With so many people sharing beautiful paintings, it can sometimes be intimidating to share your art in public spaces. Today, I'm going to provide some helpful tips for posting your art on social media and working with, not against, the Facebook algorithm when sharing your art in our group Acrylic Pouring for Beginners.
The first thing you should know is most people do one of two incorrect things. They either post very sporadically, or they post way too many times in a very short period of time. Both of these are seen unfavorably by the platform.
Facebook is a platform that values consistency and quality over quantity. It also hates links. This is one of the primary reasons why content creators are driven mad when using the platform because any post trying to direct people off the platform (to your website, Youtube channel, etc.) is seen negatively.
Take Good Photos
If you need to say the phrase, "The camera doesn't do it justice," you need to learn about the sorcery of good lighting. Unless you have an old phone with a poor camera, chances are you have a camera that's more than capable of taking good photos.
Light is information to a camera. Poor light means less information, which means poor photographs. You can use fancy camera lighting rigs, but you don't have to.
A cloudy day is your best friend for photographing paintings. You will get bright, diffused light without any of the glare. Ring lights for indoors are quite inexpensive as well. When it causes glare, just move it a little further back. If your indoor setting is bright naturally, you're already set.
It also takes very little time to learn basic photo editing on your phone to adjust settings.
Take many photos. Take close-ups. Hang the paintings up and put them in context. Pose with the painting. Take shots from different angles. You'll see why in the next step.
Post Consistently
Don't assume that everyone sees everything that you post. They don't. It's not that they ignore it. It literally never makes it to their feed. Meaning, if a post flops, it doesn't mean it flopped because people didn't like it.
When there is really high traffic on a particular day, what happens is there is extremely high competition for the same space in everyone's feed. These are completely unpredictable and happen to everyone. The amount of suggested content you see on Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram from people you don't follow? Yeah, that's the space we all compete for.
The best way to get around this is to post consistently. You might be thinking, "I don't make enough paintings," or, "I don't have the time," but that's why I recommended taking many photos of a single painting. This way you maximize your content from the one painting. We'll also get into what to post shortly.
How Often Should You Post
I find content performs best when you post once a day. But remember, Facebook will look at ALL your groups and personal feed. Posting once a day doesn't mean once a day in each group plus a few videos you shared that were funny. It means literally one post a day. Two per day won't completely wreck your content, but you will notice the stats drop.
Tell a Story and Ask Questions
Resist the urge to write captions like "Today's painting," or "Here's my attempt for today." Instead, tell a story about the painting or even about yourself. People will relate and react, and ultimately, the reaction is what tells the algorithm that people are interested. In a space where everyone shares art, the human element of stories is very relatable and invites engagement.
Another way of telling a story is by sharing various parts of the process in paintings. You have a lot of content to fill, and people love seeing paintings come together. The people interested in how you did it will ask questions, and that engagement will get you seen.
A very similar idea is you asking questions. "What do you think?" is a little bit generic, but a more effective example is asking the audience what to name a piece. It invites engagement and makes the audience feel involved in the process.
Rotate your content types
With all the previously mentioned ideas, It's important to rotate through them for the most benefit. Posts that make people laugh about something that happened to you while painting might not sell anything, but the engagement it creates will make it more likely more people will see what you post next. Not every post has to sell. Not every post has to be a tutorial. A good mix is usually the best recipe.
If you're using the Seller Subscription
Remember that being a seller doesn't suddenly bypass all of the above. In fact, because you are selling, following these guidelines will help you stay relatable and not come off as constantly advertising for a sale.
If you approach posting about your art exclusively as products, it will lose a lot of its charm as relatable content.
If you're finding the algorithm is treating you unfavorably, try removing words like Sale and the $ symbol and instead try phrases like "looking for a home," or, "ready for a new home" to indicate something is for sale. You can also conveniently group all the information in a comment instead of in the post, and just write "details below."
It's more important to get the content seen than the product information seen.
This tip is very specific to our group, but remember how I told you they hate links? A link is a guarantee of reduced traffic. Resist the urge to link your site or Youtube video in the sales post. Share them separately. Generally, as content creators, we accept that a post with a link to our sites and Youtube channels gets less traffic, but that's why we rotate through types of content.
If you would like to join the Seller Subscription to sell your art in Acrylic Pouring for Beginners, please visit this link: