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Using social media to convert followers to art collectors.

Emphasize sales.  

Remember – not everyone who shares images of artwork online is selling the work – in fact, most people are usually sharing other people’s artwork. Whether you mention your prices or simply write “Available for sale,” you’re both claiming authorship of the piece and reminding viewers that they can own it.

Make buying easy.  Facebook has a “shop now” button for pages that you can use to link to your website. Whenever you post new art, you should post a link to where they can buy the work with a clear description: “Buy this work here […]”

On Instagram, you cannot include clickable links in individual posts, but as long as you have a link to your website on your profile, you can mention in the description that your works are all available for sale on your personal site.

Engaging posts.  “Engaging” doesn’t just mean interesting, it also means that people are interacting with it.  Ask your fans questions or for an opinion on your latest piece.  Encourage them to tag friends in the comments. Then respond to their comments. When your followers feel like they are part of the conversation, they are more likely to feel personally invested in your posts and your life.

Direct Messages.  Both Facebook and Instagram have direct messaging available, and this is a great way to get one-on-one with your collectors. Many people don’t want to do their business in “public” and the comment section of one of your photo uploads is a very public venue.

After 2-3 comments back and forth, move the conversation to a direct message. This way, you can follow up if the conversation dies, and you can continue the conversation with art updates after a few weeks. Just don’t be too persistent or you’ll annoy them and scare them off.

Keep your page professional.  Collectors may originally get ‘hooked’ by one artwork, but you can guarantee that they will browse your whole page before they make any decisions about buying. If the rest of your page is about unrelated images, if there are many unprofessional typos or low-quality images, you might be missing out on a big sale. Keep all of your posts clean and attractive, and the same goes for your website.

Info: www.agora-gallery.com