Chris: I think you’re right to be concerned. We are also looking for alternatives to FB for hosting our groups. And most of my clients use biz pages to feed their Instagram posts to. Never hurts!

I see you mention Facebook and FB business pages a lot. With all that has come out about Facebook and privacy, I am really leery of investing in Facebook, and I know many of my friends (real friends, not FB friends, lol) are moving away from or have left Facebook entirely. I spend less and less time there and don’t even trust posts to private groups not being used by FB to target ads to me. It’s creepy and disturbing.

I don’t see a good alternative for hosting webinars and “private” groups, but gosh, I wonder how many artists or other creative types who have been relying on Facebook’s streaming platform are going to have to seriously re-assess. Any thoughts? Have you heard anything among your network about concerns with continuing on Facebook so heavily?

It’s tough as an introvert to continually be active – but my best results have always come from when I’ve challenged myself and put more effort in to with ACTIVE marketing. I think a lot of creatives are introspective and often introverted and therein lies the challenge.

But thank you, this post is really motivating. I’m going to share it.

I have found that being one on one with a client to tell stories about my work and answer their questions is interpersonally satisfying and often leads to sales. People love to hear what’s behind or inside a work of art and that creates more of a relationship between us. Often it intrigues them to hear about the making process and to see my studio. I think if I could get each potential client alone for a tour and talk, I could sell work almost every time. That personal connection is powerful.

I don’t think the activities you’ve mentioned are passive at all. Maybe another word would be better? Because creating a postcard when most only send emails (emails take time too) is time consuming considering that one must design (being a graphic designer I admit to being a perfectionist on this front) and print as well as add postage. Creating FB events and individually inviting people all requires so much time. I always add personal messages. Research and writing for a blog and posting in places where they can’t be automatically posted took me 2 hours at one point. I have specific days for Insta, Facebook, and Twitter because you aren’t supposed to just post but engage as well as curating your content and attempt to encourage discussion. Some of the things you mentioned are easier said than done though. Just segmenting your mailing list requires you to capture information in a different way which requires some research – possibly even doing a survey of your subscribers – on part of the administrator.

I know and believe marketing is a very important component of the business of being an artist. I think there needs to be balance; seeing what works specifically for us and our businesses and time left to take a breath. I know you aren’t saying to do all of these at once, but for those of us who want so badly to succeed we will wear ourselves out trying all of these things at once. I do agree that trying some of these actions to engage and activate at various points in time could be good alternatives.

Over the years I’ve so appreciated you helping artists to see themselves as business people and helping us think about ourselves beyond the false narrative of the “poor artist”. Thank you!

Social media is still my personal downfall. I just don’t dedicate enough active time to it.

Let me know how it goes, Laura.