Rumours that Facebook is in serious decline and is skewing only to older users just aren’t true, as participants learned at a recent Sunshine Coast Arts Council (SCAC) social media workshop.
“If you plan to use only one social media platform, I’d suggest Facebook, as it’s more versatile than Instagram or Twitter,” facilitator Meghan Flood advised more than two dozen people who attended the Feb. 24 Sechelt workshop, the latest in the SCAC’s ongoing monthly series, The Business of Art.
The age range of the majority of Facebook users is 25 to 44, Flood said, which is only slightly older than the prime demographics for Instagram and Twitter. “A lot of people are transitioning to Instagram, but Facebook is still stronger for things like event marketing,” she said.
Flood advised that artists create a free business page on Facebook, which will boost the platform’s effectiveness as a marketing tool. A key advantage is that a business page provides access to analytical data not available on personal accounts.
“The feature [called Facebook Insights] shows all the statistics on your individual posts and page and how many likes it got and how many accounts that aren’t subscribed to your page have seen the posts,” Flood said, adding that it’s important to adjust your content according to what the analytics are telling you is working. “You can also schedule your posts ahead of time. This can cut down on a lot of the work,” she said.
Flood also noted that Facebook’s algorithms increasingly favour business accounts, so it’s more likely that business-account posts – rather than those from personal accounts – will be seen in other users’ timelines. But if you choose to stick with only a personal account, posts that include photos, videos and links are more likely to get wider distribution, she said.
While Facebook still dominates social media, Instagram and Twitter are the two other major social media platforms and are important marketing tools for artists and others, Flood said.
Instagram (now owned by Facebook) is predominantly a photographic app, growing in popularity with all age groups, but favoured mostly by users between 13 and 29 years old. It’s also possible to set up business accounts on Instagram and Twitter and get similar analytics to those Facebook provides, Flood said. One disadvantage of Instagram is that it is a touch-screen platform, which means that while it can be viewed on a desktop or laptop, posts can only be made to the app from smartphones or iPad-like devices.
Flood noted that Twitter is “very fast-paced,” and “an estimated 70 per cent of users go to it to get news or gossip.” But it does provide “an immediate, direct link to a community and customers” and is great for building a reputation and a personality profile.
It is also possible to link all of these “big three” social media so that any one post can appear on all of them, Flood said, but added that not all posts are suitable for that or will make the best use of each platform.
Flood has not put the content of her workshop online but said there are many Internet resources, such as HubSpot and Hootsuite, that offer good communications and marketing advice and tools, although Hootsuite’s free options are limited.
The next Business of Art workshop at the Sechelt Arts Centre will be Grant Writing 101, led by Chad Hershler, on March 31.
