(edit) Facebook (not)lame! Will (not)try Using Twitter Or Linkedin

Sorry that happened Wing. The thing is, one doesn't know the rules and anyway they change at will on these sites, don't you think? How to keep up with change, sigh?
Good idea to use Twitter......for me that was so intrusive I closed it.........nobody noticed,lol.
Good luck out there/here in cyberland. We are all pawns .

Hey VIVA, what keeps up at these ungodly hours! What kept me up was just having looked at my FB account before going to sleep and being disappointed by the message I received! LOL! Well, I'll go back to sleep now that I got that off my chest here. -W

wings..you do know that facebook created the FAN page to do exactly what your trying to do..its awkward, by why dump on facebook and cancel them for that? they are what they are. Twitter isnt as restrictive..linkedin - i am not a fan of..its an employment or hiring site..just my two cents

Wing, the time in Sydney is 6.48 pm Friday............wide awake but nobody home, lol..........................it's 12.48 Friday morning for you.....yep, ungodly,lol

viva, Oh, yea, forgot you're in oz, and I lied, still awake here 12:51am pst.

robert, I'm not dumping on fb, they dumped/cancelled me, at least the fb account I was using. And this is more of a warning for others who had shared my enthusiasm from my previous thread. There is no clue how fb determines whether you are a person or a business.


-W

If you had read their tos it clearly states you can not do what you were doing.

ok - if you consider them dumping you becasue you violoated their policy...fine...i am no fan of facebook...my stuff posts there to both my regualr site and my new "fan" business site...they do not want commerce conducted on your main page...but I wouldnt read or follow anything that is posted on facebook..its for juviniles and clowns...but lord knows the world has lots of those and facebook has lots of eyeballs..just my two cents

"but I wouldnt read or follow anything that is posted on facebook..its for juviniles and clowns..."
Robert, I couldn't have said it better.

What I don't understand is why so many people are afraid to mix their personal and business on facebook. If you are an artist or photographer, is that not part of your identity? What's wrong with linking your personal page to your business page and promoting both? I suppose if you cannot resist posting stuff that is "for juveniles and clowns," then you may not want your business associated with it, but otherwise, why not?

Everyone complains about fake profiles, spam, and empty likes, yet Facebook is actively trying to prevent this by making sure you are a real person. Part of that is requiring a real person to be connected to a business page.

linkd in totally confuses me and i gave up. twitter takes a long time to get followers, and it becomes a game of who wants to follow you.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

My business page is linked to my personal page. Generally you invite your friends to like your business page, that way you aren't spamming those who don't want to be spammed. I share tons of photos on my personal page but I only share FAA links on my business page.

I quit LinkedIn shortly after I joined. They spammed me multiple times a day. It was annoying. (Do you wanna connect with these people? Do you wanna join these groups? Here, read this article. etc. etc. etc.)

I share links to photos from my fanpage on my personal page and so far, facebook doesn't seem to have a problem with it. I include a link to my AW and my website in the description of each photo. I stopped using the direct posting through FAA after getting negative feedback about it from my friends and followers.

What I don't understand is why so many people are afraid to mix their personal and business on facebook.

Loree,

That question is on topic for this thread, jmo. With that in mind, I started a group for sharing, but the first wave of artists from here
would not share to their timeline. I wrote several of them. They would not do it. Yes they shared to fan pages.

I had added 400 plus friends who are not artists to the group. Maybe a dozen were family members.

I let that sit for over a month. I then wrote a brief blip to ask people to add some of their friends. Nada. Why should they? Share
their friends with other artists? Nada.

I closed down the group and one artists berated me for my decision.

The 400 friends of mine that I added were business people, they used their accounts to maintain their businesses. That is why they
friended me. It was business.

You are exactly right. At this point I ride alone. I have friends who are artists, but I will add far fewer going forward. We do not primarily sell
to each other. The group I put up was my efforts for any of us to use. My time was better spent elsewhere.

Dave

I quit LinkedIn shortly after I joined.

Loree,

LinkedIn will probably become my bread and butter. I am thinking of joining for $60/month.

I am sussing it out fully.

Dave

the connecting with people i don't get at all. i don't know them. i don't know how it helps me or them in any way at all. i had people from all parts of the world asking me to join with them. i don't really get the point of that.

i mix my pages. my fan page has some stuff on it but i don't keep it up to date. the personal page i keep everything on, because people are more likely to see that than the fan page. as long as you stay fairly professional and don't start sharing all your vacation photos, tell people how much you hate this or that, your views on religion, politics and so on, then it should be fine.

what i really, really, really hate about facebook is - anyone can add you to a group even if you didn't want to be there. suddenly i'm getting mail from a group. i have now log in and unjoin this group and have it set to never invite me ever again.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Well, Robert, I do not consider myself a "clown" nor a "juvenile" and use Facebook daily. I have a personal page and a business page and belong to groups from which my sales here have originated. Guess you get what you pay for with those two cents.

what makes that site your bread and butter? have you sold anything from it?


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

This is my synopsis of social media outlets, and their strengths and weaknesses as it pertains to creating interest and customers.

Facebook: Best way to reach large groups of actual potential customers. Most likely site to achieve something viral. However, reach is greatly reduced now with the advent of boosted posts.
Twitter: Generally useless as far as generating actual customers - decent at generating bot visits and increasing SEO
LinkedIn: Decent for reaching current business contacts and previous customers, however audience scope is limited and viral chances are bleak.
Instagram: Terrific at getting impactful visuals in front of followers and generating interest. Limited ability for viral expansion and difficult to link potential buyers directly to work.

I use all 4 with varied amount of success. Facebook has created many, many sales for me over time—but its impact is dwindling.

what makes that site your bread and butter? have you sold anything from it?


Mike

I have learned at this point what I need to do.

You can figure out how to use Linkedin for yourself. We have two different art styles. I have no clue how
you would sell your art on Linkedin. Probably impossible.

Dave

for god sake's dave. don't lead us on, with a confusing site like linked in and telling us its the best site ever, and not give us a reason why. why bother mentioning anything? i'm not making fun of you, i just want to know why you think the site is worth paying for? a simple question. it has nothing at all to do with styles. don't read into it more than you need to.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I think my mistake was adding a bio description on my fb recently stating what wingsdomain.com is, without knowing fb frowns on that kind of thing. Lesson learned. I think I'll try opening up a secod personal fb page and use those credentials to log on and comment on other sites and see how long that last. -W

I learn once again that it pays to sit things out and see how the dust settles.

Glad I didn't jump right in there and take those Facebook suggestions.

Dave, that was mean towards Mike. LOL!

I do side with Dave and Louise on the Linked.In and Facebook. People get ahold of me privately and send me either invitations or want to come see my gallery and last week I sold five paintings. I just couldn't believe it. They were works I would have given to Goodwill and the dumpster. They were awful works and I mean that!

Linked.In has been extremely valuable to me. I got a book deal to be an illustrator for a reputable author. I also have sold one original and I was juried for a company that sells fabric and won so I'm able to have my work at no cost to me being sold now in retail. I've made about ...not much this year and although it's amazing, it's not enough to retire on, and not even enough to clear the expenses of artwork materials, I'm beyond pleased though with my sales!

I still have zero sales from fineartamerica. I haven't quite figured out how to use a camera to the level that would create great prints. I'm also too busy to learn all the tricks to making this part of the business work, but am deeply thankful for FAA. I've become better in my craft and I know there is a market for it.

I feel bad for people who don't know how to use the social networks. What I've discovered about social networking is simply don't piss anyone off with politics, bragging, showing too much work, showing work that has little or no effort or is too digitalized, and most of all having a wide circle of people from all over the world and all cultures in your friend circle. Read the stuff, promote their work, like what they are doing and BE NICE!

Call me an "ars licking parasite" if you wish because that is how I feel.

Sorry to hear that Wings.

Everyone has different opinions Social Media. I like FB more for personal than business. As for why wouldn't you want to mix your business with your personal..... For me, it's how I keep up with all of my friends & family, it's how I've found and kept in touch with my school friends from 20+ years ago. My friends know I'm a photographer, and I share my work there all the time, but I don't want my business page followers to get involved with my personal page. I just don't think that's professional.

I haven't looked into Linkedin, but I've always heard it's more of a corporate type thing. I did try TSU for a while and got too busy to mess with it. Not sure it was really doing anything anyways. I use Twitter only for business end, but I agree with Mike, it's all about who's going to follow who. I'm slowly growing my followers, but most of them are photographers/artists, which probably won't buy my work. It's hard to find the followers you need. Then you have people that stop following your because you don't follow back. To me... Twitter is not favorite, but I keep working at it. It does bring attention to my work and other photographers do retweet, so then their followers see, and so on... It's a lot of work though.

Has anyone used Instagram? I've no idea how it works but was curious. Do you need followers?

I am personally very insulted. I am an avid Facebook user as are many friends from FAA.

Instagram is very good...had several commissions from there. Yes, you need hashtags and followers.

i'm just trying to figure out how to use that site. that's it. i got as far as the front page, the rest is just clueless and not intuitive. how does one use that site? i hear lots of rave reviews by only some people. same with about.me. i don't see the point of that one either.

instagram needs an instagram account and you need to do that with a phone i think. last thing i want to do is upload to the phone then out to the net. maybe i'm thinking wrong on that.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I have an instagram account but haven't used it much. I'm not a fan of how it crops photos. Abbie - how do you handle the photo cropping?

Jennifer, that's the beauty of it for me as I only show the whole images where I want to upload them,... I think of Instagram as a work in progress site or a teaser.

I play there a lot with photo editing to see what's the most popular.

However, they have cut back and you can now shrink the image in to show all of it and not a square only

The thing about LinkedIn is you need to concetrate on relationship selling via the groups. When you make connections in the groups, Dave, you don't need to pay for premium as you can message anyone who also belongs to the same groups as you do.

Barney Davey does a better job than I on explaining relationship selling

http://artmarketingnews.com/2015/10/make-selling-art-awesome/

Here is the thread about LinkedIn. Enjoy your day!

http://pixels.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2017595

Did you know that you can link your Facebook account to your twitter account and reverse? So everything you post on one site will automatically appear on the other account.

Keep your fb as a personal site, open to friends only or to everyone. Your choice! If you show an occasional artwork, it usually is OK or appreciated, but is wise not to use a personal fb as a business site. It could become annoying to friends, if suddenly you bombard their timeline with YOUR art! Some often is OK and often friends will click a "like" and love viewing but post after post of someone's artwork on a personal fb....is not wise! Sorry but my opinion!

So if all you want to use fb for is showing your art........... add & create your Art Page. It is easy! FB will encourage you to buy $$ advertising for your artwork, but you do not have to. I don't! With your Art Page, you can post your art as you want, how to purchase and link to your FAA site, blog , etc. I check FB everyday, almost. I post to my Art Page as I can. It can take a while to get tons of followers so a lot is up to you to acquire them. Now whether it is going to give you a lot of sales...who knows. Advertise as you wish and make yourself known. FB is a social media! For me, OK for now and If I keep it a long time, is up to me.
Best of luck!
Mary

Oh gosh, I agree with Mary Armstrong on not annoying friends on the personal site. Too much artwork can be pushy on the personal site. Adding the Art Page allows people who are interested to browse your work. I have one art friend that pleads with people to like her work...not a good way to get sales or work sold.

Another one who's neither a clown nor a juvenile. I keep in touch with family and friends on my personal facebook, and I have 5000+ followers on my facebook artist page. I can show my followers new work, tell them about events - even create and invite them to events, link to here an my website, create special offers and contests. I get the highest quality interaction with my fan base on Facebook. Comments, conversations, things I don't get from other SM outlets.

I do think it's important to keep business and personal separate. I don't want to be spammed from friends, and I don't want to spam my friends. If they are friends who also love my work, they just follow my artist page. Easy peasy.

loree. cits facebook that wont allw me to mix the personal and business... on twitter I don't have the need for a separate business/fan page... as far as juviniles and clowns... i play allong by posting fof their eyes because the counters that dtermie whose search results come upfirst count a juvinile and clown the same as a buyer with money

Mike, I cannot figure out anything on About.me. I think you have to pay to make it work.

On Linked.in, I must have gotten lucky because I have a wide range of working abilities. They help you post all your working talents like Nuclear Technician, Illustrator, communications specialist, Independent film work etc. etc. I just grabbed every talent that I think I mastered over the years, not that I really have, but it attracted people to look at me closer.

I don't understand why you wouldn't WANT a separate fan page. I don't interact with people on Facebook that I don't know. I don't want strangers having access to what I say to friends and family. Business is business, personal is personal.

Jennifer with the latest update to Instagram its not just square format only, you can upload in landscape and portrait orientation as well

Edited: Sorry see Abbie already mentioned this

I haven't met a social media platform yet that I like or understand, I try to play the game anyway and have failed miserably. I do get on FB maybe once/day because occasionally I do see something posted that I want to know about but that's pretty rare so I don't dwell there and I almost never interact except to occasionally hit the "like" button. Forums are the last social media platform that made any sense to me, but they don't work for selling, but they work for actually creating an online "community", however FB groups have all but killed forums which baffles me because FB groups are about the worst interface I've ever seen for meaningful interaction, followed closely by Twitter.

your rite mike... you can only use Instagram from a mobile device

I'm not a huge fan of Facebook. I see it as a necessary evil, just to keep in touch with people sometimes, but it's not my favorite place.

I have a question for Dave if he's still here - what do you mean you will pay for Linkedin? I have a free profile there and I didn't know there was a paid version. It's a profile based on my business field, but I have a link to my artist's website there and I did have one client tell me she looked at it and will get in touch with me if they need the use of an image (this is an ad agency), so people do look at your linkedin profile.

I don't think any of these sites work wonders, you have to use a mixture of them and remain active at least occasionally.

on my mobile here typing with ones fnger --- with all due respect, i never claimed all facebook viwers were clowns and juviniles. let me further clarify rhat it is my belif that all faa users of facebook are not clowns and juviniles. with that said, i love getting view stats from clowns and juviniles.. all day long

No one mentions Tumblr.

I have my blog www.dogfordstudios.com hooked up so that it populates Twitter, Tumbler and my other site www.edwardfielding.com with one click.

I don't bother with Instagram since I usually don't have any cell service.

Here is an example of how one might use Facebook as a fan page around a certain product: https://www.facebook.com/thequotablewestie

The problem with having to have a fan page on fb for your art is exactly the fact that when using your fb credentials to log onto other sites to comment, anyone picking on your avatar on that other site where you made the comment will go to your fb personal page instead of your fb fan page. I don't like the idea of strangers going to my fb personal page, they should go to fb's fan page, but fb doesn't do that. And whatever reasons why you would or would not want strangers to see your personal stuff is a personal preference and is really not the issue I have with FB, it's the fact that when using fb to log onto other sites to comment, your avatar on that other site links back to your fb personal site and not the fan page. -W

I'm on Tumblr, but I don't do much with it except to look at images that are curated by the accounts I follow, why they do that I don't know, they are not selling anything just posting other people's images within a particular theme, some of them post dozens/day. I haven't hardly really seen any serious pros doing anything on there. I've noticed the bots don't seem to pay any attention to Tumblr and I don't see much opportunity for engagement so I don't consider it a serious platform.

Wings - you can use your Facebook page to comment.

Go up to the little down arrow on the top right of Facebook. Under the drop down menu (among other items) it says "use Facebook as" and it will have any pages associated with your personal facebook account listed there.

This is also where you go to change back to your personal profile.

If you are using Facebook as your page and go to comment on a site that allows Facebook comments, it will link back to your page not your personal profile. And you can choose on your page whether or not to show your profile as the owner.

I don't go to any effort to obscure my personal profile, but it is possible.

Wings in SOME cases you can choose to post as your fan page, I think when commenting on posts only. I don't think it's possible to post on a page as your fan page though which is annoying. I never share my photos on the FineArtAmerica Facebook page because I can only do so as my personal account, and when I do my friends will see it effectively spamming them. Also, like you said, it won't link to your fan page.

"Mike, I cannot figure out anything on About.me. I think you have to pay to make it work."

The platform has changed in the past few months, I think it's moving towards college graduates and linking to your resume. Becoming not as useful for creatives except for the excellent SEO ... put all your links on one page and have it show up at the top of search. I nurse it about ten minutes per week when it used to be every day.

i tried tumblr - total waste of my time. they force you to follow people, i never had a single click there. i think tumblr's time is gone. unless you've been there for years, i think that boat is sailed.

linked in seems like its even more social than facebook. i don't think i can be social enough to justify the time. making up job positions won't help much if a few employer should find you there. i have a presence there but that's about it. i have to put more time aside to mess with that site, but in the end i don't see it helping me that much. i only joined there to contact an old boss that i needed a ref from. i had to join to send the mail. then it sat there for a long time.

i don't use facebook that much. i post now and then. if i only posted on the fan page no one would see anything at all. plus i would have to promote the fan page which seems like a waste of time.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Thanks Abbie and Brian. I might look into using Instagram more than.

I agree, you don't want to push your business on your friends. I only occasionally share photos on my personal page. You have to keep a happy medium. Wings - When you have a business page, after you log in, you switch to using FB as the business page and no one sees your personal avatar, or has a link to your personal page unless you are using FB as your personal and comment or post on your business page while logged into your personal account.

Maybe I should look into linked in.

Thanks Mark, didn't know that, I'll give it a try. -W

Awesome Mark! Worked like a charm!

@Jennifer White, I think you were facing a similar challenge as I was, if so, see Mark Tisdale's post a few posts up.



-W

Wings - Yes, I'm already aware of that. The problem I'm having, is groups. Facebook doesn't allow pages to join groups. So when I post something from FAA to a group, it will only let me do it when I'm logged into my personal account. Currently pages can not join groups. See my last posting in your previous discussion. There's a link where you can make suggestions to FB to allow Pages to Join and participate in groups.

"I don't like the idea of strangers going to my fb personal page,"
That's where your privacy settings would come in. You choose who sees what. Even if they go to your page from clicking your avatar, if you have your privacy settings where you want them, they will see nothing.

@Jennifer, Ok, got it. :-) -W

Loving the title change

The other beauty of now finding out I can use fb and switch over to my fan page and have my comments on other sites link back to my fan page is that from my own www.wingsdomain.com website, I have icons that automatically share links to any image page to my fb site, and when I use fb switched over to my fan page, it actually correctly places the image and link it to my fan page and not my personal page. Awesome! -W

Wings - glad that helped!

I don't foresee Facebook changing it where pages are allowed to join/post in groups. Groups are meant for people. They really aren't even meant for the massive sizes that some of them have grown to.

Read the description Facebook has for groups and you'll see the original purpose is rather wide from pages.

Just to clarify-

I have a personal page AND a fan page. I don't try to keep my personal page highly confidential. I join groups and share images from my photography page (if the group allows). I like the idea that if people find my personal page, they can then find my photography page from there. (fan page) As far as not wanting strangers to see my personal page, well they will anyway, whether you use a bunch of convoluted privacy measures or not. My solution is not to post anything on facebook that I don't want the world to see. Easy peasy!

@Mark - I hope they do. One example: There are FAA groups on FB. The only way to post to them, is from your personal page. Yes, you can share your business page postings, but the post still comes from your personal page. The only way they can get to your business page is to click your posting link which sends them to your personal page. Then to go to the about you section to find your business page link. That's too many clicks from someone to find your FB business page from a group. Another example is small business groups. What is the purpose of those groups, if the business pages can't join them?

Jennifer - none of those 'small business groups' are something someone from Facebook created or has any direct interest in. Read the description of groups from the link in my last message and you'll see what they had in mind. Sure people have found other ways to use them, but commerce wasn't really what they had in mind and everything they've done to date suggests they are going to keep pages in their own little isolated bucket.

While it doesn't fix your issue exactly, remember, you can use your page as your place of work. My page is on the top line if someone visits my personal profile. They don't have to click around hunting for it. But as I said, I personally don't go to any effort to keep my personal and business page so strictly separated as some in the conversation here would like. https://www.facebook.com/tismark

I don't really consider my personal profile "personal" - like Lori above said I don't share anything there that I don't mind the world knowing. There are posts you can only see as a friend, but it's not because it's super personal. It's because I allow followers and it's boring day to day stuff that would probably drive them a little nuts wondering why they ever followed me in the first place. ;-)

I resisted for a very long time before joining fb, then I was only going to do a biz page...but you can't! So now I have a personal and a fan page. I do enjoy posting and sharing political views, making comments etc on my personal page but have briefly twinged on if that could hurt the fan page...decided I don't want to have to censor myself though on my personal page for the most part, just hope I have the settings where strangers can't see everything...off to see if I can figure that out :/......I'm back, decided ''what the hey'' to keep future posts public since all the past ones are.

I have FB (personal and Artist page) Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, Flickr, Youtube, Wordpress, Aboutme (never used) Google+ (rarely used)

Twitter
a few months ago I had 17 followers and a few dozen visits to FAA
Now, after canvassing heavily and finding all sorts of business and groups
3400 followers and (just finishing a two week tweet campaign) 5000 visits to FAA
I can directly relate tweets to FAA visits. Startng to get a largert number of retweets and eppearing higher in searches.
For me - Twitter is starting to work.

,
FB
Building an audience on FB, dont see anyone really buying from there but is an entry point and expected.

LinkedIn
600+ on linked in which I use for my day job and it has gotten me my last two jobs. - its next in line for an art profile as I can see a lot of potential there .


Tumblr - useful for posting from here to Twitter. Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, simultaneously

I guess you try them all and find what works, more specifically what combination or flow works for you.

Folks who do not want to mix personal with business......

On FB you have your stagnate timeline, in my case Dave. And you have your home which is a constantly changing timeline.

I add my art alone to my stagnate timeline. Nothing else. If someone looks me up they get my art. (need to add I have a great
shot of my nephews and niece from twelve years ago, they were so little)

On my moving timeline, home, I add politics. Plenty of politics. Which in turn are buried under mountains of rubbish. And chatter.
And fun. Friends.

Twitter has multiple timelines. Same deal. But no politics because that is where your tweets of art go. On my Twitter profile
I add only my art. If you look me up on my profile is only my art. I can see how many clicks are on my AW links per image tweet.
And I can see how many people come from their timelines after seeing the impression and then view my timeline.

James your 5000 profile visits were your profile? Or your AW, the click on link? Probably the former. I have routinely gotten
over 2000 profile visits with fewer than 20 tweets per month. Only one of them was ever a buyer. And even then I can not fully prove that.

SM is for verification of your presence and as a constant source of reiterating your art. No one here has the Minus Touch. People will never
see your art once and buy. Rarely anyway. Not often enough to bank on. People here that are successful have their work seen on average by
a buyer over six times. You need to be there in such a way that the client will hand over a credit card or endorse a paypal payment.

Dave

i just found out on facebook that if you post more than 4 things in a few min span (maybe because it was going to the same place), it gives you a security check to ID an animal. click on the lion, and each time i got it wrong. unless it wanted me to click on all of them, they weren't clear about that. they gave it to me 4 times before switching to the text version. i had to complain because that check didn't work. and i kind of wonder where they got those images as well, since many looked like stock images.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

I've never seen that, Mike. Weird!

Facebook (is) lame (not) for (the likes) of (me).