Your Thoughts On Having A Facebook Fan Page

I had an Artist page on FB but dumped it when they changed how your engagement determines if you're seen or not. Social Media is a time hog to begin with so the most revenue with the list effort is the business plan. I now have a company page on LinkedIn which has far more engagement and buyers. I also have a blog on WordPress and use it like an FB fan page because it is a more stable platform. That is my take on it, Rahdne, if you want to know more how I do this just send me a direct message.

Thank you for posing this question Rahdne. I was wondering the same thing. Looking forward to hearing input of other artists who have fan pages on Facebook.

I spent hours and hours trying to get a fan page/FAA shopping cart to work back over a year ago. It never did work for me.

I have been meaning to give it another look with the new system just announced but every time I think of going at again it conjurers up all the time I wasted before. So I keep putting it off. But I will get to it sooner or later. I don't think it is going to change the world for anyone, but it may sell a few prints now and again.

Another big reason I am dragging my feet is again, we get no feedback as to rather the sale comes form that fan page or not. I have made a commitment to not add new marketing to FAA until that problem no longer exists.

I have cut back on my FAA marketing until they give us the back tracking so I am know I am not wasting my time on things that are not working. That may never happen and that is okay with me. I am seeing a good sales trend doing what I am doing.

I had a Fan Page about a year ago and it was working good for a couple months and then after about 3 months FB stopped posting to that page so I thought I would try again with this new setup here and everything from this end is good but FB is not posting my photos so I will be letting it go again! Really do not like FB at all

I originally got one so I could share art without bombarding my friends and family. Since I have now developed a batch of people that follow my work, it's a lot easier to manage posting info and new images and promotions there. It also looks much more professional than using your personal page.

www.facebook.com/curious3d

I started for the same reason as Cynthia and it works well.

MY THOUGHT:

I have one. That's as much thought as I have put into it so far.

I was planning to but I've decided to hold off, indefinitely. Unless the other online stuff I'm doing starts paying off in some way I don't want to throw more time down the drain, it's already getting hard enough to manage as it is.

I started one in 2008 ( I believe), it had grown to over 1,670 fans. It dropped down to 1,550 last month when fb implemented a new change. They took off fans that had not engaged for a long time. I'm still happy with my numbers. I post a "featured painting" from my aw site every week and I get good engagement from that. I've had good luck with selling prints and original through fb and will continue to use it as a marketing tool.

Thanks, everyone, for chiming in. Debbie, you've piqued my curiosity when you say, "everything from this end is good but FB is not posting my photos so I will be letting it go again". You mean, when you post an image to your fan page, none of your fans can see it?

So far, the response seems mixed, with some having quite a bit of luck with it while others, not so much. Keep bringing your insight if you have it.

@Darice, what is the new change that was implemented last month?

I have one. My reach on any given post is pretty awful. And I refuse to pay to increase reach. But I don't like the idea of inundating my friends and family with my work on a daily basis, so I keep the biz page.

@Rahdne When I upload an image here I have checked it off that it also automatically posts to my fan page and have added the new "shop" that Sean just implemented and it shows correctly on my Fan page but the image I posted here does not go on my Fan page at all but does go to my timeline

So my fan page has absolutely no images at all on it

It is done correctly from this end and it shows on fan page but apparently FB is not posting my work on my fan page - I am not the only one that has these issues with FB - see other threads regarding this

I don't allow FAA to post to Facebook for me. I post my own images, that way I can scale and compress them myself and the image looks as good as possible on my page. Also I don't want to *always* be selling to my followers. I want to use my fan page primarily as a way to share/communicate with people who like my work. I do post links to FAA for each image I upload, but I keep those in the text description most of the time.

I have one. Not too many likes (under 200), but it allows me to post there, then share the posts on other pages as I see fit. I have gotten all my FAA sales but one by doing that.

The hardest part for me is getting people to like/follow it in the first place.

I have a fan/business page too. I like it. I organize my stuff in albums and try to keep it entertaining.
I boost posts on occasion. It's not expensive to do so and it gives me more followers. I have about 2200 followers and occasionally get sales through my FB page. I wish there was a way to know how many for sure. There is the new shopping cart button and the ability to see how many click on it each week.
The engagement per post is a small percentage of my followers. I too lost some numbers when FB cleaned house. About 60 or so. No problem. I'm glad they did it. Don't need no dead beat followers anyhow.

I like my personal page more as I age. I hate trying to market with FB.

I am late to the FB marketing game. Maybe I am lucky that way.

I put up an artists page so my family and friends would be left alone without my selling stuff to them.
Instead in that venue they are my main likes.

I can not get FAA to post to my artists page automatically currently. I dont know why not. It makes
no difference.

I am thinking like Frank of ripping it down. SM is a huge time drain.

Dave

Rahdne -- Thinking about your question some more, Rahdne, you might want to ditch the FB idea and just move to Instagram. Facebook now owns Instagram for a reason.

I post once per week and see three times the engagement I ever saw on FB. With the hashtag thing I'm constantly bringing in new engagement each week. I think Flickr is a better platform and always did more than Instagram does, but IG is in the minds of more people. Just a thought.

Thanks for the continued in-pouring of ideas. Hearing about each of your experiences is helpful.

Frank -- I have been contemplating Instagram or Flickr, as well. The appeal to having a facebook fan page is so that I can share blog posts, but I suppose that that could also be accomplished with Twitter. I currently share blog posts on my personal facebook page and on Google + with moderate results.

And who says that navigating the sea of marketing isn't fun? ;-)

Regarding using IG instead of FB, Abbie indicated that IG is geared toward smart phone images ...so how does sharing images from our fas sites taken with a regular camera fit into that picture equation?!!

duplicate

My FB fanpage ( facebook.com/TheArtOfDanielEskridge ) seems to work very well for me. I have gotten a few sales of prints shortly after posting there (though it could be coincidence - there's no way to tell for sure), and I have landed some illustration contracts from people who got in touch with me through it.

I don't use FAA's sharing buttons to post on my works there though. Rather, I post links to individual works on my AW site directly to my fan page. For starters, that lets me override the link images if I need to. Also, since I have google analytics wired up to my AW site, I can track incoming traffic from FB, I can't be sure if they lead to sales, but at least I know I am getting traffic.

You can indeed boost posts from your fanpage. I find it particularly useful that you can create target audiences when doing so. I don't spend very much on boosting posts though. I find the results inconsistent. Sometimes when I do it, I see a definite uptick in new followers and even sales. Other times, nothing.

You can also advertise you fan page as a whole on Facebook, but I would not recommend that. This youtube video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag ) explains why better than I can.

We post 2 or 3 (or 4) images every day to our FB fan page: Celebrate Life Gallery. We have absolutely seen that sales have occurred from that of images just uploaded that day or a fan saying that they bought the piece after we announce the sale. (yes, we announce every single sale there too and acknowledge the city and state/country it originated from) We have paid for Likes at first and after much sharing of our images by our fans and us requesting they Like our page, we are well above 18,000 Likes!!! We love our Facebook page!
https://www.facebook.com/CelebrateLifeGallery

My fanpage was up and running in 5 minutes and it may be because l am in the UK
but all my postings are showing up, plus the shopping cart. Not sold any thru fb yet...

How DO you get all those likers/followers?

Debra and Dave, when you speak in 'we' I can't help but hear two voices talking at the same time, lol. You seem like a great team and I love your energy.

I agree with Jani! =)

Valerie Reeves22 Hours Ago

"I have one. My reach on any given post is pretty awful. And I refuse to pay to increase reach. But I don't like the idea of inundating my friends and family with my work on a daily basis, so I keep the biz page."
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This has pretty much been my thought about it, too. I will occasionally send a link to my personal page, but it's usually a blog or something. Anyone who signs up for my photography page knows what they're getting into.

If this link works, here is a video with Barney Davey, who is an artists consultant, where he talks about marketing on Facebook. What I got from it is if you don't already have established followers from before FB changed how your posts are seen then you need to pay to get seen. I don't know, tell me what you think? You may notice Barney from his articles included in our weekly activity email from FAA.

Frank, thank you immensely for posting that video. The first 5 minutes alone were quite illuminating. I'll be coming back to watch more of this later today.

Spent the last couple hours listening to the video and their following April video with just questions and answers Frank-Very illuminating and I thank you for posting the video. I believe anyone taking the time to enjoy it will learn very much. It was excellent and will see it again soon and certainly utilize some of the advice, hopefully in the near future. Hopefully it will be a great benefit to those others who choose to watch it as well.

Today Facebook announced it will post your real friends in the feed before business pages

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/21/champageviews-for-my-real-friends/?ncid=rss

I wish I was good at writing interesting posts on social media, I never think anything interesting happens to me to tell people about. Maybe I'm just not a social person! I'm hopeless at Twitter too!

You don't have to be all that interesting, Gill, though I bet you're a lot more interesting than you think. Make a list of questions that you frequently get--about your work, about the quality of the products, about your preferred tools or what you prefer not to use, about the "exciting life of an artist" (LOL)--and answer them in one or two sentences. If you have a blog, pull snippets from your blog posts. If you don't have a blog, start one, and use those FAQ I mentioned to get the ball rolling. :D

Tell the stories behind the images; tell the story behind how you came to do what you do. Those are very interesting to non-professional-artist folks, and they don't have to involve a bit of selling. What's a problem or hangup you think they might face that could block them from buying your work? Answer it for them.

Finally, don't be afraid to have fun and discuss things unrelated to art. My Facebook page fans had a day-long discussion on best practices for eating PB&J sandwiches this week, and people had a blast.

Thank you Christi, I must try what you suggest. I have been thinking I should make some interesting posts rather than just post my art but I've been putting it off!

I started for the same reason as Cynthia and Dorothy, it works fine.

The thing I find the most annoying on the page is that your posts display the stats on how many people viewed the post, To make that info available to the site owner is fine but to make that info visible to everyone is totally unacceptable to me, If you look at the posts of people the average reach is about six people. That stat is like a slap in the face...and should be made private!

PS> Facebook is not the only site that is guilty of this ,,,FAA makes that info available on the views that are public,,,google plus shows the statistics also, why can't this info be made private?

Facebook fanpages' post views aren't visible to the public, except for some videos. You see the numbers because you admin the page. They could see how many people are "Talking About This", but Facebook even made that less visible--you have to click on the page's Likes number to get there.

Rahdne,

You might find this interest as might others.

These are some lecture notes from a post grad MIT marketing class. This in particular is a case study
on catalogs. Think of your FAA profile, your AW and any proper websites you manage as your catalog. Think
of any images or links on FB or Twitter as being from your catalog.

Now take in these lecture notes.

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-812-marketing-management-fall-2002/lecture-notes/lecture04_calyxcorolla.pdf

Dave