How to Promote Your Art on Facebook

Facebook is one of the most effective tools at your disposal to promote your art to a wider
audience because Art fits in with Facebook’s most popular interest categories. You can use it to
update friends and fans about any new developments and the potential for word to spread to
their friends, and friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends, when they click Like or Share
on your post is a huge opportunity.

The top reasons to post on Facebook

• Announce that you have a page on BuyArtNow.com.au (BIG ONE PEOPLE!! BIG!!)
• Update everyone when you have new artwork on BuyArtNow.com.au (Of course!!!)
• When you’ve won an award, held an exhibition, are going to hold classes or whatever;
  the list is endless. People especially like to see works in progress! At the end – tell them
  where they can buy the original or your Successful Selling Artist smart resource that lets
  you sell more without lifting a brush – Reproductions!
• When you've created a new artwork.
• Whenever you have a reason to talk to your followers.

Where to post

On your Facebook business page (if you have one) or your personal page 

IMPORTANT NOTE - if you are still using your personal page to promote yourself as an artist, consider creating a designated Public profile so anyone can find you and your work. It offers you better features than your personal page for conducting yourself as a professional artist. 

• What to post
  
  A short paragraph explaining what the post is all about
• A link to your Artist’s Page on BuyArtNow.com or to the specific page where your new artwork is
  displayed. Eg. www.buyartnow.com.au/yourdesignatedpage

How to post

• Type your message into the “What’s on your mind?” or “write something” space on the
  FB page you’ve chosen. Eg. Hey Everyone! I’ve just released my new collection of work
• Paste in a link to your Artist’s Page or to the specific page for your new artwork (you get
  the link by displaying the page in your browser and copying the url from the address bar
  It may look like this - http://www.buyartnow.com.au/yourname-appearshere ).
  AND WAIT A COUPLE OF SECONDS
• Facebook will load a preview of the page you have linked to. This is where things get a bit
  tricky because Facebook decides for itself how it displays your link. Facebook also likes to
  keep you on your toes as it rolls out new versions and new features and changes all the things we just got used to! So....

If you’ve pasted a link to a specific piece of artwork -

• Usually you will get some text and a picture of your artwork as the preview.
• Sometimes you will get some text in your preview and white space where the
  picture would normally be. If you look carefully at the top of the white space
  area you will see a scrolling arrow. Clicking it will bring a picture into view.
• Sometimes you just get a text preview. We recommend copying your post
  including text and link, deleting it and pasting it into the space again.
  Strangely repeating this a few a picture preview will often load.
• Or you will be given the option to select your own image to populate your
  post if the link does not show.
• Patience will be your virtue!

If you’ve pasted a link to your whole designated page. 

• You will often get a slideshow of images appear. Just delete any from the list that are not appropriate or not displaying as you would like them. You may have the ability to upload images yourself also.

IF USING A PERSONAL PAGE -

• To the left of the Post button you may see a drop-down list for privacy settings. Ensure this is set to Public.
• Click ‘Post’ OR ‘Publish’ or using the dropdown you can also ‘schedule’ your post to a date and time you would like it to appear.

Unfortunately, erratic previews are a Facebook quirk but with a bit of patience you should be able to produce Facebook posts with a preview of the page you’re linking to.

Sharing your post
Use the ‘Share’ icon below your post to share it to any pages or groups you’re a member of.
There are a various options depending on how you’re set up (and how Facebook is feeling, at
that moment). Select ‘Share’, select who’s doing the sharing and which page or group you want
to share to. It’s worth spending a bit of time on this step because sharing is really how the word
spreads.

*Tip: If you are using a PUBLIC profile page it is a great idea to share your post back into your
personal page too as many of your friends and family will want to see what you’re up to.
Important Posts you should create!!

For your own page in www.buyartnow.com.au -

Example - Hello everyone. I’m very excited because my page on the Buy Art Now website has just gone live and I’d like to invite you to pop over and take a look. http://www.buyartnow.com.au/artist-name (I RECOMMEND YOU GO TO YOUR PAGE AND COPY THE LINK)

For a new piece of artwork –
Go specifically to that piece in your page – click on it to open and use the link for this specific piece like below – 
Example - I’ve been busy creating a new piece of work and it’s now on available on my Buy Art Now page. Please take a look and if you’d like to own it for yourself you can purchase it from the site. Of course I’d love to hear your feedback too. ADD LINK DIRECTLY TO THE ARTWORK.

Other Social Media sites

The process of composing a message and adding a link will work with other social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. The previews will vary from platform to platform but you will be able to re-use the same basic message and link on the ones above.

If you would like your Facebook posts to populate your other social media there are ways to link
your accounts to make it easy for you and also time efficient.

Eg. Link your Facebook page to your Instagram and Twitter feeds to reach new people in different ways. If you look in the help settings for facebook or even use the ‘Google’ for instructions on how to link your accounts.

Remember to link them in the right order. Eg if you’re mostly a facebook person – link twitter and Instagram to facebook - Not facebook to twitter. 

There are also handy Apps you can use to populate your other social media accounts from the
one place. Some of these are – Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Tweetdeck, SocialOmph etc.
Just ask the Google and you’ll have plenty to choose from. ☺

Ta-Dah!!!
All done!
Now go have fun creating!!