For anyone who knows, or at least have some ideas, because I really don't have any good ones? IF someone wanted to do some marketing for a better exposure and possibly getting noticed by buyers, what would they do? How would someone proceed to get noticed?

Does that cost money, or some investment besides time or posting to social media? I can't see spamming all my friends, who aren't image buyers, with "Here's my latest upload to FAA" or some Twitter announcement that's sent to everyone. Second account, and then how do I get the right kind of friends, the ones who buy things. 

Thanks Annie, interesting from someone who makes some sales on FAA. Mine are fulfillment for sales and that works well. I get an occasional Pixels sale. Last month I sold a tapestry of all things. Someone has one of mine hanging on a wall someplace 51x60 inches.

Start a new thread for this, Pete, and I will add some of my thoughts and hopefully others will too.

I used goigle ads, amazon ads and Facebook ads in the past to sell POD stuff and also to drive traffic to my site (when I sold stock direct). You can pretty much set your own revenue if you spend enough on ads. That's what informs my view of how important search placement is on the micros. If you get enough eyeballs you will sell. The problem is I was spending $12 for every $10 to me. Also don't ever give fb your money, much worse results than the others and exposed as BSing ads customers more than once.

Thanks! Very interesting, especially the part about: "The problem is I was spending $12 for every $10 to me."

...

I've used social media for free marketing before and plan to get back into it, possibly next month, and to answer Pete's questions above, this is what I've learnt:

Does that cost money, or some investment besides time or posting to social media? I can't see spamming all my friends, who aren't image buyers, with "Here's my latest upload to FAA" or some Twitter announcement that's sent to everyone. Second account, and then how do I get the right kind of friends, the ones who buy things. 

Free Social Media Marketing: just requires 15 to 30 minutes a day on the big 4: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. But my recommendation is to just choose 2 at a time and build those up, otherwise it becomes just too time consuming, and your attention may get too scattered.

There are 2 ways you can do this. The first, the easy way, is just to increase click throughs and therefore views on your products, which will help with their search placement. I've had up to 40 views on a new FAA product from just doing this.  I used to regularly get about 20 to 30 views on products listed on DesignBundles, which really helped with their search placement. Here you just need to regularly post links to your product/website/blog. I recommend that you do this for new listings/uploads especially, because lots of interest on a new product seems to really help with the algorithm.
 
The second is to really go full-on to develop a dedicated audience. And that takes a lot more time and you need to understand how to use hashtags, or write interesting blog posts, create some lead magnets (freebies), or even go as far as developing an email marketing list.

I have separate business social media accounts to my personal ones. It just works much better that way, and yes, you are not then spamming family and friends. Its also best to keep your own political or social views out of your business account. You don�t want to alienate anyone. I was starting to use my business Twitter for personal interests, and then decided to stop.

If you�re starting out and don�t know what to do, then just go on Pinterest and type in a search question for what you need to know. For example: �how to get followers on Instagram?�, and there should be hundreds of blog posts and quick tips. Some are just click-baits, and some actually have some good answers. For example:

https://www.pinterest.com.au/search/pins/?rs=ac&len=2&q=how%20to%20get%20followers%20on%20instagram&eq=how%20to%20get%20followers%20on%20ins&etslf=9447&term_meta[]=how%7Cautocomplete%7C0&term_meta[]=to%7Cautocomplete%7C0&term_meta[]=get%7Cautocomplete%7C0&term_meta[]=followers%7Cautocomplete%7C0&term_meta[]=on%7Cautocomplete%7C0&term_meta[]=instagram%7Cautocomplete%7C0

 
I found that you don�t necessarily need thousands of followers if you use the right hashtags. So, understanding how to best use hashtags is a good place to start. Once again, just type that into Pinterest search and you should get hundreds of blog articles about that.

If you can work out who is your target audience, then you can hone in on those by following these people, and often they will follow you back. The other way is to join social media groups. (People who like vintage postcards? Racing cars? Racing Sports?). For example, my husband joined a FB group who were interested in what he was selling on Shopify and now he gets lots of regular sales and return buyers from there. On Pinterest I found a specific group in my target audience range, and used to just post there because I got far better response than just posting to everyone.

But like anything, just start small and learn as you go. Just post links to your products, and hashtag, hashtag, hashtag. Hashtags will open you up to a greater audience than just your followers. And also perhaps consider joining some groups.

If you start to feel that your account is becoming too �sell/sell/sell� and starting to put people off � then write some interesting (related) blog posts. Maybe something in your area of expertise (vintage racing cars?? Where you find your vintage postcards??) and post those. Or post some interesting articles (from other sources) in that area as well. Think of interesting or helpful things that your audience would like to know more of.

Thanks! Very interesting, especially the part about: "The problem is I was spending $12 for every $10 to me."

...

With the POD sites I could never quite make it work for any length of time. It would look like I was turning a profit for a certain period but a couple of weeks later I would be in the red again. Frustrating when the difference was often small enough that a slightly bigger cut from the agency would put me in the green.

With my own site I was doing okay, like the amount I make at a mid tier agency, but I shut it down when the EU rules regarding getting VAT registered came in. I couldn�t be bothered with the extra paperwork; I like to keep things simple!

Quote from: Annie on April 30, 2022, 15:22

Thanks! Very interesting, especially the part about: "The problem is I was spending $12 for every $10 to me."

...

With the POD sites I could never quite make it work for any length of time. It would look like I was turning a profit for a certain period but a couple of weeks later I would be in the red again. Frustrating when the difference was often small enough that a slightly bigger cut from the agency would put me in the green.

With my own site I was doing okay, like the amount I make at a mid tier agency, but I shut it down when the EU rules regarding getting VAT registered came in. I couldn�t be bothered with the extra paperwork; I like to keep things simple!

With the PODs, I don't think I would bother marketing them anymore, its not really worth my time. Mainly because my target buyers could be anyone. But promoting sites, blogs and targeted products who have a specific audience (like the examples I used for Pete above) can definitely be advantageous. And yes, I too am finding that my non-microstock sites can out-perform the mid-tier agencies.
 

Is there any way, we can move these marketing comments onto its own thread? They are getting lost on here - plus people are still posting some very useful comments about Freepik, which are getting drowned out.


MOVED TO "SOCIAL MEDIA AND OTHER MARKETING' THREAD ....

I wanted to upload to freepik. psd files. I am a graphic designer and photographer. more than once I need to download something for a poster and I have to correct their files. I have about 200 files of good quality isolated photos. they rejected me 3 times. let me calm down

At the risk of making you and some others even more angry. Last week I thought I'd look at Freepik and see what they were all about. I uploaded the ten required test images and linked to my SS account, so they could look. 5 of 10 passed and I'm live. My account is activated.

Then I recalled the $85 tax form that I had to have from the US, or I could pay 25% tax to Spain. Since I don't know how much anyone actually gets from Freepik, because all I get for an answer is some guesses, I'm not going to pay for a tax letter that verifies I'm a US citizen, just so I don't have to pay 25% in taxes?

I had my first DL in under 5 days (with only 5 photos?) and it shows my earnings are 12 cents.

I mean, what if I work all year and get $35? Then I just paid $50 to be tax free and lose money, having a site give me a share of some unknown amount of money, per download?

And all my images are Premium, which means pay. If I'm understand right, and please someone correct me, all the images I upload are PAY not Free, and I will get one "share" for every download. So my images are not gifts to people who are too cheap to pay for an image use.

I opened an account, looked for an image of mine:
Premium image
Unlock this file and get unlimited access to over 44,829,000 Premium assets

Does anyone know where the free images come from? I think Wirestock instant pay. Make that I know, as I found one of mine. The Freepik search is horrid. If I typed in "Vertical closeup shot of Saint Theresa statue" which is what WS tagged it. The results are tens of thousands? What? So I shortened it to "Saint Theresa statue" and still got 56k images. They don't search the phrase, they search all words.

To find my photo I had to search for "Saint Theresa" which brought it down to one page.

OK until someone tells me different. 12 cents? Or is that the early part of the month and that number will fall as more people get downloads and shares?