Pinterest vs. The Fancy: Social Media Marketing for Artists, Designers, and Everyone Else

[Michelle Pajak-Reynolds]

Pinterest vs. The Fancy: Social Media Marketing for Artists and Designers (and everyone else)

 

With 10 million users (predominately women) Pinterest has garnered a lot of attention over recent weeks.  However, the social bookmarking site The Fancy is quickly gaining steam.

 

Both sites allow users to share images in similar ways either with a “Pin it” or “Fancy it” button in their browser tool bar.   Website owners can also add these buttons to images within their website to encourage customers to share their favorite items on their Pinterest boards or Fancy catalog.

 

While there is a little overlap, Pinterest and The Fancy vary greatly in the images being shared.  Pinterest has a very feminine and Etsy/scrapbook like feel while The Fancy is much more niche with a unisex and high design/luxury flavor.  A quick look at each sites’ “Popular” link this morning is an excellent example of this key difference.

 

 Screen shot of Pinterest "Popular" page (9:45am EST, 2/28/12)

Screen shot of The Fancy's "Popular Right Now" page (9:46am EST 2/28/12)

 

 

Unlike Pinterest, The Fancy has made it easy for artists, designers, and a variety of companies to monetize their social media marketing efforts by allowing them to sell their items via a “Buy it” link in the right hand corner.  This simple feature is wonderful because it takes visitors to the original website and helps viewers discover amazing items they may not ordinarily come across. 

 

Pinterest does not offer a prompt or obvious link to encourage viewers to leave Pinterest and visit the original site. In order to make a purchase through Pinterest, the user has to click on the image twice.  The first click opens up a screen that encourages the user to “repin, like, or comment” on the image. A second click will take the user to the website where the pinned image was sourced.

If your marketing efforts are about increasing sales than The Fancy clearly provides an advantage over Pinterest.

 

The Fancy also allows users to “fancy” an image to multiple categories at once, whereas Pinterest only allows users to post to one of their boards at a time.  Having the option to post to multiple categories at once greatly expands the potential reach of your marketing efforts, not to mention a huge time saver if you’re “fancying” a lot images.

Both sites allow users to follow one another and share their finds via Facebook and Twitter, thus further expanding the audience for an image.

 

 

If you choose to participate in social media sites like Pinterest or The Fancy, here are three tips to help you have a successful social media marketing experience.

1. Include as much important information as possible.  “Pin it” and “Fancy it” buttons do not automatically pull the meta-data or tags connected to an image.  Be a responsible Pinner or Fancier and include information such as artist/designer name, title, materials, and photographer and model credits etc to each image you add.
2. Pay attention to repins and comments for your postings.  Social media is all about engaging in a conversation with your audience, developing a positive reputation among your followers and turning them into ambassadors for your work.  A simple “thank you” reply to a viewer who said something nice about one of your images shows you’re listening and care about what your fans have to say.
3. Set a timer.  Joining a social media site can feel like jumping down the rabbit hole and it’s easy to get sucked in and have the hours fly by.  I’ve found that by setting a 15 minute timer for each social media site I’m a member of allows me to market my work and stay connected to my fans while still getting everything else done.

 

Your comments are always welcome.  Do you use Pinterest, The Fancy or another social media marketing site?  What do you like/don’t like about them? How has using those sites helped your business grow?

Check out another point of view about Pinterest on Harriete Estel-Berman's blog: http://crafthaus.ning.com/profiles/blogs/pinterest-the-huge-concern...

 

Thanks for reading,

Michelle

Follow me on Pinterest and The Fancy

 

[Alison B. Antelman]

Why do I need to become involved in YET another social media site? I can't imagine my customers even know about this?? It just seems like there's always the next thing but many of them die quickly.

alison

[Michelle Pajak-Reynolds]

Getting involved in social media marketing sites depends on your goals and your customers.  These sites, along with many others, can be a great tool for growing your business, but everything goes back to knowing who your customer is and how and where they enjoy sharing information.   Keeping up with all of the new sites and marketing tools can be intimidating and overwhelming, hence this post comparing two sites widely discussed in the current media.  

Pinterest has 10 million users and The Fancy has growing niche of 250,000+ design and luxury good savvy users and both sites boast about lots of activity from publishers, magazine editors and stylists so it's very likely that many consumers are aware of these sites if not using them already.  

"It just seems like there's always the next thing but many of them die quickly." Great point, but if my memory serves me correctly, this same thing was said about Facebook, Twitter, and our beloved Crafthaus when they first started out too.

[Valerie A. Heck]

Once I learned about pinterest I used it to pin many of the images from my blog, and my blog is over 4 years old at this point. My goal with my blog is to gain many follower/subscribers so when I start my own jewelry business I will already have an audience that loves art jewelry.

The timer idea is a great one when you are on a social media site. I'll have to check out The Fancy when I get a chance.

[Michelle Pajak-Reynolds]

Did you see an increase in blog traffic and readership from your pinning?

[Michelle Pajak-Reynolds]

Found this great ebook, How to Use Pinterest for Business, from Hubspot with examples of how a variety of companies, including Etsy, use Pinterest to increase sales.  http://blog.hubspot.com/Portals/249/docs/ebooks/howtousepinterestfo...

[Maggie Bergman]

Great post Michelle! Social media will be the most important indicator Google looks at for some time to come. I have dived into the Pinterest Rabbit hole and got addicted quickly, hours fly by!
I will dedidnitely check out Fancy!

Pinterest is making me money though, in my traffic referals it comes in at number 2, not bad since I've only been there for 5-6 weeks!

Maggie

[Michelle Pajak-Reynolds]

Hi Maggie,  So glad to hear you enjoyed this post as well.  Way to go on using Pinterest to grow your business.  Would you mind sharing a little bit about you've been doing on the site?  

FYI I just found an article about how self taught jewelry artist, Beth Quinn sold 300 pieces as a result of using Pinterest. "As an example, small business owner Beth Quinn, a self taught jewelry and mixed media artist, has seen success in using Pinterest, typically seeing traffic of 10 – 15,000 hits per day to her site. Specifically, one of her charm necklaces recently received 1,500 repins and 400 likes, causing traffic to spike to 70,000 and orders for the necklace to spike. Another Pinterest pin resulted in sales of 300 units of one necklace design in the fall." http://www.boston.com/business/specials/small_business_blog/2012/02/pinterest_isnt_for_every_small_business.html

[Michelle Pajak-Reynolds]

Interesting infographic about the growth and impact of Pinterest and demographics on Pinterest users.  http://socialtimes.com/pinterest-vs-other-social-media-giants-infog...