Change in Facebook Pages Rules will affect artists marketing
their art
their art
There's a major
change coming for those who use Facebook to promote their art. Facebook is changing the rules and
changing the way specific types of posts will show up in the news feed. I'm
certainly going to be having a rethink of how I promote other people via my
Facebook Page.
This is a RECOMMENDED READ for all those who have a Facebook Page and use it
to market their art and/or exhibitions.
change coming for those who use Facebook to promote their art. Facebook is changing the rules and
changing the way specific types of posts will show up in the news feed. I'm
certainly going to be having a rethink of how I promote other people via my
Facebook Page.
This is a RECOMMENDED READ for all those who have a Facebook Page and use it
to market their art and/or exhibitions.
The
announcement
- The announcement comes
in An Update to News Feed: What it Means for Businesses - There is a commentary
on the change in rules in the Wall Street Journal New Facebook Rules Will Sting Entrepreneurs Network
to Remove Unpaid Plugs in User News Feeds
Some numbers about Facebook and Facebook Pages
It's now very difficult to ignore Facebook when it comes to marketing art or
the importance of mobile devices for accessing Facebook.
- In October nearly a
billion people visited Facebook Pages (as opposed to Facebook accounts) - More than 750 million
(75+%) of those visits happened on mobile devices. - Facebook is on three of
every four smartphones - More than half of the
people on Facebook visit every day
Summary
of the changes in January 2015
This is a summary of the upcoming changes to what's allowed on Facebook
Pages and what this means for artists.
- PLANNED ACTION: The
Facebook Newsfeed will introduce new controls for promotional posts to
Facebook Pages. Facebook aims to make Facebook Pages more engaging and enjoyable
for consumers - new controls will be
introduced to eliminate promotional posts (e.g. buy my art)
from people's Facebook Page feeds - the change will
be rolled out in January 2015 - which I guess means it will
probably happen country by country or server by server
Pages
that post promotional creative should expect their organic distribution to fall
significantly over time.
that post promotional creative should expect their organic distribution to fall
significantly over time.
- BACKGROUND:
Facebook has identified a number of traits which make certain posts
on Facebook Pages appear too promotional. These are: - Posts that solely push
people to buy a product or install an app - Posts that push people
to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context - Posts that reuse the
exact same content from ads - ADVICE AND INFORMATION:
- this is the website
for Facebook
Business ie people wanting to use Facebook to connect with
customers - Businesses are recommended
to refer to their Page
publishing tips and best practices. - If you need help in
using Facebook for your business goals, they're keen to make that help
available - see Optimise your Facebook marketing - my advice is to read
what they say so you get no nasty surprises!
What this
effectively means is that all those who have been using Facebook pretty much like
their blog and alerting people to new paintings or prints being available will
find that their Facebook Feed will be effectively "buried" in future
IF it is deemed to be too promotional.
I'd also advise people to NEVER EVER
effectively means is that all those who have been using Facebook pretty much like
their blog and alerting people to new paintings or prints being available will
find that their Facebook Feed will be effectively "buried" in future
IF it is deemed to be too promotional.
I'd also advise people to NEVER EVER
- share a link to
anything remotely promoting an event or product without adding in your own
words
i.e. don't just share it without offering an opinion using words which are
NOT in the original post. - do not ask people to
like your page in order to enter any competition for your artwork
I'm
thinking through what might be the inevitable next steps.....
For those who are using their personal accounts to share their art in an
overt way, you need to be aware that this already breaches what the personal
account is supposed to be used for. I would NOT recommend you do this on your
account.
By all means share your art - but I'd strongly advise you don't say a
word about any commercial aspect of it. Otherwise you too could find your
account buried.
Do make sure your website is available via your "About"
profile page. Make sure that tells people how they can buy your art.
In other words create interest on Facebook and engage people - but do NOT
try selling your art. Instead make them look for wherever you do sell it.
For those who are moderating Facebook Groups, it's vital that you keep
on top of spam.
thinking through what might be the inevitable next steps.....
For those who are using their personal accounts to share their art in an
overt way, you need to be aware that this already breaches what the personal
account is supposed to be used for. I would NOT recommend you do this on your
account.
By all means share your art - but I'd strongly advise you don't say a
word about any commercial aspect of it. Otherwise you too could find your
account buried.
Do make sure your website is available via your "About"
profile page. Make sure that tells people how they can buy your art.
In other words create interest on Facebook and engage people - but do NOT
try selling your art. Instead make them look for wherever you do sell it.
For those who are moderating Facebook Groups, it's vital that you keep
on top of spam.
- Spam is likely to be
seen as something that must NOT happen on Facebook in the near future - to
a greater extent than at present. - You might want to think
about the wisdom of having an open access group - as opposed to a closed
group where you moderate access. - Members of all Facebook
Groups will be help to make sure their Group stays in a healthy state by
reporting any spam to the Moderators as soon as you see it.
2015
- the year of the Advertising Wars
To understand why Facebook is doing what it's doing one needs to look a bit
wider into the wider world of global advertising. It also helps to
understand the wider perspective when thinking about how to tackle the problem
of marketing as an individual in an increasingly complex online world.
For example, let's think of some of the big companies who influence where we
promote our art
- we tend to think of
Google as a search company when actually it's an advertising
company! Google's advertising revenues represent more than 90 percent
of its total income. Google's annual report states
"We
generate revenue primarily by delivering relevant, cost-effective online
advertising."
generate revenue primarily by delivering relevant, cost-effective online
advertising."
- Facebook is huge - but there's
always been a query about how well it's monetised and that has been
reflected in its share price. Effective monetisation means closing
off the ways of advertising for free (hence the announcement).
Plus both
Google and Facebook have to look to the new competition......
Google and Facebook have to look to the new competition......
- Apple is a hardware company
that has become very successful at generating income via new forms of
software (iTunes and Apps) and is now signalling that it's looking much
more closely at pushing advertising.
Here's an early prediction for 2015 - this is going
to be the year of the advertising wars!
What has happened so far
In terms of advertising generally
- Traditional advertising
media does not work as effectively as online advertising that can be
programmed. For example it's incapable of distinguishing between
advertisers who want to generate traffic from prospective purchasers now
and those who want to increase awareness of a brand amongst those not yet
ready to buy - but who might buy in the future. - As a result: advertising has
been moving out of print and online - the key new trend is
programmatic advertising i.e. adverts that automatically respond to
events/news - Americans now
spend more
time engaging with mobile devices than TV - As a result, advertising has
been moving off TV and going online - The ad industry is
estimated to be worth $20 billion industry in 2016 - BUT it's estimated
that $1bn of ad spend is wasted on fraudulent advertising.
In terms of
Google
- Google has withdrawn
open access to its Keyword Planner - it's now only available to those with Google
AdWords account for advertisers with a site and budget identified.
That means we can't get a sense of which keywords work well for our
sites - BUT Google has already
introduced semantic search which means that keywords are in any case much
less important - GOOGLE will continue to
hammer all those sites that provide an alternative to Google advertising (e.g. article
websites). - The recent changes in
the Google algorithm (Panda etc) probably has little to do with search
and everything to do with advertising. If it is then that's
anti-competitive behaviour and more than a few have been commenting on
this in recent times! - Several article sites
were wiped out/closed down in 2014 as a result of being starved of
traffic and advertising income - and I expect more to come. Such
sites included ones where some artists promoted their art.
My forecast of what will happen in 2015
- More purchasing will
move online - underlining (if needed) the importance of online advertising - More consumption will
be via mobile devices. There has been and will continue to be explosive growth in
mobile advertising and hence places they can deliver this become even more
important. - Digital
videos will become more important as vehicles for advertising. ( eg which
show people how a painting is made or art materials are used) So
if making a video do think about the scope for earning some extra
income from advertising. Or think about the scope for digital videos
to point to your website and where the painting is now for sale..... - APPLE will begin to
become a stronger player in the advertising marketplace - it's
getting into programmatic advertising - see Why Apple Is Suddenly Poised To Take On Facebook - FACEBOOK will become
more aggressive around monetisation and..... - become a "pay to
play" marketplace - try to become more
dominant in the video marketplace - where they get 100% of the
advertising revenues as opposed to sharing them with the creator as
happens on YouTube - GOOGLE will continue
with more of the same ie - restrict access to its
tools to those who pay - hammer article
websites which are not well controlled - There will be an
increase in native advertising ie content which effectively advertises and
looks as if it belongs in the context in which it is seen - but it's
actually sponsored. One example would be an advertorial. You think it's
editorial in an online magazine - until you spot the "sponsored
by...." line - Analytics (ie reviewing
our statistics for where traffic is coming from - and what it does
when it visits our sites) is going to become more and more important
to those wanting to generate income by promoting artwork online
Here's my "blue sky" wishful thinking.....
If somebody came up with the art equivalent of iTunes artists might enjoy the
same success as musicians and app developers. However as things stand at the
moment the online marketplace for art has not really grasped the opportunities
which exist for both artists and advertisers.
