okay so we're gonna talk about online stuff which means that Klee is probably
gonna take the lead because she is the queen of online and I am NOT the queen
hola you amazing artists so we got a question today that got me thinking
about my online marketing and online stuff so the question is from Kid Rock
and forever what's up kid rocking forever hey
question is I'm trying to sell and show on Facebook and Instagram but no one is
buying is it just like you said do people really not buy art online so
people do buy art online online is a great market it's a great opportunity to
be able to sell art it's one of the reasons that US artists could be
self-employed now versus needing a gallery or needing festivals and things
like that to be set up for us to do our thing back in the day if we wanted to be
self-employed and set ourselves up we would have to open up a brick-and-mortar
location or at least get a reputation out there by doing a lot of those
community shows and stuff whereas now we can actually sell our stuff online and
broaden our market before it was just locally now it's worldwide I have
collectors that are from all around the world yeah we ship stuff internationally
all the time thanks to our store this built of 1 and 0 but here's the thing
ecommerce and social media are two different things yes yes they are one of
the misconceptions that I had was that as soon as I get my online store up that
I'm gonna be making a whole bunch of that people are just gonna be like
rushing to my online store you know pushing other people to the side fact is
that what I really experienced was crickets I'm still picturing people
physically rushing to your online store as though it existed somewhere yeah yeah
they're they're rushing to their own computers you know what I mean wishing
each other yeah that's that's the struggle is real as it turns out no
nobody was like going nobody knew I existed because that's the problem when
you have your stuff online nobody really knows that you exist because it's not
like you pop up on the front page of everybody's computer just
doesn't happen that way and honestly I'm not here to talk to you about algorithms
and all that stuff a lot of people try to follow a certain with a certain
rhythm rhythm I don't concern myself with the algorithms or the SE O's or
things like that obviously I do want to make sure that my tags and my title and
my descriptions all are cohesive so that things are searchable but as far as
worrying about like Google algorithms or Etsy algorithms or how the computer
decides to they change that so often that it just doesn't even matter
recently a bunch of stores on Etsy they had their shops optimized for the
algorithm that was on Etsy took a dive nose dive because as he changed their
algorithm so like and that's happened a bunch of times on Google and it's
happened a bunch of times on every search engine because they just changed
the algorithm I don't worry about that I get a lot of questions about that
because people think that I'm like some kind of marketing guru and I'm not I'm
not a marketing guru I just like creating stuff and putting it out there
in front of as many people as possible and connecting with a lot of people it's
more about the personal connection for me than it is the whole marketing my art
thing when it comes to social media it's all about putting my story out there so
I don't really rate the success by how many items I sell on social media it's
it's rated mostly on what is the response rate that I get you got to
think about it this way it's the same thing as setting up at a market you may
have 2,000 people visit your booth or walked by your booth at a market and
that entire day you may have to people buy something so it's the same thing on
social media the more people that see your stuff the more chances you have of
somebody purchasing something but in order to get to a place where you are
showing it to a lot of people you have to consistently do it in a market where
maybe you don't have that much of a return find another reason that is
personal to you for putting your stuff out there on social media on Facebook
like you said or an Instagram that doesn't have anything to do with a
return on sales because that way you're getting the satisfaction of
putting it out there I know that this isn't the case for everybody I know
people do sell things on Instagram and Facebook in my personal experience I had
to find another reason to show my stuff because it is incredibly rare that I
sell anything through social media yeah I post to social media to document my
progress as an artist and engage with people and there are things you could do
on Instagram to make it easy there is a way to integrate your store so if there
is a store button that takes them directly I mean these are all things
that you could look into those are all things that we will eventually look into
but also you got to remember a lot of times people are just liking things they
see it online they think it's beautiful they wonder whether or not they're gonna
buy it and it has to be super easy for them to get there a lot of times we get
upset because nobody is purchasing anything online but in order for them to
get to that place where they need to purchase something it's almost like they
have to like crawl through a minefield in order to get there so with Instagram
a lot of the people that sell on Instagram it's because they have it set
up directly and I think you could do that going through WooCommerce there are
different ways that you could do that that's something that you would have to
look into yourself for me since I don't have the shops linked I use social media
as a tool to remind people that I exist but that's about it so a lot of
marketing people will look at me and be like oh so you do the sell without
trying to sell no I don't try to sell because if I am rating my success based
on how much I'm selling online what other markers of success do I have
and the markers of success that I have it's not even how many people respond to
my post it is whether or not I posted something that I find amazing that day
something where I can look back through my story line and see authenticity and
see awesomeness like holy crap I have a pretty amazing life don't get
discouraged because people are not buying online it's like any other market
except it is a very vast and larger market I'm not saying that I've never
sold anything through Facebook or Instagram there are plenty of pieces
that people have seen and they've bought there are a lot of pieces that people
have seen a year ago on Instagram or Facebook that have bought this year
cuz they needed to save up for it but I don't rely on my social media for
marketing as you guys could probably tell from watching this video I mean
where is the art rafi are you really an artist do you ever make any paintings a
lot of you out there like roughly we'd like to see more art in your videos
since you're an artist and like all you get is my bearded talking head at the
end of my two cents with this I do the same thing on my e-commerce platform as
I do with social media which is I try to be consistent on my ecommerce store I
try to add at least one new thing per week and honestly my answer may not be
the best answer out there because I as you know I always push face to face
marketing get out there talk to people that is the marketing that I rely on
when it comes to my social media or my online stuff that for me is a way of
connecting with people from around the world with YouTube I get to connect with
artists from all around the world that is amazing to me and that's what I get
stoked about it's not about selling stuff to you in fact I market these
videos to artists so I'm I'm just wanting to connect and when you're
dealing with social media think of it in that way you're just wanting to connect
eventually a side effect of that will be getting some sales from your online
store that is the best advice that I could give because that's what I do I
don't know if it is the best advice overall I'm not I'm not a marketing guy
hopefully that answered your question kid rocking forever don't get
discouraged just just keep putting stuff out there and find another reason why
you're putting stuff out there when you think about it the simplicity of it is
you're an artist you create artwork and you put it out there in as many places
as possible and that's it that's the simplicity of it whether it's online or
whether it is face-to-face whether it is in a gallery or not in a gallery whether
it is doing your own show or a studio visit or a portfolio whatever it is just
get your stuff out there and have fun doing it don't don't don't get
discouraged if you don't get sales that's what happens to a lot of
so-called starving artists is that they get out there
and because things don't happen immediately they get discouraged and
then they give up don't allow that to happen don't get discouraged find a
different reason why you're posting stuff to Instagram and Facebook
Instagram Facebook because you're like I'm the most awesome look how awesome I
go back through my page and look at all that artwork awesome awesome there's a
bonus question are you ready okay bonus question thanks for another
great video day YouTube movie quote can you name it the two youths is that what
you do you yeah you didn't read that wrong my cousin Vinnie
the two youths and if you guys have a question for us just go ahead and leave
it in the comment section below and thank you so much for watching you
guys you guys are absolutely freakin amazing I totally adore you and if you
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subscribe that's it say goodbye Queen good day adios