Q&A: Do you really need Facebook?

Q: I write tutorials, I list my art on Etsy & Artfire, I blog weekly, I do FB, Google+, LinkedIn, I have a website to maintain and now I’m learning Pinterest… AND I’M TIRED and never have enough time for my art and to create!! I don’t have money to hire help! DO I REALLY NEED FACEBOOK? Can I put my energy into ONE social media? Pinterest?
– Patsy

 

A: Hey Patsy!

I don’t think you need Facebook. I tell a lot of people to “screw Facebook”.
I think artists need to focus on one or two social networks.

Those networks need to:

1) be something you’ll do – so you should enjoy your time on there or be able to push yourself to do it anyway.
2) be somewhere your target market hangs out – if they aren’t on there, why bother?
3) give you the opportunity to easily link to your website or shop in a place potential customers can actually see.
4) give you the opportunity for consistent branding as much as possible.
On that note, it sounds like you’re spread too thin overall – not just on social media. If you put focus into doing a couple of those marketing things and doing them really, really, ridiculously well then you’ll have a lot more success.

Put time limits on what you’re doing.
Perhaps your blog posts are taking an hour, but if you do a month’s worth (usually 4 posts) at once, you could cut that time to like 2 or 3 hours instead of 4 hours. Or if you’re constantly popping on and off social media, you could schedule 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night and not look at social media the rest of the day.

Your business shouldn’t be your life (I learned that the hard way) and it’s definitely important for an artist to continue creating and not get sucked into the never-ending list of things she could be doing to hopefully make more sales. Focused attention is much more lucrative anyway.

 

Do you have a question for Laura? Pop it in the comments and I might answer it on the blog!