Welcome to part two of my new 'Selling Online' series. Part one had such a great response (I really didn't expect it to be as popular as it was!) and many of you left interesting and useful comments telling me about your experiences, either on the blog itself or via Facebook and Twitter. There are now permanent links to this series in the right-hand column of the blog so that people will be able to easily access and refer back to it whenever they wish. I hope that with your input too, we can make this a really useful resource for people. I certainly don't profess to 'know it all' - I'm just happy to share my personal experiences over several years of building my art business on-and-offline, and you'll have to bear in mind that the things that have worked for me may not work for you, but hopefully some of them will! Everyone is different, and this is why it's great to have information and advice from others too - after all, you may have thought of venues / websites / ways of marketing that I haven't even considered yet! So please feel free to leave your thoughts at the end of this post.
The honest answer is: it varies, it's constantly changing, and it will differ for everyone. But what I am going to do is make a list featuring some of the main social networking sites I've used, and try to give you some advice, information, pros and cons relating to each one.
We'll start out with the first social networking website I ever joined, way back in March 2006:
MySpace
When I joined MySpace (recommended to me by a musician friend) it was at the start of what was going to be it's heyday. I hadn't been using the internet to promote or show my work for very long at this point - the first version of my website had been online for maybe a year or so, and even though I found myself reading an art blog here and there, I certainly didn't have one myself (or any other online presence apart from the website) and I was only just beginning to realise that the internet could be the the tool I needed to further my art career and promote my business. I remember feeling really excited by the possibilities.
I joined MySpace primarily to make friends and meet other artists. At that point, I didn't know many other artists in my area and I liked the idea of becoming part of a community of painters and illustrators I could talk to. I discovered that MySpace also had art groups where I could share work and gain inspiration and advice.
It started well: almost as soon as I signed up and added some images of my work, it got noticed and I gained a small but very loyal following. This grew very quickly - I remember being astonished by the amount of attention I was getting because I never expected it - and soon the small following became a fairly large following, and at one stage I was receiving so much mail on MySpace that I couldn't actually answer it all! Then the sales started to happen. Throughout 2006/2007 and maybe into the early part of 2008, a huge amount of my online sales came through MySpace. Whether they were buying directly from me, or going to my first Etsy shop (called natashacinnamon), most of my sales came through people who knew me on MySpace. I knew that I could post a bulletin on there about new work and always receive a great response and, quite often, sales too. This was because MySpace was so active back then - a huge amount of users were logging in throughout the day, and millions were joining up every month. Then a couple of years on from 2006, when sites such as Facebook and Twitter started to gather momentum, MySpace slowed down a bit and so did the sales coming directly from it.
The thing is, I wasn't too worried because by this time my sales in the 'real world' (for want of a better phrase!) were good and I was selling fairly well on Etsy and gaining commissions too. I was also looking at new online venues to promote my work alongside MySpace, and discovering the fun and possibilities of having a separate blog of my own too.
MySpace today is a different proposition entirely. I still have my original page and many followers (about 2500), but it's a much quieter place in 2010. I still update my page and add new friends or comment occasionally, but that's about it. In 2006 I put an awful lot of time and effort into building a network of friends and fans and it paid off. I'm still very fond of MySpace, but I've realised that (for me, at least) it's not a place I can rely upon for sales now. It's good for exposure, but as is the case with all things internet-related, things change, you have to accept this, and you have to keep moving on. Maybe your experiences have been different - I'd be particularly interested to hear from people who find that MySpace is successful for them now, in 2010.
I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I resisted the urge to join for a looooooooooong time, and in many ways I still see it as a sterile, less interesting, less individual, less creative version of MySpace. The reason I caved in and decided to join is because I heard about the business pages (they used to be called 'fan pages'). I wanted to set up a business page for my art because I'd heard so many good things about them through the forums on Etsy: how they are a great way of keeping people who are interested in your work informed of what's going on, and that they're successful at driving more traffic to your shop and gaining more sales.
I've had my page for nearly a year now and I'd have to say: the jury is still out.
I gain fans/followers on Facebook at a much slower rate than anywhere else - I have a respectable number, but nowhere near the amount of followers I have on other sites, or this blog for that matter - I have around 345 on Facebook, compared to 2500 on the blog, 1400+ on Twitter, nearly 1300 on Etsy, and 2500+ on MySpace. I also find that sales coming from Facebook are few and far between. People on FB are fairly keen to comment and offer support (which is lovely and worthwhile), but for some reason this just doesn't translate into sales for me. Despite what other people have said about the success of having sales via their FB page (some even say there's a direct link between setting up an FB page and the success of their Etsy shop!), it's only an occasional thing for me and it's one of the least successful venues for me personally. Give it a go - it may work for you, but I'm not that impressed!
Ah, now here we have something really special.
It's fast, it's endlessly interesting, and it's easy. And most importantly (for this article, anyway) I have found it to be one of the most successful places for selling my work currently available on the web. I could literally talk to you about the wonders of Twitter all day. How it's great for quickly sharing news and funny/interesting links or photos with friends (people I know in 'real life' as well as online friends I haven't met in person yet), how I've discovered new and inspiring artists on there - even people I'm going to be collaborating with in the future, how I find illustration opportunities, how the community on there is so incredibly supportive that they've done more to promote and share my work with others than I would ever have the time to do myself, how I laugh out loud several times every day at the funny tweets my friends have written, AND how you can talk to some of the famous people who tweet and - get this - they actually even reply sometimes!
If you're not yet on Twitter and you've heard people say that all other people use it for is to tweet mundanities about how they're eating a sandwich or that they went to the loo five minutes ago, let me tell you one thing: THEY'RE TALKING ABSOLUTE RUBBISH. Do not listen to them. They don't understand what Twitter is or what people are really using it for. If I'd listened to these people I would think that Twitter was the (excuse what I'm about to say) biggest pile of narcissistic shit ever. And I would have missed out on the one thing that inspires and entertains me without fail every day.
I will just say this: if all you did was tweet about eating and pissing, you wouldn't have many followers.
So, how can you use Twitter to promote and maybe even sell your work? Firstly, don't just tweet about your work and nothing else. People won't like it (nobody likes the hard sell) and they will unfollow you. Then you'll end up with no followers and you'll be tweeting into thin air. Personally, I don't follow anyone who ONLY tweets about their work or what they're selling. It feels like being spammed.
Here's what I tend to to do on Twitter:
* Tweet about your life, funny anecdotes, things that are happening (not eating or pissing, we've already discussed that).
* Sometimes it's ok to tweet about food if it's a really, really nice piece of chocolate and you want to let people know where they can buy it. Public service broadcasting.
* Share photos of your life and your work, because people love anything visual. I once posted photos of a piece of work in progress, updating it via Twitpic, and it gained a lot of interest.
* Share links to interesting news stories, music, films or programmes, new artists and their work, great blog articles etc.
* Always reply to people who write to you, and engage others in conversation by commenting on what they're doing. I see Twitter as a giant conversation and if you use it in this way, you'll have a lot of fun with it. Do NOT ignore people. It's as rude as blanking them face-to-face in real life.
* Post links to new work so that people can see what you're up to, and links to new items/pieces in your online shop. Every time I do this, my lovely Twitter followers either 're-tweet' the links for me (meaning that they're sharing my link with their followers, therefore reaching a much wider audience), or they visit my shop, or they buy or commission work. If they're following me because they like my work, they enjoy seeing the new pieces and lots of people like to know when work is available so that they don't miss out.
The most important thing is to let your personality shine through. Just be yourself, because the truth is that people like to know a little about the person they're buying from. It's all part of the experience. It's much more fun to buy a beautiful piece of artwork if you know the person who made it. It adds to your interpretation or understanding of the work, and it's great to be able to tell your friends a little about the artist when they see the painting hanging in your house.
--
That's all for part two - in part three I'll talk about Etsy and other online shops, how to use them to your best advantage, and what has (and hasn't) worked for me. See you soon!
Thanks for expanding on the previous post - I had a lot of success in 2006 with Ebay, oddly, but it's good to hear other people's experiences - strange how fickle internet selling can be, never fails to amaze me..
Posted by: Abi | June 16, 2010 at 07:34 PM
Great idea posting these articles. It is all quite mysterious. I really appreciate you starting a dialogue about it. I rarely go to Myspace anymore. I actually do prefer FB now and Twitter. I think it is the immediacy of the real time thing. Myspace never really got a handle on that. Online sales have been slow for me. What has worked though is promoting for an actual show. I have drummed up sales for work that is showing in a gallery via my online presence. Looking forward to your Etsy article.
Thanks Natty!
Posted by: cathie Joy | June 16, 2010 at 08:14 PM
Your artistic passion and talent along with your love of connecting with people of all sorts is completely invigorating. An inspiration!
What a wonderful set of articles!
xx {{{O}}}
Posted by: Leon Milo | June 17, 2010 at 12:01 AM
Another interesting, very well written piece. Thank you so much.
I first signed up for Facebook maybe two years ago, took a quick look around, and determined it was not for me at all. I ended up back there a couple of months ago, had a closer look, and decided it's an important site. Ha! I still have some mixed feelings, but overall, I do think it is becoming an important tool for those of us who make our fulltime living selling our work on the web. The Shop Now feature is ripe with possibilities.
Twitter: tried it for about ten minutes also a long time ago, and would have been in that group you say are talking absolute rubbish (thanks for your kind words!). I am marking this, and will absolutely try it out again-- when I catch my breath.
I look very forward to part three.
Posted by: Timckline | June 17, 2010 at 05:14 PM
Hi Natasha,
I really hope you get this comment now that I've found the courage to contact you! I have been following your blog for some time now and have found your posts really interesting and helpful. I have also just signed up with Twitter and found you there, so I'm looking forward to following your news.
Thank you for what you've written, here, particularly about Twitter and Facebook. I, too, have had really limited success with Facebook, but feel that I've got to stick with it as a necessary evil for anyone promoting their work online. But your very positive endorsement for Twitter I have found very encouraging and will follow your advice about how to use it. I have also started up a blog (inspired by yours), so fingers firmly crossed that that will help. Anyway, thank you again.
Posted by: Liz Monahan | March 11, 2011 at 10:49 AM