Tip For Posting To Facebook Groups

What kind of groups are you posting to?

My thoughts are that posting to art groups or photography groups is probably not going to yield up much results as those groups are primarily made up of image creators who want to sell and not image consumers who want to buy.

Or are you doing something like taking pictures in say Texas and then posting to the "Texas Staycation" group?

I figure regardless of whether it directly leads to sales, engaging people in groups could only have a positive impact on SEO and general presence. At the least, since I started posting to groups I'm getting likes and follows on my FB page. That means your stuff is automatically in more feeds when you post.

I'm pretty new to this, but it seems like everything's about sowing seeds and playing the long game (not to mention posting in groups is a very small investment of time for a potentially large reward).

To your question, my work's very niche. I'm in some general art/photo groups, but also quite a few 'long tail', more specific groups (skull/macabre/surreal/gothic art enthusiasts).


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Joseph Westrupp
bestilled.com

Thanks Joseph! I do a similar thing.

For one of my niches I have 8 FB Groups that I post to. I do this not by posting directly in the group but by sharing the post from my business page ('Share to group').

I post the pic to my Business Page on day 1. On day 2 it gets shared to Group 1, next day to group 2 etc.

So I share 8 different pics to 8 different groups each day. Some groups don't accept links to sales sites like FAA so I remove them before sharing. These groups are the last ones I share to.

Brian: there is a discussion from Floyd Snider with some groups we can post to: https://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=3394094

I prefer closed rather than public groups for this reason, They don't appear in the Facebook feed unless one is a member of that group.

Matthias, I share my images to groups that allow a link to my artist site on Pixels. I am wondering how you remove the link to your site when some groups don't allow them.

I use 50 to 60 groups in a 25 minute wack. It does not post more than one to my feed. I have lost no friends etc.....

I post a given image to my page and then share it all those times.

It is not spam. It is allowed on FB. I reach between 2 and 3 million people....but that boils down to about a reach of 2000 people. About 10 shares of the image often.

On Ebay that becomes 200 views in a 24 hour period. No bots.

So if all you guys are doing is posting to 10 groups would that be more than 30 views?

Dave

Carol, I always post a picture (about 1000 Pixel on the long side) and the link to FAA. I share it in the first 5 days to the first 5 groups (that allow links), then I remove the link and share it to the other 3.

Matthias, I understand you now. I'm sharing my photo directly from my artist website. So I'll probably have to do what you're doing for groups that don't allow links. Thanks :)

Does anybody know of an auto-posting app that will allow scheduling posts to facebook groups?

Buffer won't. On Buffer you can attach a group, but only if you created it. If it is a group you joined (not created, nor administer) you cannot post to it.

Jessica, guess my main concern here, and the reason for this method, is the people who're also members of the multiple groups you're posting to.

Carol, ha, I do the same—groups that don't allow sales links I won't join.


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Joseph Westrupp
bestilled.com

Brian, It's just as important to make yourself known to the sellers as it is the buyers. The most active members in most FB groups that we find ourselves in tend to be the sellers of art, and are more likely to interact with your posts, which in turn improves reach and SEO.

JW, Spreadsheets don't get much mention here on FAA, which I find curious. Without a spreadsheet, I would be lost, particularly when a new product is introduced that I may need to attend to.

I'm still a bit glassy-eyed when it comes to FB groups. I don't have the experience or the breadth of knowledge I believe I need to be comfortable with a reasonable strategy yet.

-YoPedro
Twitter@YoPedro

On that latter point, me too, man. However, what I'm doing is at least garnering page likes and follows, something that wasn't happening through sporadic posts to my page (big surprise that didn't work!).

What else do you use spreadsheets for?


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Joseph Westrupp
bestilled.com

does any of this actually work though?

i only had 1 good one sell over and over because a known member on their board advertised it. but the trick only worked the one time. when he tried it again, no one cared at all. i'm thinking that while i can photo bomb them, and people see it - they are more likely to ignore it and see it as spam and i waste my time.

has anyone had any proven results? those images advertised sold?


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Facebook seems like a real 24/7 job. For me, Anything that needs that much of my time and interaction trying to get sales is to much of my time and taking away from my real profession. The only one I see as being worth working on is Instagram. Its the new wave of interaction and doesn't take all day to work on and figure out. I hate the phone part though, but since phones are almost as big as laptops now, I'm getting better with it


Kevin OConnell
https://kogalleris.com/

There is nothing spammy about it at all. In fact, if you do it right, this is seen as valuable content by the people that start and manage these groups.

And yes it works, I sell through Facebook all the time. I am packaging up a $379 order that is going to Russian right now this morning that I sold on Facebook.

Sunday I sold a new piece I hung in a local gallery five minutes after posting it to the Facebook group that I started for that gallery. Oh, and Ansel Adams is not a member of that gallery so he did not help me sell it. I posted that the image was new and now available in the gallery and within five minutes I had a post in the group, an email and a telephone call that the buyer wanted me to hold the piece and she would be down in the morning to pick it up. I told her the gallery was not open on Monday but I would meet her there in the morning if she would give me a time. She asked if she could come that morning. 45 minutes later the piece was paid for and gone.

I promote eBay 99cent actions only on Facebook. I use them as lost leaders. Funny thing is I have never lost a dime on any of them. They average selling just over $100 for prints I have $10 or less in. So yes, you can sell on Facebook if you know what you are doing.

I also sell Signed and Numbered Limited edition prints. People made fun of me because I posted in garage sale groups. Some will remember not that long ago that I reporting selling a $1500 and a $500 piece to the person that bought it through a garage sale group in northern Wisconsin. Here is the kicker. The rules said that only local residence's post in the group so everything was for local inspection and pickup. The gal that started the group was in my high school graduation class. I asked her if I could post in the group if I shipped directly to the buyers and had a 100% money back guarantee and gave free shipping. She said yes.

I belong to hundreds of groups and I have made thousands of posts and I have neve been accused of spamming, not once. In fact, I have had group administrators private message me and ask why I was no longer posting on a regular basis.

Just because some people can not figure out how to get it done successfully does not mean that no one else has or that they are "spamming" or "photo bombing" anyone. The only one that has the right to determine rather or not their group is being abused is the people that own those groups.

And for the record, those likes and comments on Facebook are pretty much every bit as worthless as they are here on FAA, IMHO. I find that there is no relationship to the number likes and comments and items that sell. I understand the idea that they will bump the post to the top. But I still do not see any relationship to that actually selling the image.

What I have found that does not really work, or has not worked for me yet anyway are the Sale Ads in the groups that allow them. I have only made one sale via a sale ad and I have hundreds of them out there.


Selling on FB through your own "page" or "pages" is not, IMHO, the way to go. I have a potential reach of way over 4 million people through groups. How many people are ever going to find your shop page or fan page or whatever page?

That is like trying to use your FB "friends" as a market base. Even if you have 3000 or 5000 or 50,000 friends that is not near enough of a market for significant sales. I could not care less about how many friends of followers I have or how many people find or like or rate my pages. That is totally meaningless to me. On the other hand some do report that they have sold doing just exactly that, marketing only to their "friends" and pages.

The bottom line is you have to figure out how to make it work for you. The fact that others have failed to do that should not discourage anyone form finding their own methods that lead to success.

i'd like to see examples of how all of you are wording these things.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

So Floyd, I looked at your FB page and I like the way the links to photos show up - and don't look spammy but you can still tell they are for sale - rather than just plain posting a photo.
Could you verify if this is how you are doing it?
- go to the photo you want to share from your AW
- click the Facebook "button" in the row of social media buttons
- share link to my FB page or my fan page that I manage
- from there share that entire post onto a group's page (there seem to be drop downs to do these things)

I was trying to use the embeded link (copying and pasting it) and it wasn't bringing up the photo.
I tried the above way and it seems to work.

I have five facebook pages and several different DBA's. I post several different formats to different groups depending on the requirements of the groups. If you want to post to a group, find out what the group wants by talking to the person that set the group up or just watch it for at least a few hundred posts and see what others are doing. Find out who the administrators (not the founder) are and watch for their posts. Find something that will work for you and copy it.

I am not posting much anymore from FAA. I do not believe in the auto-post here for serious marketing but because I am no longer doing serious marketing for my FAA site, I have it turned on just to have something going out there. But I do not believe in ANY of the auto posts systems that are out there. I want 100% control of what, when and where I post to any social media.

Until FAA starts telling us where we are getting the results through better stats, I think it is a waste of time to market the site unless it is all you have to market. For the four and half years I have been here, we have been told those enhanced stats were coming. I no longer believe they are.

This is no longer a big thing for me. I have moved on and I am using other outlets. This is still my only real POD site and will remain so. I am just no longer do direct marketing for it. I have a lot of things that going on that cross promote my FAA AW. But very little in the way of direct advertising.

Floyd, you are so smart.

I'm going to stop auto posting from FAA ASAP.

I want more control of that as well.

Auto posting to FB groups will get you suspended briefly...the first time.....I do not want to know about the second time.

Thing is the app for autoposting might work for a few days or such, but FB changes and you get in trouble with them.

Posting to groups can be far to valuable to have this happen.

I use my AW to post to groups, but use my Ebay account more so. Ebay offers some very clear stats. As I get some sales on Ebay the stats are supposed to fully open up to me. I am not there yet.

Dave

Floyd, what do you post to groups exactly—a link to images on your AW or something else?


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Joseph Westrupp
bestilled.com

As I said before, I use several different formats. But I never post a link to anything in FAA/Pixel mothership.

People should not be looking at what I post or what anyone else from FAA posts. They should be looking at what the groups and the people that run them want to see posted. And they should be looking at writing good ad copy that satisfies the needs of those groups. And they should have an overall marketing plan, and an idea of what they want to achieve and it should be sustainable over a decent period of time.

You need to think in terms of reaching 100's of thousands of people, millions is even better, not thousands. You need to think in terms of thousands of images posted, not dozens or even hundreds.

Some groups do not want blatant advertising, some don't care. I personally do not like a call to action ad in FB groups anyway. I may do them occasionally in a low-key fashion. But basically, I want to look more like content than advertising until they click on the image. Sometimes I put the price in the description that the see when they click and sometimes I do not. I mix it up. Sometimes I say available in mugs, t-shirts etc, and sometimes I do not.

High profile call to action: Please look at these ten new images and buy one.

Low key: My top ten selling images are really a strange, eclectic group of images.

Or, I just added these ten new images I hope you enjoy them.

Keep it simple something like: Does anyone ever get tired of just gazing out to sea? Then I post an album with five or ten seascape images in it in the appropriate groups. I never post in themed groups unless you are posted wok that fits the theme. Admins hate that! I kick people out of my groups that do that repeatedly.

I see people saying things like: I finally finished my newest painting. It took me a week to get the waves just right, yadda, yadda, yadda... I saw one the other day where the gal said something like. I hope you like this new work I am doing. I am studying under the renowned landscape artist, yadda, yadda, yadda... NO ONE CARES! KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.

No one ever sold a car by telling anyone how the catalytic converter worked or explaining the role of the timing chain in keeping the camshaft, the crankshaft and lifters all working in synchronization. No one cares!

I try not to ever ask anyone to buy anything when posting on facebook. Well almost never.

I do Sale Ads but as mentioned above, I have had very little success with them so far.

then can you give a sample of each kind of tactic so we can get an idea.

simply looking at how others posts don't help me a great deal. i joined one, its a private group, 3000 people, they sell things there related to what i sell. but not flat art. i've seen things that are totally unrelated there. nothing i can say forms a pattern of how i would place an ad there. so if you can just give a few random examples of the high and low keys - so we can actually see what you are doing, that would be more helpful then making fun of what others have tried.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

This is taking an interesting turn. Might need to rethink what I write in my posts on my page (which are what I share in groups).


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Joseph Westrupp
bestilled.com

Mike,

If you post the image link and blurb on your business page and then share it you get some stats. You click on your reach and you will see the stats.

As you do this with more groups you can see patterns of how many people engage work and how. As you get seen in the groups the stats actually rise after a few weeks. In my case guessing that is because my art is getting better and better received as the groups get used to seeing it. It is different. You know if people see something enough they are much more inclined to like it. The odd becomes the accepted and the accepted becomes the truly liked. etc

Takes time, but my stats have climbed over the weeks.

What specifically is said matters a bit, but what specifically is posted image wise longer term matters more.

Dave

i don't care too much about the stats, only how many clicked out and maybe bought something. but i'm also not putting it on the business page, i'm placing it in specific groups. i don't care much for the business page because people have to go out of their way to look for it. and i have to heavily advertise it, and there is little point to adding another stop, in getting people to my site.

but the stats aren't that important to me. knowing how many viewed and didn't click it doesn't help me. and knowing how many did click it and didn't buy it, doesn't help me either. on one group i got lucky, he is already a fan of my work.


right now i'm just posting a link to the image and my description. adding prices would be impossible since we have so many. and saying i sell it, may look like spam...


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Bypassing the business page is an interesting idea. Only thing is that you miss people following you and automatically getting your work in their feed.


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Joseph Westrupp
bestilled.com