I’ve been visiting this site for about six months and have really enjoyed seeing other artists work and communicating on this forum. I’ve even bought a few pieces. However, my attempts at selling any paintings at this site have been a resounding failure so far. I don’t blame anyone for that because other artists appear to be selling their works here, but I can’t justify paying the monthly membership fee if nothing sells. Much of my motivation for selling here was to clear out a backlog of paintings that are piling up in my house, and I might as well give them away rather than pay a monthly fee and not sell anything.
I’ve explored the DPW site, but remain confused about how paintings are marketed here. I understand that paintings are posted once on the What’s New page, and that auctions are repeated three times. However, I remain confused about several points:
- How are paintings selected for the Featured page, and does it matter?
- What does it mean if your painting is selected for an auction DPW Pick? Does it improve your chances of selling in any way? I received notices that my paintings were DPW auction picks a number of times, but I can’t see how that was drawing any more attention to them.
- How are paintings selected for promotion on the DPW Facebook page? I’ve had only one painting posted on the FB page, and it wasn’t one that I would have chosen to post there. FB would seem to be the most effective way to promote artwork but the DPW page seems to limited to only a few artists.
- Why do the same artists always seem to appear on the Facebook page, Feature section, and the top of the auction page? Are they paying extra for that privilege, are they longtime members, or simply creating better artwork in the view of the website manager?
My questions aren’t aimed at criticizing DPW because I still find it to be a valuable resource for sharing and communicating with other artists. I thoroughly enjoy seeing and occasionally buying paintings that other artists are creating. I’m just trying to figure out if I’m doing something wrong or need to explore other venues for selling art. Fortunately, I am retired and not in a position where I need to sell paintings to pay the bills.
Hey Tom! Carol or David may edit my links here if need be or add to them, but these seem to apply to your questions.
The section inDPW art talk is here, with lots of articles:
http://arttalk.dailypaintworks.com/c/daily-paintworks/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-dpw
DPW Picks: What time(s) are auction & FB picks chosen?
Featured artist page: http://help.dailypaintworks.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=54
Thank you very much, Sunny. I guess that I should have figured this out by myself but there’s no harm in asking. I didn’t realize that it was up to individual members to post their works to Facebook from the site. Part of the reason why I didn’t realize this is that one of my paintings was posted to FB a while back from the site administrator, I guess.
I have been using DPW several years and the times I have sales are when I promote my own work on my blog and Facebook pages. I see DPW as a storefront for my business. Posting artwork on my blog (linked to my FB and DPW) definitely is the way to bring attention back to my storefront. I also work with a MailChimp newsletter, so spending the extra time to keep my work in front of people is key.
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Try listing your paintings on eBay. Remember, that crowd likes a bargain so be careful how you price them. You can list there free and not pay unless the painting sells.
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So, I followed this thread and I think I have posted some pictures to FB because it indicates that the post went through successfully but I can’t find them anywhere on FB. Where exactly do they go?
Thanks!
Just to be clear, you cannot post your paintings to the ‘Daily Paintworks facebook page’ (at least that’s my impression). But obviously you can post photos to YOUR OWN facebook page with a link to Daily Paintworks site.
You need to do your own marketing and you can do a lot of it for free via instagram, facebook (set up a separate ‘business’ facebook page for your paintings), a blog, and your website.
You can set up a free blog, which you can essentially use as a website, using blogger.
Link everything back to Daily Paintworks.
I don’t think you are going to sell much through Daily Paintworks alone. You have to use other marketing strategies as well.
Daphne - My experience was the same as yours. I tried posting a couple paintings on the DPW FB Page, using the drop down menu in my gallery, but the paintings did not show up. So, either I’m doing something wrong, or DPW is controlling the content of its FB page. That is understandable, but I still don’t understand who decides what is posted on the FB page and what criteria they are using to select paintings to post.
Tom please see my post above.
As I understand, it is up to Daily Paintworks to select which paintings go on their facebook page.
Have you signed up to ‘follow’ which paintings are posted everyday? It’s a pretty broad selection as far as I can tell.
@daphne_boder & @tarwheel, we don’t moderate or otherwise control what visitors post to the DPW FB page. We will, however, remove anything not appropriate.
Jacqueline is correct, you do have to follow the page to be able to post to it. If that isn’t working, I am not sure why. I reviewed the page’s settings and all looks right. Unfortunately, FB changes things at times, often substantially, and we are all helpless in the face of it!
Yes, but if you go to Your Gallery, My Paintworks page, there is a dropdown menu on the left side. One of the menu options, is Post to Social Media. I did this and selected Facebook, and I got a pop up message saying that the painting was posted to my FB page. However, when I check FB, the painting is not there. I’ve tried this several times with different paintings. Each time, I get a message saying the painting has been posted to my FB page, but it isn’t there when I check.
@tarwheel, that feature is for posting your artwork to your FB page(s), not to the DPW FB page. I just tested it on my test FB page and it worked. Did it not post to yours?
David, I understand. However, paintings are not appearing on my FB page, even though I am following all of the steps in the Social Media Wizard in my gallery on the DPW website. I get a prompt saying the painting has been posted but it isn’t.
I have been following the DPW page on FB for a while. So are you saying that members can post their paintings on the DPW page? I’m not exactly sure how to do that but will give it a try.
@tarwheel, yes you can post to our FB page, however it doesn’t show up the same as our posts. It is a bit buried - you have to click on the “Posts” link on the left and then you will see “Visitor Posts” in a panel on the right. Unfortunately, this FB’s doing and is out of our control.
I’m sorry for the frustration with the post to Facebook feature not working. The best way to get a quick reply for support issues, such as these, is to click on the “Support” tab on the left hand side of our website. That way it goes directly to us through our support system instead of here, where we don’t frequently check for support issues.
I’ll look into the FB post issue and get back to you through via email.
David can I just add that I think it’s great that I only see 5 selected paintings per day from DPW on my facebook news feed.
I think this is a good number and I enjoy seeing the range of work. It’s inspirational!
But I wouldn’t want my news feed flooded with paintings!
@Artgirl68, I appreciate hearing that, as it is exactly why we don’t post more or our artists’ lovely work to our FB page, which we would otherwise love to! We do pick 10 a day, however. Do you only see 5?
On my own newsfeed yes, I’d say usually about 5 paintings make it, sometimes less - even if I scroll a long way down nothing else appears. But my newsfeed is extremely full of other stuff at the moment with the recent storms here on the eastcoast. I think facebook must be selective about what it posts from pages I ‘follow’ versus groups I’m part of and actual friends.
However if I go over to the Daily Paintworks FB page I can see all of them. I often do that if they don’t seem to have appeared on my newsfeed.
Or I see all of them on DPW instagram which I also follow. I follow a lot less people on instagram which might be the answer.
I used to be a member with my website on here but nothing sold so I took it down.