Does it ever seem like when you post on social media you’re not sure if it's doing any good? Sure if you’re making sales you’re golden - but if you have yet to make that leap then how do you know if what you’re doing is finding the right people? How can you ensure it does?
The goal with any social media platform is not just to build a following there and build your legend, but to drive traffic where YOU want it to go to encourage sales. A common misconception people have when they start marketing on social media is that they need a bunch of followers and likes to seem legit. This couldn’t be further from the truth, and is damaging to what your goals for your social media accounts should be. The likes and followers come with time as you attract the right fans to your page - people who genuinely love what you do and are interested in seeing more (and hopefully buying!).
So exactly how does one go about finding these people (preferably without spending a ton more time on social media)? The key is getting extremely clear about your niche marketing. What does that mean? Niche marketing is all about finding what is unique to you and your art that the market is looking for and hone in on it. For example - let's say you work with glass and live in AZ where you’d like to get the attention of some of the local galleries as well as potential buyers online. You’ve been marketing your gorgeous glass work correctly, but feel like you aren’t getting the sales you’d like for the effort you’re putting in. If in your posts you have no hashtags and a very small description (such as just the name of the piece) that is a huge red flag! How can people find you that aren’t already following you if there aren’t searchable words on your post? Perhaps you do write up a long description and even sprinkle in a handful of hashtags. Are those words catered to the words that your niche audience might be searching for? If you use generic, over-saturated hashtags like #artist #glassart #glass #az #art you probably aren’t getting noticed often, if at all by new people. Each of those hashtags is so over-used that it is near impossible to be seen before your post is buried in an endless sea of posts. Finding a way to make your hashtags specific (but not too rare - you still want it to be something at least 10k or more people are looking for…) is vital to attracting new fans that are looking for what you do.
You can find out how many posts a hashtag currently has by searching it in Instagram in the search bar - then scroll until you see the “See All Results” link at the bottom.
Click on that, then at the top toggle it to “Tags” and you’ll see all kinds of #glassart related tags and how they are trending.
As you can see the top ones are in the millions of posts - meaning your chances of being seen are slim.
As you look down the list you see more #hashtag suggestions with the ideal 10-100k posts - meaning it's just busy enough that it's being searched, but not so trendy that you’ll disappear right after posting. You’d want to try something like #fusedglass #desertart #localazart #glassblowing #wovenglass #arizonaartists #azart to get into these niche type selections for a variety of searches. These are much more unique than just a generic #art tag that will see your post buried in seconds with its overuse.
It's important to take the description seriously as well. This is your chance to talk to your audience about your piece, what inspires you, why you made it, etc. They want to get to know you and what makes you tick before purchasing from you - so take advantage of this free space to speak your mind. If you don’t have much to say about it, try making it into a story as much as possible. This will allot you more words that could potentially lead people to you through the new IG search features.
The other key to point out about social media is that building it up is not really the end goal. Sure it is nice to have a good following - but what if IG or FB disappeared tomorrow? How would your fans still find you? If you have good branding in place and another destination for them, you’re likely to survive just fine. However if you’ve built a massive following on a platform that vanishes with no way to contact them ever again - you’ve just lost all the work you’ve been building up.
This is where funneling your fans comes into play. You’ll want to have a place to send them - a newsletter sign up, your website - your sales page even. Make sure the link you want them to click on is visible in your bio on Instagram and Facebook, as well as any other social media platforms you use. Each time you post and someone new clicks on your profile, you want to direct that traffic as much as possible to the link(s*) you choose. If you chose it to be a newsletter, make sure to send a welcome email to your new subscribers to let them know what to expect from you, how often you’ll be sending updates and anything else that is pertinent to what you’d like them to know about your art. If you prefer to send them directly to your sales page of your website, make the sale by making it as easy as possible for them. If you can even have a one-click purchase option that is ideal, for the less links the customer has to click through, the more likely they are to buy.
*If you can’t choose which link you’d like to send them to - don’t worry there’s a solution for that. Try Linktree.com so you can have several places to send your fans.
Next time we’ll disseminate how to create a promotional end cap to help direct traffic from your Reels, TikTok videos and Youtube videos to solidify your brand marketing. Happy creating!