this article was updated on August 12th 2010
Many artists, musicians, designers, crafters, writers and other creative people have Facebook accounts and can use these to reach more people and grow their creative business. There are many things to be done that can help you promote and market your work and I will name 25 that I think would be useful to implement.
This is not a post about markeing though, it’s more about the little things Facebook offers that you might have overlooked but that can have a big impact on your creative biz because you streamlined your profile to work for you. The tips reach from fairly basic to pretty advanced, so there should be something for everybody.
1 add your website/blog url to the info box under your profile pic:
If you have a website and/or blog, you need to let people know about it and make it as easy as possible for them to get there. Every link that leads back to it will also help with your search engine rankings. To do so you will have to go to your profile then click “edit profile” right under your avatar picture. Then click “contact information” and fill in your website/blog url. Save your changes. Now click on the little pencil icon in the right hand corner of your information box and choose to show your your website url to all your page visitors.
2 add a Facebook link to your blog and/or website:
Give people that visit your blog/site the chance to connect to you on Facebook (and other social networks) by adding a link to your FB profile from your blog. This way they become part of your community and will always know about your latest projects and news.
3 let your friends help you:
Every time you update your profile with a link, a photo, a video or anything else , all your friends will see this in their news feeds. Now if they like or comment on your items it will also go out to their friends and can go viral from there. The more friends you have, the more exposure for your art, your films or recipes you will get. But just adding random people is not gonna do anything. You need to find people that are truly interested in your work. Start with the friends you already have and work from there. To do so take a look at your home page sidebar . At it’s lower end you will find the friend finder link. Follow it and you will be able to find your email and IM friends and add them to Facebook.
4 create friend groups/lists:
Let’s say you live in Los Angeles, you have a gig coming up, you created an event (see no 20) and you want to invite people to come. What you should definitely not do is invite all your Facebook friends, because people in Shanghai won’t be able to come anyway and you don’t want to spam them with (for them) useless info. What you do is create friends lists. It’s real easy to do Go to your “Friends” page and start creating lists in the left sidebar. To make it even more easy, facebook will let you add people to lists right when you ask them to be your friend or when they ask you. Use this feature and your Facebook life will be much easier.
5 friend group feeds:
On your home page you have a sidebar on the left where you can choose to see friend group feeds. This simply means that you can choose to only see what your friends in Paris are up to or maybe you have a customer list and you want to find out what kind of people like your designs so you can better plan your Facebook ads (see no 24)
6 import updates from your blog and other social networks:
Right beneath the status baron the right you will find options and if you click on it, you can go to settings. It will show you a number of sites ( Flickr, YouTube, Digg, Last.fm, Delicious and more) which can be set to automatically import updates. You also have the option to import your own blog rss feed. (Alternative: if you have a FriendFeed account, get the Friendfeed application to import even more sites)
7 share with your Facebook community:
If you install the Facebook bookmarklet you will be able to share content from around the web with your community: links, videos, photos. If you share information that inspires others you will always get some love back. Drag the Share on Facebook button to your browser’s bookmarks bar (the one below the search box). From now on, you can let everybody profit from the knowledge you find online.
8 use ping.fm for status updates:
Ping.fm will let you update your status from inside your browser and it will send the same updates to other social networks as well, i.e. MySpace, Tumblr, LinkedIn and many others. After you sign up you can install their Firefox add-on here
9 facebook applications: notes, photo, videos and links:
This might be obvious but I have seen many artist profiles without any photos or videos or notes (see no.6 to import your blog here). Use these in-house Facebook applications to show your work and get the word out.
10 Tab management:
You’re talented. Strut your stuff! Move your photos box to your profile and don’t hide it in your boxes tab among butterflies and friend hugs. To manage the wall tabs on your profile page just click on the + sign on their right. select and then drag and drop in the position you want them to be. To delete a tab, click on it and then on the little pencil icon that will appear. There you will find a delete tab. To move and remove boxes, click on pencil icon in upper right hand corner of the box in question. There you will be able to delete or move it to your wall or to the boxes tab.
11 manage your application settings:
You can make applications post new content to your wall and therefore also to your friends news feeds every time you upload a photo, a video or write a new note.
go to account, then applications settings in the right upper corner of your screen. Select edit, choose application and change your settings to add a tab, choose who can see the content and handle additional permissions.
12 search apps:
Besides the apps mentioned above, there are many, many more third party apps. This means that they are not made by the Facebook team but rather by other companies and individual developers (you can even learn how to make one your own). So go ahead and explore because some of these will even let you sell your merchandise, handmade crafts, paintings or books right from your Facebook profile or page (zazzle, etsy) while others will help you connect your different communities around the web (youtube, twitter, friendfeed). To search the database go to the applications directory and start browsing.
13 add your youtube videos to profile and pages:
Want to show your art or music videos on your profile and pages? Pick one of these apps to do it for you.
14 your own art application:
Upload and share your art work with artshare
15 get more readers for your blog:
If you have a blog you can join over 450.000 other bloggers on NetworkedBlogs. It will let you find new blogs to read and new readers for your own blog. Add a tab or box to display which blogs you like and be sure to find other bloggers to network with and to get inspired. Join the Creative Web Biz page to get started.
16 marketplace:
buy and sell anything you want with the marketplace application.
17 etsy shop for profiles and pages:
If you took the handmade pledge and have an etsy account you can add your etsy shop on your profile or your business/fan page.
18 sell t-shirts, cards, posters and other merchandise in a merch store:
Zazzle and Threaded both make it possible to add a store to your facebook page. Check it out
19 sell your music:
If you have an account with ReverbNation , let people listen to , download and buy your music with their app
20 create events for your art shows, music gigs and book readings:
With Facebook Events, you can organize gatherings and parties with your friends, as well as let people in your community know about upcoming events. The Events applications page displays your upcoming events, any invitations you have pending, and links to your own events.
21 fan pages:
Fan pages let you do the same stuff your profile does without the limit of 5000 friends. It is also useful if you want to keep private and business seperate. You can read about the benefits of fan pages here and also check out ‘10 Facebook Fan Page Tips for Creative Entrepreneurs‘ here on Creative Web Biz.
22 join other peoples fan pages and interest groups:
To find other people interested in film, writing or cooking join other peoples fan pages and/or groups. Check if your favorite artist has a fan page and join it. Chances are that his/her fans might like your art as well. Add some of them to your friends. Check out what groups your friends belong to or join these to get you started: Creative Business Owners / Twitter Artists Artisans and Art Lovers / Artdictive / 1.000.000 facebook artists / Artists who refuse to starve. Creative people share their business secrets
23 facebook ads:
Ever noticed the ads on your profile page? Well you can advertise your creative business as well. If you create an ad that is entertaining, informative or engaging you might win some new fans. Read this post by Mari Smith to find out more.
24 facebook connect:
facebook connect is an application that will let your blog readers sign in to your blog with their facebook credentials. The comments they leave will be displayed in their facebook profiles and feeds. This means more exposure for you and your work. Here is how to add facebook connect to your blog in 8 minutes
25 even more tips and tutorials:
30+apps to do business on facebook
facebook posts on mashable, the social media site
a whole blog with facebook tips
.
That’s it, or at least as far as I’m concerned. But i ‘m sure there are many more tips and tricks for creative entrepreneurs on facebook and I’d be happy to read them in the comments or on the Creative Web Biz Facebook page.
Good tips but most of the time Facebook annoys me. hehe. It was cool back when it was just for college students, now it’s a rush of too much info on people.
the info rush is what I like about it. It’s like a stream you dip into from time to time. Very useful and highly addictive :-)
Awesome article! This gave me lots of great ideas and lots of motivation. I’m not quite ready to unleash my movie on the world yet, but when I am your article has given me lots of help with how to use the tools at my disposal!
Unfortunately, I’m not seeing my website under my profile pic. Is that possibly due the recent upgrade FB just unleashed? Or am I looking in the wrong spot? Also, item #7 has an incomplete sentence at the end. Not to sound critical, but I’m dying to know how that sentence ends, lol! :)
Thanks again, wonderful tips!
SolarSoda’s last blog post..Friday the 13th – a Day in the Life
I finished the sentence in #7 for you although it doesn’t contain any vital info :-)
And I added you on Facebook, so we can get your blog url up.
BTW, nice blog background!!
Wow, that was quick for a reply! Thanks for that! Thanks for the adds on FB and Twitter, too. I can’t take credit for the blog background though: I’m sure you probably saw it, but in case you didn’t there is a link in the upper left corner that takes you to “The Cutest Blog on the Block” which is a site maintained by a couple of enterprising women who live in Arizona. They have bee-yoo-tiful backgrounds and various blog graphics and accents. You could probably do more with it than I did, I still have a LOT to learn about that stuff, lol. ;)
Which is why I’m bookmarking great articles like the one wrote here! :)
SolarSoda’s last blog post..Friday the 13th – a Day in the Life
Hmmm…but most art is sold in real galleries, stores and other venues and not one tip here on how to get in there.
For the most part all this tips end of getting is just socializing with other artists via the web.
To get into “real” (brick and mortar) galleries and museums and sell there,you need to connect to gallery owners, museum directors, art collectors etc. Facebook has over 175 million members who create and join groups of all sorts. Over 500 of these groups are gallery related (just go to “groups”and search for “galleries”). And there are also over 500 museum groups. They range from virtual museums to the MoMA in NYC. Where else would you find so many people in your field that you can connect to in such an easy way? So far, I have gotten free tickets to art shows, features in magazines, found new galleries to exhibit in and met many amazing artists who have taught me stuff I would never have come up with on my own. All this happened on Facebook and other social networks. This is a very new way of doing business which I find very exciting. It’s about creating your own career just like Val does on YouTube: She creates one video a week about a painting she made and sells it to the highest bidder.She has 30.000 subscribers and sells every single painting. There are no “real” galleries or museums involved (http://www.youtube.com/valsartdiary)
Trying to figure out how to add a URL to the information box on my business Page (not profile)… the little pencil doesn’t offer that option here :(
Steven, have you filled in your website url in the contact info section of your page? Only then you will be able to add it via the “pencil”.
Yamile,
These are really helpful strategies. Thanks for putting them all together in one place.
I am finding my tribe of creative entrepreneurs on Facebook, it’s been great.
Keep up the wonderful work!
Lisa
Fantastic article- I learned a lot of things I didn’t know and tweaked a few things I did know.
This has been a great help! Would you give me permission to reprint this on my blog? – with credits to you and a link back to your site of course! (http://londonartgirl.wordpress.com/)
sure, go ahead :-)
Wow great article! Tons of info here!
I love your post. Thank you so much for the helpful tips. I have some in place. Right timing to implement the others.
Love your flower bangles! :)
Fatma’s last blog post..Live Your Dream
Great article with beginner news for facebook newbies.
I would like you to post something about the new facebook marketing options that are available out there.
.-= Kasper Larsen´s last blog ..welcome to our new site =-.
I find FB pretty confusing… thanks so much for these tips- am implementing some of them right away
[...] Read the full article here. [...]
Might be time to update this? So much of the Facebook UI has changed, and much of what you’ve listed here seems to be missing or changed.
thank you for reminding me to update. I did it just now :-)
I signed to your blog rss feed. Will you post more about the subject?