selling

I just signed up for facebook 3 hours ago. Its fun, addicting and useful!

THANKS FOR YOUR ADVICE!

Thanks, after all the furore about Facebook apparently owning your photos even if you cancelled your account, I was a little wary about posting more of my photos on my page, but with the sales widget and the photos being copyrighted, I feel easier. I have had some friends buy some of my cards because of seeing my facebook “widget”. :)

What about MySpace, have you thought of having a page there?

This is fascinating and will be useful to a lot of people.

PHOTOGRAPHERS beware, you should probably watermark your images before posting them; advice from several current Facebook users.

I did have my work on facebook but when I heard that they own and have copywrite over any images you put on your facebook account I removed them. So I am really still unsure if this is the case. Clarification would be really help.

I have not added any artwork or photographs to Facebook, as Facebook retains copyright on everything that members publish. Sorry I do not agree with that policy so I have taken all my images off. Please note even if you cancel your facebook account, they still claim a right to it. Sorry no images on Facebook from me.

Great article with wonderfully useful information. And the point made by A.M. Ruttle is very important. All but one of my sales have been to acquaintances made through Facebook. I have the links to my redbubble profile, and to my bubblesite as well, on my FB profile page and have happily discovered that close friends and acquaintances are regularly checking my RB gallery. Prior to taking myself seriously and finally joining RB this year, I used to post several of my photos on FB and frequently submitted them to various contests where they won or placed. Those “winners” (sadly without watermarking) are still floating around on the worldwide web and I haven’t been able to retrieve them. Having said that, I sometimes will still post a couple of very small versions of my RB pics on FB to encourage any viewers to go to my RB profile if they’re interested in seeing more…then after a short time, I delete those photos and replace with a couple more. These FB acquaintances are often sending suggestions by email of what they’d like to see, which has been a great way to “sell”. They also send my links to their friends, which is even better yet! The key is to keep “spreading the word” in any way that can be done safely and still protecting our work.

While I value the distribution opportunity with Facebook, I did want to provide links to details about matters related to uploading images and copyright.

Facebook states:

Excerpt 1: You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how we share your content through your privacy and application settings.

Excerpt 2: For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (“IP content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account (except to the extent your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it).

There is some gray area regarding shared content that is held by the recipient. At the very least, FB states that permissions granted to FB end when the IP is deleted.

URLs:
http://www.facebook.com/help/search.php?hq=copyright&ref=hq

http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf

I found facebook yesterday and I’m checking it out. There’s a fair bit to wade through to get the gist of things. Who can see what, etc, etc, etc. Hell, it’s a bloody minefield IMHO.

Anyway, I’lll figure it out and determine whether it’s worth bothering with.

“GameOfKings”;http://www.facebook.com/pages/Game-of-Kings/85497928006 Facebook
GameofKings Blogger
“GameofKongs”http://twitter.com/gameofkings Twitter
GameofKings Bubblesite
Coming Sooner than you think.

I have established my own little facebook site for my photography and I always watermark my artistic photographs. I link back to my redbubble site so people can browse at their own will but im not sure how much trafic I have generated this way. I have had a few friends and friends of friends seek me out for various works. Canvases have been popular these past few months.

I have 31 fans. Check them out and become one if you like

Cheers
Steve

Hello here !
thanks for information
just wanted to say that RB fan page looks not so active for the long time…from January i think.
Vic

Jason, you’re right – there’s only so much time that can be invested in social networking. To me, RB is a site where networking can happen, art works can be exhibited, shared and sold, and writing can be posted.

I think RB need to focus more on wanting to keep people on RB, instead of steering them to sites like FB, Twitter, and the like.

I’m a fairly loyal type of bloke (which may surprise some) who tends to size things up over a period of time and then settle if I can see a benefit. The benefit doesn’t have to be an instant financial fix.

I actually just did a search on FB for a couple of people who I’m in close contact with in my industry, and surprisingly the first person I searched for has an account there. I can’t see what that person is doing on FB because he/she “only shares certain information with everyone.”

I’ll reiterate this point – I think RB need to focus more on wanting to keep people on RB, instead of steering them to sites like FB, Twitter, and the like.

I use FB actively for marketing and networking. I run 4 groups, my profile and a fan page plus quizzes etc.
On RB I have 4 groups which are equally as active.

I have been monitoring the traffic from both RB & FB to assertain where my efforts are best invested (google analytics)

The results are the same, just a whisker between the two.

I dont sell art, I manage and market emerging talent. The RB slideshow is therefore just used to pretty my FB page up, however the artists that i am currently marketing I use widgets that run a live feed with images on display (safest way to display publicly and keep them safe) i have found. They can be added to almost any profile via rss feed or embedded or emailed out.

I am loathe to post images on FB otherwise. I did initially but then started to find them popping up everywhere, forget about credits!

Its great to have the possibilty to show our RB on FB, can we have our FB badge on our RB profile?

I think the biggest area RB should critically analyse is the application process and approving of groups.

There is a strong “dump and run” mentality that exists within RB groups, and in part this is possibly due to people wanting clicks on their work. To me, RB groups have barely scratched the surface of their capability. Everyone likes to have their patch, and I can say that I only applied for hosting a group here after deliberating for 12 months and finally convincing myself that a positive outcome could be achieved other than featuring a few pics and people.

RB groups are the place where people should be interacting. If this means less time spent on FB and Twitter, then all the better.

Maybe more development should go into RB groups where hosts can send out official invites via email to attract people outside RB. There really is scope to take this further, and RB should be consulting with people who are getting positive results within RB groups. Positive results can be things like members being part of a group exhibition – whether in cyber space or meat space. Or even getting writers published in cyber space or meat space.

The RB site is here, it just needs more bucks invested into it to bring it all together. Pick the eyes out of what FB, Twitter and Flickr are doing. RB is different to all these sites, but at the end of the day this site relies on sales to survive. RB needs people to come into RB, stay on RB and purchase on RB. I believe groups hold the key to future success.

Very interesting! I’ve posted pics on facebook although haven’t in quite some time…. they are shrunken down to size so the quality really isn’t there… but they are fun to share nevertheless! Personally I love RB wayyy better and spend most of my free time here. Love you guys!!! xoxo!

Interesting subject…..thank you for bringing it to us….
I totally agree with Darren Stones and his concerns about directing members to use Facebook and Twitter…...and also the need for caution when using such sites to share our intellectual property…
“you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”). “
I removed my work and all links to RB from facebook when the furore broke out over their terms of service. I am very wary of what the above terms means…... and I notice in all the social networking sights, even the most user driven ones (for example all of the ning sites spring to mind) there seems to be a universal condition that anything you upload through their service falls under the clause of: ” you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with (us)”!!!
I would be interested in hearing some more on EXACTLY how this condition or rule is applied by such sites and interpreted by the law.

for your interest…the following is taken from the Terms of Service for all ning social networking sites….
“You hereby grant Ning, during the course of your usage of the Ning Platform, a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, sublicenseable and transferable right and license to (i) use, reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform and publicly display Your Content (a) for the sole purpose of operating and making Your Content available on the Ning Platform and in all current and future media in which the Ning Platform may now or hereafter be distributed or transmitted or (b) for our internal business purposes; and (ii) disclose metrics regarding Your Content on an aggregated basis for advertising, marketing and business development purposes. If you wish to grant Users or the general public additional licenses to Your Content, please include the license terms with Your Content. Without limiting the foregoing, Ning reserves the right to retain copies of Content for archival purposes after termination of the Agreement.”
Somehow, these words don’t fill me with a sense of security about sharing work on these platforms…..

thank you for sharing this information..
I have to try this..

great write up. i do most of that sorta thing listed. and diesellaws is a great example of someone utilising facebook to the max.
go DL !

but from their point of view they are making your property available to the world which translates into some hyper scarey legal jargon.
You use their site to upload your images and promote your work and in the process this in turn promotes their service to other visual artists, so the terms of engagement need to reflect that they have your permission in displaying and employing your images in their activities.

most sites work that way, they need your permission for them to use in their advertising. Unless, you are advertising the site where your images are being hosted using your own images, (volunteering), that site then doesnt need such an agreement.

I’ve only recently decided that facebook might be a helpful marketing tool…. it’s true that nothing sells if you don’t make the effort to generate more traffic trough our RB galleries.
I’m only about 10 days into facebook, so it’s early days…. it’ll be interesting to know if it proves helpful.
All are welcome to come join me as a friend btw…. you’ll find me here

wow. your explanation of facebook ads is much easier to understand than theirs is. I understand it now. thanks.

lol

Thank you Jason for including my link and info. I strongly recommend everyone taking up Jasons advice as it has helped me immensely.

Much Respect,

DL

This is a excellent and very good description and advice!

Thank you for this….

I have wrote also a journal about this: 6 best FACEBOOK APPs for artists…

And it’s also possible to sel your art DIRECTLY FROM FACEBOOK….

There is an application called MARKETPLACE and I made very good experiences with it, because oodle advertises also all the products, and there is a huge visibility on the web, while selling products through the marketplace….

greetings

Nuh

I spend far too much time on Facebook playing games I mean establishing important networks but it is definitely paying off; links going off all over the place – to my website, Redbubble portfolio, StarNow and Model Mayhem pages, NZ Art Guild. A very fast way to get your work out there, seen, commented and contacted on. I like to have all things leading back to Redbubble, more so than my website; the feedback is entertaining to visitors and makes each image a bit more personal. And then the viewer is interested in who’s leaving the comment and will click on them also. What I am going to do now though is go through and replace the images I have up with my handy dandy Redbubble watermarked images. I’ve been on the cusp of either being flattered that people would copy my work and hey, if anyones going to make money from my images, it better be me, for a while now but after seeing two bottom-dwellers using my images as their profile pictures (two different sites, both ‘removed’ and probably up again using another name), I’m going for the latter.

... and half of my 34 arty-farty friends are from Redbubble; lovely lot :)

http://www.facebook.com/cathleen.tarawhiti#/cathleen.tarawhiti?ref=profile

I set up a Facebook page a few weeks back and find it useful for updating folks on what I’m up to on a day to day basis.. remember FB has over 200 million active users so that’s a huge new potential audience for your work. FB is about people with common interests networking and keeping in touch with your friends and their friends and people interested in your work etc etc.. so in this way it makes connections with people who might never visit RB or any art site.

We can all help each other by becoming fans of each others work.. and linking our networks together. So maybe one of your fans likes my work and buys from me and one of my fans is a gallery owner in Australia who likes your work and offers you an exhibition. Thats how it works..

Please visit my FB page at http://artist.to/andymercer/

One final point.. I always feel with my blog I need to have something lengthy to say and thats not always the case. With FB I can just give a short update and simply say.. “I sold one of these today”.. etc etc. It keeps fans informed without asking them to wade through long articles.

An example of how it works.. is my daughter has referred several people she knows though her work and keeps in touch with via FB to visit my Facebook Business Page and they are now fans who get my regular updates. The reason they became fans is because they have that personal conenction via my daughter.. so I see these people as very much potential buyers.

i have been led to believe that if you post your work on FACEBOOK then it becomes apart of the “public domain”, which then you have no copy rights to it. – is that right?

i have a link from facebook to redbubble, but i dont really trust facebook

Sorry to hog the thread.. but I’ve just had a message which highlights the networking potential of FB. This is from a friend of friend I’ve not seen in over 20 years.. who liked my art then but we lost contact but he quite obviously has an interest and must be a potential buyer.

“hiya andy,i’m XXXXX’s younger brother,remember we used to have parties at XXXXX’s house in XXXXXXX. Are you still doing your art work used to like what you did ?”

richie fox you are right!

facebook owns all rights there, not the users!!!!!

So, are Redbubble and Facebook in a commercial relationship?

I’m interested to know why the big push for Facebook here.

Thanks for this great info, Jason. I’ve got some real friends who are on one or both, and I’ve been thinking about it. I’m still worried about copyright, and the difficulties of retrieving work from FB. A student of mine found that she couldn’t remove her photos when she wanted to close her account. I’ll keep an eye on all htis for the moment. The one benefit I see from FB as opposed to RB, is that there might be more buyers than sellers! The comments on RB are wonderful, but everyone is trying to sell, not buy.

I think the image copyright issue is best resolved by simply watermarking any image you post to Facebook with a link to your Bubblesite or other personal page. That way, any use of it just promotes you. If folk want to see an “unspoiled” version, they can come to RB. Should FB go all mental at some point and want to rip its contributers off, they only own the copyright to a watermarked image, not your original.
If you also downsample it to a small size & 72dpi, no-one’s going to want to use it for prints either.

Great info! Add me as a friend on FaceBook. I’m also on Twitter. Follow me here

Darren Stoned, I second that question, lol I would like pose the same question, why the push to FB? what is the commercial relationship between RB & FB?
Nurh Sarche, great info!! (as usual) especially 6 best FB applications for artists I’m going to get started on that myself.
Does facebook take a percentage on sales?? does anyone know?

I don’t think they are pushing Facebook – they are just suggesting ways to promote your work. The original article was about using popular network sites to promote your work and ways to do it. Facebook and Twitter were a couple of the suggestions. :)

I have had a Facebook account for quite some time and just last week started a “fan page” there in an effort to draw people who aren’t on my “friends list” in to look at my art work. So far that hasn’t happened. The fans that have joined my page are the same people (other artists) who are on my friends list. I’m hoping over time it will bring positive results as I had hoped. Most of my friend list on FB are other artist trying to sell their art work also, so I really doubt my few sales are a result of FB marketing…..nor Twitter, that I can tell. Of course, I don’t know WHO the buyers of my work have been since they remain anonymous on the sites where I sell my work. I guess I just contradicted myself. I just think if my art friends purchase my art, they will tell me. So my sales are probably from people I don’t know who are not on these social sites. I do have a few old school friends on my FB who have expressed interest in my art lately, but after the initial contacts, no sales have resulted.

Isn’t it Facebook that keeps your images even if you leave the place – or am I mixing them up with another anti-social networking site ?

thanks seller, can you respond to my first question please?
i would equally like to promote what i do on facebook here on red bubble, can i do that by adding facebook badges from my pages etc to my profile here on RB?

Cool Journal,

I use facebook to advertise, and I find that competitions are a great way to boost profile views and comments!

My FB page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Steven-Sandner/114889035800
Competition Example: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3401191&id=114889035800

Thank you for the information

Thanks, Jason. Appreciate your feedback. As someone not familiar with FB, it’s good to know a little more about it.

Good timing.

On MSNBC re: Facebook

“Facebook is overhauling its privacy controls over the next several weeks in an attempt to simplify its users’ ability to control who sees the information they share on the site.

To do this, Facebook needs its 200 million-plus users to share content and interact with more people than their close friends and families. To make this more palatable, the site will let users assign different privacy settings to each piece of information they make available on Facebook. This includes photos, contact information and work info, as well as status updates, links and photos.

The site is also getting rid of its regional networks. Facebook said those separate zones have led to too much confusion over which information can be widely seen or kept relatively private. In the past, someone who joined a New York network, for example, could inadvertently make personal information available to everyone else in that network, including complete strangers.”

Great article and very helpful info.

i just recently started on e of the free fan pages and so far findind it to be effective in reaching people, promoting my work and drawing people to RB.

My FB Fan Page

One thing I do, to give people a variety of things to look at and to help draw more interest, is to feature other RB artists whose work I like. I’ve said a long time ago on another thread that I think that if RB members who are on FB networked there with one another, it could increase the visibilty of each artists and help make RB more a presence on the FB network.

I’ve had a couple of artists join my fan page and then ask me to join theirs or add me as a freind just for teh sake of networking. When you think about it, the possibilities in doing that to use FB as a marketing tool are pretty unbelievable.

just signed up with facebook…hope it’ll help sell RB!!

i have just put up a paid, targetted ad on Facebook so will let people know how successful it is in driving traffic to my redbubble site.

Loooooots of great info! Suuupeerrrr! Thank you!

I’m very interested in the demographics of Redbubble customers
What age are they?
Male or Female?
Socioeconomic background?
Country?

ETC

Thanks for the help