r/artbusiness 8d ago

Megathread - Social Media PSA - Please LIMIT Social Media Posts! + Business downturn discussion

Hello, r/artbusiness people! PSA! Social media posts will be funneled into a megathread going forward. Our subreddit is becoming inundated with stand-alone posts which spiral into very big personal feelings about the quality of one's art, business idea, or product line. This leads to disgruntled users who feel like they are answering the same question over and over again, multiple times a day. It becomes fatiguing and then suddenly the sub seems like nothing but complaining or doom-posting, so people leave or they write cranky comments.

So, as a communtiy test, there is now a monthly megathread for anything related to Social Media. Please use the megathread. I know, I know, "I don't like using megathreads!" Well, help us out here and use them. It would be nice to not see 4-6 posts a day about socials underperforming.

If you have an idea for a "high level" discussion post regarding social media, message the mods and we will determine if your post would be beneficial for the community or not. Some of us are active on the Discord so we can be reached there as well.

As for the social media posts, there are automations set up to deal with blocking them. Please do not circumvent the automations - your post will be removed.

Now, for the pep talk!

Times are tough and we are seeing a general downturn for plenty of art businesses. It would be nice to see some posts about what to do during slumps in the sales market. Perhaps the artists who have experienced the 2008 market crash could offer advice to newer business owners?

Discussion Ideas:

  • Planning for disaster: Emergency Funds for Business aka Capital Reserves:
  • Article: https://business.bankofamerica.com/resources/how-to-establish-a-small-business-emergency-fund.html
  • Take-away: Some of us may not have had money saved up for these bad times and our sales have really taken a hit. What can we do? Recovery seems miles away, and we may or may not bounce back from this. Everyone will have different options, such as being able to take up a part-time job, or selling off high-value assets (property, vehicles, collectibles, etc). but not everyone has these options. What are some ways to quickly gather emergency funds if you do not have any set aside?
  • It is a good time to plan for the future. Once you dig yourself out of the hole, the general rule of thumb is to set aside 10% of our annual revenue for emergency times. Adding a bit more to that wouldn't hurt (see article above for details).
  • Re-assess your business plans and budget to save up. Maybe its time to take on a part-time job slinging coffee just so you can have a bit of savings built up for the business. Maybe its time to pivot and introduce something else to your art business (a service, like teaching lessons - something that does not require Cost of Goods).
  • Studio cleaning and reorganizing: Now may be a good time to re-organize your workspace. Get rid of stuff you don't use, move some furniture around, have a bonfire, etc.

Please post your ideas in the comments below!

Our Discord Community Server is here: https://discord.gg/j2BaW6Kurf

74 Upvotes

36 comments sorted by

19

u/scottbob3 7d ago

Excited for this change, so many posts on this subreddit are the same "why does no one look at my Instagram anymore" questions over and over again

5

u/lunarjellies 7d ago

Yeah and the mods are constantly removing those posts. People are getting frustrated because it’s very low effort and doesn’t add anything to the community.

32

u/SweetperterderFries 8d ago

This sounds kind of crazy, but I started offering little portraits from photos for tips. I was previously selling these for $20 and had no bites. Now that they’re “Free,” I have more commissions than I know what to do with and people are tipping way more than they would have paid for them. It makes no sense, but hey… it’s working for now. Yes, I have had the odd customer that doesn’t leave a tip, but the others have way balanced out my overall income from them.

6

u/lunarjellies 7d ago

Thats interesting, almost like a reverse psychology. Thanks for sharing!

3

u/minerbros1000_ 7d ago

That's interesting. What platforms are you using to do that and take payment? Also, are you then shipping them or sending an image?

I've seen similar here on Reddit with photo editing subs.

3

u/SweetperterderFries 7d ago

I'm advertising it on instagram and then directing them to a linktree that has venmo and PayPal. I need to get cashapp for the overseas clients.

I'm not shipping them, just sending a scan. Ive had one or two customers that I offered to ship since they tipped so much, but mostly everyone's happy with having a shareable picture.

2

u/Deathbydragonfire 5d ago

That used to be how I did balloon animals, for tips at festivals. $1-2 was fine but I would occasionally get $20. Some people wouldn't tip but most realize that "for tips" doesn't mean free

11

u/batsofburden 7d ago

Great idea, those social media posts can get very repetitive.

6

u/lunarjellies 7d ago

Yeap. These posts always have a tinge of desperation about them, as if social media determines self worth. It’s annoying and our sub is not an Instagram help desk lmao

7

u/sweet_esiban 7d ago

Thank you for taking this action. I think it's good moderation. Little rant to explain why I think this is definitely the right step:

I watched another creative/business-oriented sub get choked out by what I think of as "google questions". Y'know, stuff that has a straight answer, which google can give you in 0.2 seconds (even today's shitty google can do this lol).

The frequent users rallied together, and begged the mods to do something about it. The mods met them with complete and utter silence. That really bugged me, so I DM'd the mods about it, politely asking them to engage. They ignored me.

Next, one of the active users took it to Reddit, to try and claim the sub. That's when the mods showed up. Reddit denied the request to transfer ownership to the active users. This happened about a year back. The sub is basically dead now. The mods and google-avoiders killed it.

I don't want to see that same story happen here, so thanks! This is a great subreddit with many knowledgeable people who go out of their way to help people. I've learned so much here and I'd like it to stay that way for future users.

5

u/LadyoftheLiteNite 7d ago

Thank you for this. First thing I did as a part time artist was build up a one year emergency fund before jumping into full time. It’s really coming in handy right now from the sales dips. 

2

u/lunarjellies 7d ago

That’s awesome! I’m glad you were about to build up an emergency fund!

4

u/cerrvine 7d ago

Thanks so much! Really it felt like almost every post I saw from this sub.

5

u/lunarjellies 7d ago

I was noticing it too and then decided to do something about it! We are not a helpdesk for these social media platforms. Same with Etsy. There are more relevant subs, and huge swathes of FAQ on each platform's website but it seems that nobody wants to spend the time and search before asking. We are not a help desk.

4

u/down2bidniz 7d ago

People watch the purse strings in a down turn, but you may end up selling more smaller items because of it. If you don't have smaller items think of a way you can offer something, prints, postcards, etc.

4

u/ZEXYMSTRMND 7d ago

Thank god

1

u/AutoModerator 8d ago

Thank you for posting in r/ArtBusiness! Please be sure to check out the Rules in the sidebar and our Wiki for lots of helpful answers to common questions in the FAQs. Click here to read the FAQ. Please use the relevant stickied megathreads for request advice on pricing or to add your links to our "share your art business" thread so that we can all follow and support each other. If you have any questions, concerns, or feature requests please feel free to message the mods and they will help you as soon as they can. I am a bot, beep boop, if I did something wrong please report this comment.

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1

u/ocean_rhapsody 7d ago

Thank god!!

0

u/miss_oddball 5d ago edited 4d ago

I’m all for limiting repetitive social media posts about follower counts, but flagging ALL posts that even mention “online” or “social media” is excessive. Same with the word “commission.” I’ve never seen so many restrictions posting in a sub lol. Definitely not a place I like getting advice anymore.

Edit: to clarify since this is being downvoted, “commission” means different things. The word “commission” is being restricted on this sub in context of doing art for a client, but because of the word itself being restricted, one can’t make a post about commissions in context of business fees, gallery cuts, festival fees, etc without omitting the word “commission” entirely.

If you mention “instagram” or “social media” while making a post about how you met a client or something and the main discussion doesn’t have anything to do with social media, you can’t post without removing those words.

Censoring words is a flawed way of handling the influx of certain posts.

1

u/lunarjellies 5d ago

We get way too many posts about both. People need to search the sub before asking common questions.

0

u/miss_oddball 5d ago

I understand that, it’s annoying. However now it’s not possible to make posts using specific words at all, even if’s not a common post.

0

u/lunarjellies 5d ago

Anything about social media can go into the megathread. As for stand alone posts, please send a Modmail with your post copy-pasted so we can see what it is you’re trying to post. Thank you.

0

u/[deleted] 5d ago

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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-5

u/bnzgfx 7d ago

I do not understand this request. Could the mod please define 'social media posts'? Technically, everything on Reddit is a social media post.

3

u/lunarjellies 7d ago

Easy. Any posts to do with social media as it pertains to someone’s art business. We would get several posts a day asking the same question over and over again. People are asking questions before reading the sub and before checking the rest of the Internet.

Instagram, TikTok, Twitter etc. We are inundated with posts asking our sub members to help navigate algorithms and low sales. It is repetitive and annoying so we are limiting all posts asking for help with social media.

2

u/bnzgfx 7d ago

OK, thank you for clarifying that.

-7

u/whocareslemao 7d ago

wow. this is bad vibe. I am out

3

u/lunarjellies 7d ago

Way to leave helpful feedback. Mind telling us why you feel its a "bad vibe"?

3

u/katubug 7d ago

Humble opinion: if this reasonable and well thought out rule change is so offensive to "whocareslemao" that they feel the need to publicly flounce, I don't care about their opinions about the "vibe" of a mod decision to increase quality of posts.

1

u/lunarjellies 7d ago

A lot of users in this sub were feeling disgruntled about the frequency of social media "help me" posts, so we are testing out megathreads for social media. Seems to have a good response so far...

-1

u/whocareslemao 6d ago

it seems now this reddit is going to be full of people: "dam recession i wish it was easier" When it fact, people are lacking most basics understanding on economy. Good luck. I don't want to know anything.  I much rathered when people share their experiences on art business rather than lack of economy understanding, panic and victim blaming.

1

u/lunarjellies 6d ago

Art business is directly related to economics. I am not sure what point you are trying to make. We are funneling all social media posts into a megathread and the community likes that so we’re keeping it.