As I have an established Facebook page for my business, Shellebelle Designs Stained Glass, I've chosen to complete the alternate assignment this week. As part of it I've prepared a small practice page - Pifinity.
But back to my Shellebelle Designs page... this page is actually one of four that I run for my business. Since my business is a bit of a hodgepodge I've separated out its content by topic into pages so that I don't annoy people away with irrelevant posts (i.e. fans of my custom cakes really don't care to hear about my vinyl diecutting). This is good and bad; while it does help me dial my content in more tightly my followers are spread across multiple pages and it's difficult to coax them into liking all of my pages. But at the same time, at least I know the likes are genuine.
I started my stained glass page on April 28, 2015, shortly after I legally formed my business. My main business page existed long before that, but got cleaned up as I refined all of my content into their own pages. Right from the get go I was using my stained glass business page to promote my products and share my work, as I was 3 years into my stained glass hobby at that point and had work and patterns to show. It was also around this time that I relaunched my Etsy page and was using Facebook to help promote that. At first my posting was slow, and now I share something about once a month. I wish I could post more, but I struggle to find the time to make new pieces and develop new patterns now. When I do post I maybe get a few likes because Facebook serves my posts to so few people. It's pretty dismal - but my posts do get some attention on Instagram. As of today, the page has 75 followers.
Other businesses in my industry are Spectrum Glass by Oceanside Glass & Tile, Don Myers Stained Glass, and Ocean Stained Glass. Let's look at their social media...
Spectrum Glass by Oceanside Glass & Tile
Admittedly, this company is in a transition phase right now, having bought up Spectrum Glass a few years ago and moved art glass production to Mexico to address stricter EPA standards. It's been a rough start for them, especially since they've not been well-received by the glass art community, and it shows on their Facebook page. Despite 13.5k likes, their posts get very little engagement. Plus, they don't post as often as they used to. Last summer they were posting several times a week - neat videos, new products, information on the transition, and more - which I found interesting and informative, especially since Spectrum glass is my favorite to work with. However, come fall their social media efforts tapered way off and they rarely post anymore. I also noticed by checking their website that their marketing specialist is no longer there (there's probably a correlation here). Needless to say, their posts aren't as interesting and engaging as they used to be, and in fact when I checked their page I noticed two posts that hadn't even been served up in my timeline from today. Granted, I'm a firm don't feed the metrics Facebook user and I never like any post from any source, and only post comments when I have something to say. I know Facebook takes this as me not being interested in the page, which is discouraging. Their photos (including cover photo) are all well formatted and loaded correctly, I just wish there were more.
If I had to make a suggestion for how to improve the page I'd suggest that they post more. I loved their production and product videos, styled pictures of new products, and helpful updates. In fact, last spring the company put out the call for glass artists to send in pictures of their work to be featured (with attribution) on their page. I sent in several of my pieces with the hope that Spectrum's platform could help get me exposure, but nothing ever happened with that. That was disappointing me to me as someone who enjoys seeing the work of others as well as using their product.
Don Myers Stained Glass
Don Myers is a big name in the local stained glass scene. His page has 80 likes and was created in October of 2010. Unfortunately, this is another page that has gone stale - its last post is from 2017. And if you scroll a bit further you see a bit more active posting, but it's just memes. I want to see his work! The imagery on the page is otherwise set up properly, though their cover photo does clip off a bit (likely due to Facebook constantly messing with its size). There are no calls to action. This page could be greatly improved by posting more and by sharing photos of their actual product. His speciality is architectural glass, which is a field I don't work in but I certainly appreciate and would love to see more of.
Ocean Stained Glass
Ocean Stained Glass is a new shop for me, but I was happy to see that their nearly 500 followers are getting more interesting content than the other two pages are sharing. Here, they post about once a month and do a good job sharing inspiring photos to encourage their target market to get their creative juices flowing. However, their cover photo could use some work. It's of a stained glass work, but zoomed in too closely to tell what it's of and it's poorly lit. I suppose they were trying to show off the glass itself, but they don't accomplish that well. Plus, the picture is a bit fuzzy and I see a break in one of the pieces of glass (breaks are our absolute nemesis). It's unfortunately not a good look, and could be improved with a clearer photo that either showcases more interesting glass or a more identifiable section of a work. They do feature a call to action with a post about inventory and gift certificates, but at first glance I thought it was a student work post. They do, however, encourage action with a Send Message button enabled on the page.
I think this page could be improved by posting more, especially about what products they have on hand. Trips to glass stores are a bit of a production, so knowing ahead of time what products they carry would help encourage me to make the trip up to Dana Point to visit them.
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