There has been a mighty amount of grumbling from artists about Facebook not showing their art posts in the Facebook feed of the fans who follow their page, or what is referred to as a "drop in reach". I hope this article will provide a little insight about how to be critical about your content so that you can learn what posts will get seen and your art gets shared!

First off, let's understand the nature of the beast shall we? Facebook uses algorithms to help to show only what they determine to be the "best" content in people's feeds. They decide on "best content" by looking at many different factors. When there is alot of great content being generated, as there is today, then it's tougher to make the cut and get your content seen, shared and levels of engagement for your page will go down.

Of course there is the option of promoting your art post on Facebook which involves paying - but let's look at how to keep up with competition before we go spending all of our hard earned money! It's analyzing what is working for you.

It's sometimes hard to figure out what ISN"T working in any given situation. I love looking back over past paintings and figuring out in hindsight what I think was most successful and why. Let's apply this idea to Facebook content and fish around for clues that will help you. First you will need to see what posts are the most successful out of your posts.

Step 1. Go to "Insights" on your page's admin panel. 

2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "See all posts"

3. Now "All Posts Published" should be listed. From here we want to know which posts were our most successful as far as Engagement go. This means  the percentage of people who saw a post that liked, shared, clicked or commented on it.

4. You can look at either engagement based on people who only clicked or you can look at the number of people who liked, commented or shared. Click on the "engagement" tab in order to toggle between the two options:

5. You should have a good idea of your top ten posts at this point. They may differ slightly depending on if you look at "Posts Clicked" or "Likes, Comments & Shares" .

The second step in evolving your content so that it can be seen is to make a list of your top ten posts based on this info and start analyzing what you think made these posts so much more engaging than other posts. This can be slightly different for all of us.

Go through each post and examine the following factors:

A) Did you have written content in your successful posts and if so how much? You can provide alot of interest by writing thoughtful content to accompany your posts of photos of your art. If you find from analyzing the results that you are missing written content then this is a great step to take in all of your future posts. If you are posting an image of your art you could include the following information: 

What inspired the work?

Is it part of a series? If so what is the series all about?

Is this a change in direction?

Are you keeping some of your previous style?

What size is the work?

What medium? Why do you love that medium? Why do you use that colour?

B) Did you have a direct call to action? Ie. Click here to read my latest blog post about the inspiration behind this painting. Including a link in your post is a great idea but people may be reluctant to click on it unless they have their interest piqued about where the link will lead them. I try to include links back to my on-line store whenever I post art that is available for sale but I also make sure to say that the link is going to take them to my store. It might seem obvious to some but not to all.

C) Compare these top posts with one of your recent posts that didn't do so well - how are they different? Were your more successful posts light-hearted and sharing? Were they more clear and concise? How was the quality of the photos of your work the good vs. poor posts? Something I learned from analyzing my posts is that I find that when I share my struggles with people every once in a while I get a great response because people want to show support and encouragement. I try not to only post about my successes and good days.

"Ask yourself: What would it look like if your posts were unbelievably remarkable?  What would get people talking?" -Social Brite