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Jason Fink

6 Days Ago

Engagment Farming Vs. Content Creation. Which Are You Doing?

https://wearesculpt.com/blog/engagement-farming/

I thought this was a good read and got me thinking about how I sell my work on social media.

In light of this article, do you see your social media activity (relating to selling your work) as engagement farming developed solely for link clicks and likes, or are you trying to create actual connections with others on the various platform? Could the constant reciprocation of retweets between artists be seen as engagement farming and therefore looked down upon by SM companies, who have vowed to crack down on the practice?

Maybe even more importantly, how do you feel other users(potential buyers) view your posting activity?





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Mike Savad

6 Days Ago

Engaging people is hard, making new stuff is easy.

I can't predict what sites will do with robot tweets, retweets etc. I'm sure AI will be mixed in there to see patterns and such. And I think its a bad Idea as other people's work gets mixed in with your own. And while you might get a random hit, in reality people don't know what you make or sell because everyone else is on your site.

So i'd rather make more things and hope they find me that way. And if I do engage, I don't farm I cultivate. And then find people that may like my stuff. But its getting harder and harder as people see my posts as spam.

But you can't sell if you don't have the work. So more work is better.


----Mike Savad

 

Rich Franco

6 Days Ago

Jason,

Purely marketing, but with an added bonus of a potential connection in the future, which sometimes happens with my car stuff. That's on ALL of my different PODs. On my social media stuff, just the opposite, LOOKING to create connections...
Rich

 

Jason Fink

6 Days Ago

I wonder where the line is some days though. I see a million "Share Your Sunsets!" posts. To me, these are pure engagement farming posts. They're very lazy posts and they know people are eager to post their pics. We also know they don't really want to see your pictures... But at the same time people could make connections with that tactic as well?

Rich, thanks. My post is mostly concerning SM activity, given how engagement farming is viewed negatively and can potentially get your reach throttled.

 

Laurel Gale

6 Days Ago

I try to create actual connections, especially on the sites where I'm most active (Twitter and Bluesky). I do wildlife photography, so I interact a lot with other wildlife photographers and enthusiasts. I don't just post my own stuff; I also reply to other people. I post a lot of pictures that I'm not actively selling, and I often include at least a little context for the picture.

 

Shelli Fitzpatrick

5 Days Ago

Wow, that article answered why my X posts have seemed to lose reach. I have blocked hundreds of accounts that seem like porn bots to me. I don't want that engagement, and I am not going to stop that either. I don't want them posting porn links as comments on my posts. So if that throttles me, so be it.

 

Lisa Kaiser

5 Days Ago

Of course I've done both, but then I was getting way too many invites and people would want to be my best friend. I am an introvert, but I'm comfortable with others. Still, I don't want invites to every gallery in directions of 300 miles of circumference of where I live. It's too much work. Not only that I was getting the "Can you do a solo show?" Heck no I don't want solo shows!! It costs so much to create 50 sellable framed large works, so no thank you! I no longer want success. I want to do fun things.

 

Jason Fink

5 Days Ago

Shelli, I read that about the blocking was like 'what???'

I went and unblocked everyone. I will be using the mute heavily though. Seems as functional as the block anyway.

 

Jason Fink

5 Days Ago

Lisa, I wish I had just a little bit of your problem, lol. But yeah, that sounds exhausting.

 

Mike Savad

5 Days Ago

I only block people that are trouble makers, like on facebook where there is always that one NARC in the group that tries to call you out or starts trouble for no reason. I block them. Hard to say if they are the ones that call me out and the group blocks me or erases my stuff. But its a lot easier to remove the junk so they don't see my stuff or bug me. But they have to engage first. I never go back to twitter to see if anyone wrote anything.


----Mike Savad

 

I think most marketing efforts are engagement farming and that is also what the author is doing.

"Josh Krakauer is the CEO of Sculpt, that B2B social media agency you just discovered. Josh has launched social media campaigns for best-selling books, publicly-traded corporations, and early-stage startups. Josh works from Washington, DC, but still thinks Iowa City is the best city on earth."

We are told constantly that your work has to be seen to sell and to post as much and often as possible without being seen as spamming (almost impossible).

 

Jason Fink

5 Days Ago

Karen, that sums up the concern nicely. How can we effectively reach people without being viewed as an engagement farmers by Big Brother (or other users).

 

Exactly Jason. So frustrating and the sites that do encourage posting for sales are attracting the NFT people.

 

David Bridburg

5 Days Ago

I put it out there for others to shop.

Social media is about reach. How many likes, follows, any of it, when starting out I thought that mattered.

This is the holiday season, folks need gift ideas, just be present for them.

When I was in the hardware store in my twenties we offered to help. But really we just touched base. A gesture is worth a lot.

 

Rudy Umans

5 Days Ago

I am only interested in real connections


An interesting observation is that on average I get at least 10x more interaction when I post one of my pictures on FB than when I post anything else.

 

Western Exposure

5 Days Ago

Neither. I just try to be myself.

 

Richard Reeve

4 Days Ago

Just read the article. Thank you Jason for introducing me to new terminology.

The cynic in me asks, "Isn't all advertising on social media engagement farming by it's very nature?" I used to use FB a lot for social interactions but stopped using it several years ago as I got p'd off with all the gormless clickbait and advertising getting in the way.

As usual, JMHO

 

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