I’m leveraging my tech + marketing background to try a few more tricks on social networking site, Facebook.  I’ve written before about my Facebook Ads test.  I’ve been moderately happy with the results. My new test involves Facebook’s “Fan” pages.  Just as you can “friend” an individual, you can “fan” a brand or person you like, like the iPhone or your favorite TV show.  This allows you to get updates from that brand/person/product in your Facebook Newsfeed, just as you get updates from your friends.

Check it out, let me know what you think, oh…and “Fan me!” (click “Become a Fan” in the right-hand side bar of the page).

I wrote last month about my latest foray into online sales, Facebook advertising. I’ve spent time on Facebook for both my art career (including the Facebook Group, “Plein Air Painters“) as well as for work at Wells Fargo, where I manage their Social Media team*.

I think Facebook is doing a lot of smart things, and their new ads are no exception. Unlike many sites, Facebook contains a lot of information about their users, including their interests, gender, age, home town, etc. I know this worries some people, but not me. If by providing this information I see ads that are more appropriate to me, great. I’m going to see ads anyway, why not see ads that meet my interests?

Although I only started November 18, I do have some results to share that seem interesting. I’ve never purchased online ads (for my art career) before, so I don’t have much experience to benchmark, but I can calculate a “back of the envelope” ROI that seems pretty good.

When you start a campaign on Facebook, you can define a set of ads and see their aggregate click-through on a chart. This is mine (click any image to enlarge):

The more interesting information is shown in the Ad Campaigns tab:

The Ad Campaigns pane above shows my 6 ads running for this campaign. I was able to define very specific target user demographics for each ad I created. As you see below (left side of the screen shot), and ad consists of a small image and text. For example, in “Women Still Life Campaign”, I created an ad with a still life painting, introduced myself as the artist selling the work, and targeted women between the ages of 35-65, college educated, who like art (as defined in their profile).

When you define an ad target and enter the user demographic you want to see the ad, Facebook will tell you exactly how many people are in their community that meet your criteria. This is really helpful. In one case, I tried to get too targeted, and found there were less than 1,000 people that would see the ad. So defining your demographics is an art in itself: make it narrow enough to reach the people you think will connect with the ad, yet make sure the population is large enough so you’ll get ad impressions on the site and have a large enough pool of people to see it. For the seascape ad, I targeted both male/female, 35+ and selected only upper class coastal towns in California.

Here’s a campaign that’s doing particularly well, one that doesn’t feature my art, but my headshot (see the ad preview in the far right of the screen shot):

With my limited experience so far, I’ve found there are at least three key factors that make Facebook ad successful:

• Fine tune the $ CPC. You need to experiment with the CPC (cost per click) you’re willing to pay. I started at 0.11, and found I got very few impressions. The Facebook system will obviously choose to display ads at the highest CPC possible, so if you’re underbidding other advertisers seeking the same user demographic, you won’t get impressions, which means you won’t get clicks that can then lead to sales. As you can see above, I’m paying between 20-30 cents per click.
• Be creative. My ad that targets hikers has been particularly successful. I just thought, when I’m out painting, most of the people I run into are hikers and they seem the most interested in nature + art. Not surprising, right? For my still life ad–sorry in advance for being sexist!–I targeted older, college educated women. I’ve found that they’re the most likely to buy my floral still life paintings, so I transfered that practical experience to online ads. The great thing about their system is you can create lots of ads and experiment, see what works.
• Select the right image. The image you can select for the ad is around 100×80 pixels. Small! So, pick a painting (or fragment) that is really easy to “read” at that size. Also, perhaps not surprisingly, my most successful ad (in terms of % click-through) was the one that featured my headshot, not my paintings! I don’t know what to take that! Other than the fact it IS a SOCIAL network, so people are there to connect with others. If you present YOURSELF first, it appears people are much more receptive.

Have the ads been successful? I’ve spent $82.96, and I’ve received three email inquires and had a sale of two studies for a total of around $400. Bottom line, I’m not sure. I guess it was worth it. I had $400 in sales by spending $82. What do you think? I’m going to try this a few more months and see how it trends.

Also, thanks to Donald Neff for this article that also looks at how artists can use Facebook to target buyers.  It doesn’t talk about specific results (as I do here), but provides a good overview of how the system works.

* I should mention that my opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone, and not that of Wells Fargo. Disclaimer over!

How many open studios have you done? They’re a lot of work, right (Mike Bailey)? There’s got to be another way.

I’m a “high tech” guy–that’s what people call me, usually other artists–so I decided to try something different, an online-only Open Studios sale. I’ll advertise using my online resources, like online ads, social networks, this blog, email lists I belong to, etc. It’s a good test.
All my paintings are in an Excel spreadsheet, so I selected paintings for sale and used “mail merge” in MS Word to generate the HTML for the site. I’ll let you know how it goes, and be happy to share my code if anyone is interested.
I’m going to launch from this blog first for a few days, so you can get first choice: http://www.edterpening.com/store.html

Let me know if you come across any problems, or have any suggestions. Happy shopping!

Okay, call me an addict. First, there was chocolate (thanks, mom!), then, my “Crackberry“, now Facebook. What can I say, I get obsessions. Art is an obsession, no harm in that, right?

One of the features on Facebook I’ve decided to try for my “virtual open studio” (ie, cleaning out my studio sale) is “Facebook Flyers”. It’s a neat idea. Remembering that Facebook is built around the idea of friends, virtual neighborhoods and so on: at home, how would you advertise a garage sale? Sure, start with Craig’s List…but you’d post fliers, right? That’s the idea with Facebook flyers. You can post advertisements that feature your sale, and most important: target them to networks, be it neighborhoods or schools.

So, I’ve devised a little test. I’ve taken one of my paintings from my “virtual open studios” and targeted it using Facebook Flyers. The one I selected was my painting of the USS Hornet for the “Jewel by the Bay” paint out this past summer. So now the question is, where do I target? You can target by gender, age group, neighborhood and school. There’s Alameda…yes, I could target delivery of the flyers to people that live in Alameda where the USS Hornet is docked. But I realized there is a school of alumni that may be most interested, the US Naval Academy!

So, there it is. My Facebook Flyer, targeted for delivery (5,000 flyer ads for $10) delivered to only current students and alumni of the US Naval Academy.

I’ll let you know how it goes.  To learn more about Facebook Flyers, check out Charlene Li’s Blog, “Groundswell”.

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re familiar with social networks, like Facebook, MySpace, etc. I’ve been following Facebook for a while (as part of my role at Wells), and think it has a lot of potential to connect people/groups in much more meaningful ways than MySpace. So, I’ve set up a group called “Plein Air Painters“, and I’d love you to join us!
The group is focused on the art of painting “plein air”, outdoors in natural light. For now, membership is restricted to plein air artists, of any level. This is a place to learn, make connections and share your experience. We’ll be able to start online discussions, submit photos of paintings to share or critique, and list events–like shows, paint-outs, workshops, and so on.
Here’s how to join:
If you’re not a member of Facebook,

1. Click here to register
2. You’ll then need to check your email for a confirmation from Facebook, click the link in the email to confirm with Facebook.
3. Click here to visit the group.
4. Click the “Request to Join Group” link on the right, below the painting.

If you are a member, click here to visit the group, then “Request to Join Group” link on the right, below the painting. Here’s what the page will look like… See the link “Request to Join Group” under the painting, below right:

It’s time to clean out my studio, and offer paintings at a discount for you holiday shoppers! November is apparently the largest retail month, so I’m going to join in with an online-only, unframed studio sale.

Starting November 1st, I will have web pages set up for this sale that will allow you to select a painting, pay online (using PayPal’s site) and enter your shipping address/information.

I am also going to experiment with online advertising, buying targeted ads on Facebook. (”Facebook Flyers”) For those of you that sell your art (probably the majority of my readers), I will let you know how that works out. If you have any online sales/advertising tips, please chime in with comments. I have noticed a wide variety of sales approaches by other artists, from eBay to specialized art sales sites. What works for you?

I am going for volume here, so these unframed prices are big discounts (hope this doesn’t hurt me later!):

$100 - 6×8
$150 - 8×10
$175 - 9×12
$250 - 11×14
$275 - 12×16
$500 - 16×20

I received several emails after sending out my latest newsletter, many from other artists wondering how to approach this communications tool. I have a combination of marketing and web experience that informs how I design and write newsletters that may be of use to you. Here are some tips:

1. Make it easy for your website readers to subscribe. I write my own web form that sends an email to me with the fields I ask for, such as their name, how they heard about me (important!), etc. I then copy/paste that into both an MS Outlook group contact list and MS Excel. I know there are other programs and web-based tools to help manage this…If you know of one that you like, chime in with comments to let us know. I do steer away from free advertising based tools as I don’t want to clutter my newsletter with other peoples messages.
2. Respect your readers time. I don’t know about you, but my email inbox isn’t equivalent to a letter box, where I’m eager to get the next personal correspondence from a pen-pal in Paris. It’s a to-do list, a task list and reminder. Visualize your reader getting dozens of such emails and ask yourself why they’d read yours. Be succint. Also, be clear in your signup form what your privacy policy is (here are some free templates). I inform subscribers that I will never sell or loan out my list to anyone.
3. No dead ends. This is important. A key purpose of a newsletter is to draw people in. Get their interest. Once you have, give them someplace to go and learn more. In an HTML newsletter context, that means lots of great contextual links back to your website or other interesting resources. Read your newsletter as an outsider, or ask someone else to, asking yourself, when would someone want to know more?
4. Pictures. We’re artists, after all! Yes, a “picture is worth a thousand words“, and since you’re respecting your reader…use imagery to say more with less. Pictures of YOU are important too. Some people will see your name in the “From” field and make a connection, while others will recogize you by face. I used a picture of Gracie and I in this newsletter because people almost always remember her!
5. Be authentic, personal. This is your email to another person, directly. Don’t think of it as a “mass-communication” PR pitch. You’ll fail. Write it as if you were sitting across the table with a friend at Starbucks. Be relaxed, and you. Something I’m working on is using MS Word Mail Merge to create personalized newsletters. Eg, start with a personal greeting. “Hey Sean, “…and “I hope you’re enjoying the painting you purchased last year, “Beach Town”., etc.
6. Tease. Not in a stripper-kinda-way, but you know, leave something for next time. Make them want to get your next newsletter. Tell them what’s coming up.

Got newsletter tips? Chime in!

Resources

• Newsletter Design (About.com)
• Public Newsletter Archive
• Yahoo Answers