I hate social media. Loathe it. Facebook is confusing, I have two accounts, I think one was an old business account which I never did anything with and the otrher I haven’t engaged with since 2014. It seems to be full of people that I sort of used to know and have no ambition to pick up with now. Instagram used to be lovely when it was just photos and now it’s like Facebook - full of doomscroll and so it seems rather useless. However, we’re told to engage with this rubbish and send posts etc. I can’t think of anything more banal: time wasting, engaging with a platform I disagree with and just hating every second of having to deal with this chore.
What’s the alternative? Anything out there more joyful, interesting and stimulating?
I hear you!! It’s a bit of a love hate relationship as I do interact with some lovely people on there from a business perspective but I think FB is a hot mess and IG is following suit!! I can tolerate them in far smaller amounts than I used to!! Scratching head here trying to work out how I continue to make it work for my business.
I completely agree with you, it’s horrible and it’s done a lot of damage to our younger generation kids, teenagers and younger adults. If we need social media to advertise our wears then we need the right social media platforms to engage with. Social media advertising for craft is getting lost in the constant stream if rubbish being posted by AI and people who just can’t live without their precious mindless social media. Unless the correct form of advertising is invested in by Folksy we are all slowly dieying a death.
Yep. Facebook ads have to be the most tedious and confusing process ever. Instagram is now infected with AI crap. Pinterest the same, though you can block that out. And twitter/X doesn’t much work for sales. I tend to get a lot of links and clicks through Pinterest.
Couldn’t agree more! I deleted all my accounts years ago, but made an Instagram account when I started this shop last year. I’ve deleted it again as I just absolutely hate being on there. I hate Meta’s ethics, and I despise AI. I found a way to take my selling more offline, and after Christmas I won’t be selling online as it isn’t working for me. Social media’s evolved into something I don’t want to be a part of anymore.
I’ve never used Social Media. Never had personal or business accounts with them. And never will. The increasing Folksy emphasis on social media was one of the main things that led me to withdraw from operating my shop in May this year. Though I remain as a Folksy Spectator hoping it may change in time. I only sell through galleries now.
Oh and I thought it was just me, I had a right old moan about it last night to my other half, Facebook is useless, I use to sell every bear I made on there, now I’m lucky if any of my followers actually see my posts, I hate it and became very lapse with it this year but I’m currently trying to use it more in the hope I might actually sell something before christmas on there. I always liked Instagram but it’s following suit, flooded with shit reels and A1 garbage, my posts reach the same few people. I actually feel like i’m trying to sell to myself half the time and I’m also lucky if I see posts from those I want to follow. One thing I know for sure, the day I retire I will cut strings with it all. I’m losing the will, where else can we share what we make ? I think within the next year it will be a waste of time trying to sell online as there will be nowhere suitable for us to promote. I think most of my ideas for embroidering bears have been copied by others on pinterest, I see it as a place where people save other peoples work so they don’t have to work on original ideas of their own and have seen near identical items to mine recently, I just find it really annoying and doubt it has ever brought orders in, just people making money out of other peoples ideas. And moan over
I’m delighted to have all these comments. I don’t quite understand why folksy heavily recommended linking up with social media. Is it because of the bi directional links, helping us to improve the rankings? Or is it to make sales through social media? If the latter, I have zero hope of that achieving anything of that as I’ve tried to do that with another business and I got zip.
It must be me but does anyone have any further comments on this?
I have my own domain and have forwarded this to folksy but that is not optimised but at least it has a bit more about me rather than nothing but can’t see that it would work to any great effect but at least there’s some standout.
Although SM frustrates the heck out of me a lot of the time, I still believe it’s an important part of my business - it’s taken a long time to build but there’s no doubt I get sales from it and regular customers see me there and can interact with me too, so I think it’s worth persevering with especially as I don’t currently do in person events. My stats definitely back up the fact that I get way more visits to my shop when I’ve posted.
I’m not too sure what you mean by forwarding your own domain to Folksy, so unfortunately can’t comment on that bit
Oh totally agree! I used to do well on IG until it sold out to FB of which I hate just as much. It’s all about the money and a lot of tatty videos at that! Doom and gloom too.
I would love to but there’s nothing around me, there is one shop in Hull which is only 13 miles away and I recently enquired online but when she sent the prices I nearly fell through the floor, I can’t remember exactly how much it was for a shelf space but I do remember I would need to be selling an awful lot for it to pay so didn’t look any further. I havn’t driven for 11 years either so it makes it more difficult. When I first started I was offered a space at a lovely little shop in Hornsea, I took a portfolio of my work and she offered me a place but as she wanted me to go through every week and being unable to drive I couldn’t do it. I often see shops and galleries when on holiday in the UK and wish we had some nearby.
I don’t like FB but it brought me a few hundred sales in my earlier years before joining Folksy then it started to change and now my local customers rarely see my posts. I liked Instagram and made some lovely friends on there but I feel it’s changing very quickly now and is flooded with reels and rubbish that I’m not interested in. I know without social media I wouldn’t have made a fraction of the sales I have the past few years and If I sat and waited for customers to find me on Folksy there would be a lot of twiddling thumbs, unfortunately without self promotion there wouldn’t be much point in trying to sell online. Do you sell elsewhere? Do you make sales without the need for social media!? Or have premises ? Sorry I didn’t understand what you meant by giving Folksy your domain either, did you mean a website ?
As much as I don’t like Facebook for personal use as a tool for business I find it useful. I started using my Folksy again this week, after a long break, and have had 21 sales due entirely to marketing myself on Facebook. I’d have had no sales otherwise. The trick is to find the right places on Facebook, not your own page, that’s as much use as leaving it all up to Folksy. Join groups that have a much larger reach than your own page would have. Post once or twice a day and the only other time spent there is if you need to answer questions.
Well at the moment I am not a fan either, had my very hard worked for Instagram account suspended for no apparent reason! Not meeting community standards!
Appealled and got reviewed and now sorted but to be told they made a mistake!
I had something similar. My theory for why my account was suspended is that some book reviewers had followed my account, I’d followed back, we interacted because I’d sent them a copy of my upcoming book to review. Then they reviewed my book and hated it (I only knew this because I got a review notification from the site I used to share it). It took me a few days to notice, but they unfollowed me and also removed me as a follower to their account. I think they did it so they could write an honest review without me seeing it, but Instagram assumed that if I’d been removed from following an account it was because I’d behaved badly. So they suspended my account and I had to do an appeal. Account was reinstated really quickly but it was such a faff… and after all that, I did in fact see the bad review haha.
Yes it is strange how it works, I checked and around the time it got suspended someone who I do not follow followed me, then like practically my whole grid then sent messages and requested I follow them back!
I wonder if it didn’t like the bombardment!
It is such a faff and I suffer anxiety so I had a mini meltdown too lol
