my
profile about three weeks ago. It is now very professional. I can add more to it as I go later on.

Pinterest is as JC says, but you need a few thousand followers and following to eventually have a few sales
per year on P. It may not be full of back and forths, but IF I was lucky enough to sell dozens of pieces per year
P would add a couple into the mix, just my take on it.

Wanelo is completely unnecessary. And if you add to W you will sink your stuff in behind others. If you bring people
to W your are completely losing it. And if you do bring folks there, they will simply hit a button and leave your part of the site.
You have far less control of any sort with W. W is only to bring a few stragglers back over here to your AW if you are smart
about it. But most folks on FAA are using their FAA profile over on W. This means all the way around your client will leave
your shop or profile for elsewhere.

You have to really go out there and hussle. There is no other way of doing it.


Addition: Wendy thanks for bringing up YouTube.com I have plans to add a video later this year. I have
18 pieces now, perhaps when I have between 20 and 24 works I will post a video.

Wendy tell us more about YouTube?

Dave

I am surprised no one mention flickr yet. Some of my best and biggest sales came from flickr, I had galleries, ad agencies, book publishers, buyers and even government agencies contacted me after seeing my works ( both paintings and photos), my recent sale was a photo to a big law firm.

Alfred, I'm just researching how to get back into Flick'r. Hope to get caught up there, soon.

David, we have some great YouTube discussions archived in this forum. I'm off to gather some links for you . . . back soon!

David, here's my comment from an earlier thread:

-----

Many of us use video as a marketing tool -- and we like to discuss it and showcase our work! If you're interested in seeing/reading how other FAA members are utilizing YouTube and/or video marketing, here are some related Discussion threads.

Apparently, I've collected a few links!

http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=704163
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1584999
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=619324
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1011153
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=473810
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1036981
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1577896
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1122476

Wendy,

Thanks, I went through looking at videos and finally finding a thread on sales reading and scanning for about 15 minutes now.

I like your advice to use the posting/comment area for the artist to leave the website URL and post something for the viewers.
Can I use hashtags with a video? How is a video found in the YouTube search? Where? Title, comments, keyworded post?

What is your experience with the YouTube, YT, search?

BTW again thanks,

Dave

Alfred,

If you ever want two homes look at G+, the photos area now looks like Flickr's black box for images, but you can add
a link to the sales pages of your AW. Also the groups are called communities and are organized much better than on FB.
But that is a matter of preference on my part. I like clean and organized.

I am new enough not to have an ingrained bias.

Dave

David, Wendy,
I think how flickr works for me because I don't advising as my works for sale but to share. the ones contacted me are for that reason, people like to discover an artist and their work. The last sale I got one of the questions they asked was if my image at other photo agencies ( it is not). in a way they wanted something is exclusive and not likely shows up on T-shirt, coffee mugs. End up I sold the right of the photo for two years use for $1,000.

Wow, a diverse range of responses!

Twitter seems to have the most recommendations above, so maybe I need to overcome my reluctance to explore it. David, I don't know Twitter jargon, so what do you mean by DMs and GA?

I never considered You Tube. I know how to make slide show videos, but somehow I'd still need to get people to see them, when I'd rather just attract them straight to my AW.

And let's see, for Pinterest we have one thumbs up, one thumbs down, and one kinda in the middle.

I kinda wondered about Flikr. From what little I've seen of it, it just looks like a massive repository for amateur photography. I don't know much more than that. Am I correct that one must upload every image separately? That would require resizing images, uploading, keywords, etc, all over again. Or is there a way to share photos just by sharing links back to my AW?

So as of now I'm leaning towards either Twitter or Pinterest, even though I'm still not sure how Pinterest works. G+ and LinkedIn are still on the table, though. I've ruled out Wanelo.

twitter is good because you don't need to cross examine each person. its yay or nay. most of the time we are trying to sell something to them. and they are doing the same thing.

facebook you get the 3rd degree unless you have friends that like them already, or they know you from someplace else. its more work.

youtube is something i've been meaning to play with. i just need some kind of presentation software. though i don't know how many watch those slide shows.

pinterest is confusing but easy to do. i don't like it at all, and yet people do collect my work there. i would garner more friends if i friended and followed people. but i can't stand browsing there, so that will never happen.

i was on flickr a long time ago. way before yahoo. i found the interface clumsy. the groups limiting. and there was too easy a chance of people downloading the full size. so i would have to shrink it, and that's another step. yahoo owns them now and the search is so much harder to use than before. i give up pretty fast. but i suppose its a way for people to see you. but its a lot of work if your using it only as a display place.

i thought about using deviant art. they sell prints, but again confusing search, and it's meant more for anime sketchers than others. another place that makes it easy to download the work.

g plus i've been banned in the past from - and i still don't know what i did. i got back and slowly started posting again - not adding new people. hoping that it works out. i'm in linked in only because i needed to look someone up. i think of that place as a resume more than anything. and i'm on a pod, not a real store, i think that would confuse people. i started getting mail about strangers wanting to friend me... i just blocked it from my mind.

never really heard of wanelo.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I was a member of Flickr years ago, but left. I have heard a lot of good things here about it, so I went just now and signed up again...and immediately got overwhelmed. lol

I'm also a vote for Pinterest simply because it is the easiest thing to do. I hang out there for Home Décor Inspiration & DIY projects.

Pin from here, & add a few keywords (and/or hashtags) to your description. Done.

Flickr will be the next project for storage - guess I will have to deal with resizing to display.
I've never attempted Twitter, can't invest the time right now.

Well IMHO good question. And have a couple of personal reactions.
LinkedIn to me seems well . . . incestuous. i e i recommend you as a photographer you recommend me as a photographer and then i recommend you as a photoshop pro then . . etc etc and it never seems to go beyond the circle - i joined and then found it to be pointless-
I do like flickr and use it as a digital portfolio page and have also recommended it to others for the same use. Some have said it was better before it was owned by yahoo but i was not a member then.
Sure I use Facebook both for the connections and network
Pinterest - yes joined but not very involved -
i know twitter is popular but i haven't gotten on that bandwagon.
question did make me think a bit -

Everyone's viewpoint has been valuable. Thank you!

I think I'm going to go with Pinterest. I found several articles on Howstuffworks.com which went into some detail about the pros and cons of various social media services. The article on Pinterest http://computer.howstuffworks.com/pinterest.htm helped me see how I could use it for both personal and AW promotion needs. Page four of the article mentioned a survey that showed Pinterest is trusted by women shoppers more than any other social media site.

In my selection process Pinterest beat out Twitter which I have long felt was just a lot of noise. But I may yet get into tweeting someday.

G+ just seems to be a Facebook sequel with tighter restrictions (resulting in Mike's mysterious experience getting banned). But I might sign up anyway since I already have a Google account.

LinkedIn seems to be a meat market for human resources directors shopping for automatons, and for people seeking to sell their souls for a corporate paycheck, not a place to sell art.

Any further insights as to how I might make the best use of Pinterest are welcome.

JC, how to you pin an image with keywords on Pinterest?

Instagram. Had two commissions via Instagram

I am also on Flickr and get a lot of comments there, but haven't really figured out how to turn that into sales. You can do bulk uploads, and recently they added bulk downloads. I wish FAA would let us download our own full res images, too.

Wordpress - linked to Tumblr and other social media. Post once and populate all.

As far as ease.....Pinterest.

As far as effectiveness....my last image went nuts on twitter and I didn't even put it there. Several sales where people told me they found the image on Twitter and had to have it. I think twitter it has to be something that can go a little viral for it to work really well though.

OK, it's official, I'm on Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/jamesbtoy/

I'm still learning my way around. I've figured out how to make boards, pins, and follow my friends. But I can't figure out how to let my friends know I'm there so they can follow me.

Hi James,

I'm just starting on Fine Art America but I've done a lot social media marketing. Being an artist I definitely like Pinterest because of its visual nature. I've been using it for my natural health business for about a year and a half and I have over 24,000 followers! You hear people kidding all the time about not being able to get off Pinterest and it's true, it's very addicting. But that's good for us!

To send someone a request to join a board, just click on your board. At the top, you'll see a button that says 'Invite". Click and a window comes up. Put in the persons name or email address or find them on another social media platform.

To send a pin to someone - yours or someone else's, scroll over the pin and you'll see a send button. Click and search for their name. You can put in a message there too.

I have a 'Board' named 'Pinterest Know How' and there are lots of articles you can look at to find out how to use Pinterest. Just go to pinterest.com/livinggreennatl/ and scroll down to find that board.

Best of luck!

Meg Hyde

At the moment, I´m checking out Instagram: www.instagram.com/colinutz

@Abbie: No commissions yet ... 😕

CNN iReport has been a fun social media. It's basically photo journalism and if vetted your picture or pictures are on CNN television. No money, but on your web page that they supply you have a place to put your website/fineartamerica website link and get exposure that way. http://ireport.cnn.com/people/MarieSager