Paid Social Media Ads :Selling Art Online

James Michael Elia
Nov 6 · 4 min read

Why Paid Social Media Ads?

So it seems that everything we have so far discussed in “Introduction to Social Media Marketing” thus far can go onto the next level by using Paid Social Advertising. It helps to increase reach, brand awareness, engagement, and ultimately conversions to a purchase beyond what owned and earned social can accomplish. The expectation of amplifying high performing organic content to reach a larger audience sounds enticing. Since I am not yet quite at the point of operating an online art sales venture, I can say I am very soon going to be working on at least starting with a website and setting up some online accounts on a few platforms. Therefore, I’ve done some additional reading online as to the experiences artists have had using paid social to successfully build their business.

Facebook Ads

It turns out Facebook can be quite effective for introducing paid ads because of its large reach as one of the most used social media platforms on the planet and its ability to target specific populations to go after, or, to exclude certain users. I came across a great podcast here by Justin Brooke which depicts many of the topics we discussed in class:

I found it quite intriguing that one could for example target people traveling to Maui in order to sell art about Hawaii, or finding pet owners to advertise one does pet portraits. How about providing a video to locals interested in your upcoming art show that shows how an artist executes an actual painting from a blank canvas, or at least part of it to tease those who would want to see the final product. Or, as our last speaker suggested, Kevin Koehn, Senior Paid Marketing Specialist at Web Talent Marketing, present a time lapse art production video. Justin even speaks of doing split tests, to see very quickly which type of ad gets the most results, compared to what the past experience was using newspaper or magazine ads. He also suggested created a sense of urgency in your ad, selling a limited edition run at a higher price point, limited sale or discount offer that is time dependent, or even running a contest.

I have also been looking into this all in one approach to marketing art online with Artstorefronts.com, which offers much content articles, podcasts, blogs for the artist. Sure looks like this would take care of a lot of the administrative tasks of running online art sales. Check out this podcast:

Facebook ads vary in their type, such as photos, video, slideshow, combination of the above with calls to action buttons. In 2016 the average CPC (cost per click) was $0.27. One can also upload a list of email addresses to create a custom audience. targeting demographics can include household composition, ethnicity, life events, employment, behaviors, interests, and politics.

Other Paid Social Media Platforms

Twitter offers a robust targeting scheme using Promoted Tweets, Accounts, and Trends costing anywhere from $0.50 to $10+ per engagement. Instagram uses photos and video of course but targets younger users than Facebook with an average CPC of $0.72 in 2016. Pinterest allows Awareness , Engagement or Traffic campaigns to target Pinners on over 400 interest topics, and Keyword targeting makes it easy to find users based on what they are searching for, but in order to promote Pins one has to outbid another advertiser.

Using paid social advertising can be a helpful tool to meet your business objectives using social media and the corresponding KPI’s. The first is building awareness and checking analytics for the shares or followers. Next is to increase engagement by creating brand ambassadors and monitoring comments and likes. Subsequently, we want conversions via drive leads and sales, monitored by email sign ups or website clicks, and then hopefully realizing customer retention through reviews such as user testimonials. On a personal level I will have to further research how to financially plan for paid social to help augment my own organic content to direct traffic to a website.

James Michael Elia

Written by

Family Physician by day. Artist by night. I use various mediums especially watercolor, planning to use social media marketing to help sell my work online.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade