How To Sell Art And Homemade Products On FacebookPhoto by Kon Karampelas

Originally Posted On: https://hopeforfinance.com/how-to-sell-art-and-homemade-products-on-facebook/

 

Though selling your creations at a local market may get your work in front of hundreds of people each day, Facebook offers you a global audience of 2.6 billion active monthly users (and counting).

The social media giant’s reach is impressive, yet it’s strangely also harder to get people interacting with your page than with your real-world market stall. Fail to adjust your strategies for Facebook, and you will come to feel like you’re in a massive marketplace with everyone strolling past as though you’re invisible.

To be able to make a living from selling products on Facebook, artists need to adopt a number of strategies that are completely unique to the platform.

Set up a dedicated artist page

Head over to Facebook’s page creation tool and follow the prompts to set up your profile as a public figure. Unlike your personal account, this public page doesn’t require that people send you friend requests. Instead, they can simply like and follow your page as fans.

Be sure to fill out every bit of content you can. Though most people will be more focused on your art than your bio, this is still a great opportunity to share your personality with those who do check it out. This extra bit of text also gives you the opportunity to apply search engine optimization strategies to boost your chances of appearing on the first page of search results.

Make it easy for people to contact you, and be sure to respond to messages as quickly as you can. Facebook tracks your average response time and shares it with users when they start a new message, so you want to make them feel confident that they’ll get a prompt response.

Take the time to craft an artist page that’s visually appealing, fully filled out, and representative of your personality, and you’ll be setting yourself up for developing a loyal fanbase before you’ve even clicked “post” for the first time.

To get your first followers, you can easily share your completed page with everyone in your personal friend list. This sends them a notification, and most people are happy to click “like” since it takes less than a second.

Be a person not just a seller

Though your goal may be to sell enough art that you don’t need a day job, if you make your Facebook page all about sales, then you’re missing out on one of the most important ways to develop a following and drive engagement – genuine human connection.

Facebook was a social platform before it evolved into the monetized beast we interact with today, and this aspect of it is what keeps users coming back. If Facebook were to become too heavily skewed towards advertizing and business promotion, we’d likely see a mass migration of people over to any one of the newer social media platforms that are popping up each year.

With this in mind, take some time to share little snippets of your personality on your page. This is your opportunity to show progress shots of your work, share the ups and downs of the creative process, make your pet famous, or reveal whatever other delightful quirks you happen to be harboring.

If you’re naturally reserved, you don’t have to go over the top – the key is to be yourself but be personable. Give people a little bit more than artwork titles and prices in the text of your posts.

Another great way to boost engagement through socializing is to reply to comments and have conversations with people who interact with your page. Not only will this keep the humans coming back, but it will also tell Facebook’s algorithms that your content is gaining traction, making it more likely to be given a top spot in people’s feeds.

Join Facebook groups relevant to your art

Building from the last point, you should take some time to extend the social aspect of Facebook artistry into the many groups the platform offers.

No matter how specific your artform or subject matter is, there are bound to be groups dedicated to it. Within these digital havens, you will find collections of superfans, offering you a more targeted audience than the general Facebook population.

If your work has psychedelic, nature-loving vibes, like that of Hannah Yata, then you can search these terms in Facebook and you will find plenty of groups dedicated to them.

You don’t want to go charging into these groups with sales-speak. Instead, you need to familiarize yourself with each group’s guidelines (most have specific rules around promotional posts) and focus on being social.

Introduce yourself, share useful information, comment on other people’s posts, and be a positive and active member. You can also mention when you’re working on a piece that’s relevant to the group’s theme, post progress pics, and let people come to you if they’re interested in buying.

By keeping sales talk out of your group interactions, you’ll be able to naturally build up your following, and if people want to buy your work, they can do so from your artist page or website (if you have one). This will also prevent you from being banned from groups for not following their guidelines on self-promotion!

Offer new content consistently

The one thing worse for business than an artist with no social media presence is one with a stale social media presence. If people visit your Facebook page and find that you haven’t posted anything for a year or two, they will assume you’re no longer active. Even if they love an artwork you have listed, it’s unlikely that they’ll enquire about it if you don’t have any recent content.

In addition to this, each post you create has the chance to pop up in people’s feeds, developing your connection with existing fans, and giving you the chance to win new followers and potential buyers.

A great way to ensure consistency is to use tools like Loomly and Sendible to schedule your posts. Take note of when you get the most engagement, and schedule upcoming posts for those times.

Selling art on Facebook: final thoughts

As you’re growing your Facebook following, you may wish to try out paid post boosting and ads. However, this shouldn’t be your main strategy. It’s more something to experiment with once you have a well-rounded page packed full of beautiful posts and artworks up for sale.

If you do try out Facebook’s paid marketing options, be sure to track your results using the platform’s analytics tools. This way you can gauge whether the expense is truly worth it.

Facebook may still be the internet’s biggest social network, but there are many other rapidly rising contenders. To discover which ones are best-suited to your quest, check out our general guide to selling art and homemade goods on social media.