Survey Results

A few weeks ago I posted a survey about social media selling.  The idea was to gather some information about what social sites people are using and how all of this free advertising is helping sales.  The survey was only three questions, which gives us some information but it's not all inclusive by any means.  I did not ask any questions about frequency of updating on these sites or how active an artist was in using these sites.  I didn't ask about exclusivity or a host of other questions that a data analyst would want to know to give a really comprehensive report.  I'm an artist, not a data analyst, go figure.  However, I did get 100% of all respondents answering all the questions, so that's the advantage of a three question survey.
I posted a link to the survey on each of the social media sites I inquired about as well as my blog (obviously) and hoped that word of mouth would get some people to reply also.  I'm pretty happy with the volume of respondents for this short, informal survey.
I'm sure you're all dying to know the results:

1. What social media sites do you use for your business?

Facebook won with 93.8%
Twitter had 68.8%
Etsy and LinkedIn tied with 56.3%

2. Which social media site provides the most sales for you?
Not surprisingly Etsy was the winner here, of course it is a sales site.
Facebook came in second followed by blogs and then Twitter.


3. How would you rate this site for providing you with active customers (active meaning people who buy your work)?
Most of the respondents indicated that they would be starving to death if they relied entirely on this site for sales the rest of the respondents indicated that less than 50% of sales came from social media sites.

In my opinion this means that social media is not the huge sales tool for artists that other businesses have claimed.  This could be because people like to see and touch art more than they do other items.  I would guess that musician can sell music via social media because, like the radio, people can get a taste of the style of the music before committing to an entire CD.
I also think social media is a great place for making contacts with other artists and keeping customers aware of what you're doing and were you're showing your work.
So go to the gallery, get your work displayed and then tell everyone in your social network.

Check out the gallery page - Future Relics Gallery