Is growing your email list on your list for the New Year?

“What email list?” you ask. “I’ve got loads of followers on Facebook and Instagram. Who needs a list?”

You do!

Without a list, your business will not produce profits on a consistent enough basis to sustain and grow your business. You might really just have a hobby and enjoy social media connecting. And that’s fine if that’s what you want.

If what you want instead is to build equity in your business, you need to look at building your list. Building a list is a way for people to get to know, like and trust you enough to spend money with you.

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This is the unofficial first week of the summer. For many people, this is the time to kick back and take it easy. You know the lazy, crazy days of summer! And, sure people do take vacations, but not all of them are gone every day all summer. So, you shouldn’t be either.

If you are trying to grow your business, taking it easy really isn’t an option. And, if you take advantage of the time many people do take it easy, your business will be ahead of the game.

Here are some ideas to kick-up your revenues this summer.

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Last week I got an email from one of our ICAP members who had reached her 5,000 friend limit on her Facebook Profile and wanted to get my thoughts on how to add all those friends to her Facebook Page. Those of us who’ve been on Facebook a long time remember when Facebook Pages didn’t exist. As a result, we have many, many business connections who are now our “friends”.

One problem you may run into is that when you joined Facebook, you agreed to its Terms of Service. The TOS can make for interesting reading, and you will find this statement: “You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own commercial gain, and will use a Facebook Page for such purposes.”

That doesn’t mean that you can’t post art business items on your personal profile. It means that you aren’t using it entirely for personal gain. Many of us are our own “brand,” and it would be hard to separate our personal side from our business side.

That said, here are some ways that you can build your Facebook Page fan base with your personal and business friends. If you are interested in learning more ways to do this, the International Association of Creative Arts Professionals (ICAP) is hosting a training in September to do this. You can learn more about ICAP and join here.

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Facebook is a fact of marketing life for just about everyone. It ranks right up there with Google and YouTube for searching. I found that to be true myself yesterday. With an impending storm, rather than searching for weather on Google I searched on Facebook for the Capital Weather Gang, the group from the Washington Post that tracks weather.

Recently I got a few questions on handling friend requests. I have been on Facebook a long time and over the years developed some guidelines for how I use Facebook. Do you have guidelines? It is a good idea to put some in place. You can always change them. However, it helps to be clearer on how you will use Facebook. Here are some to consider:

1. Decide if you want to keep your Facebook personal profile page just for your family and close friends. When I started Facebook back in 2008, you only had a personal page. It was not long before the friend tally grew. I had decided early on that I was using this as a “business” portal to let my friends, both business and personal, know what I was doing, again both business and personal. When Facebook introduced Facebook Pages, which are intended for businesses, I had so many “friends” that I decided to continue using the personal page for connecting with business friends. In my case, I also believe it acts as a referral source for business.

1. Set parameters on who you decide is your “friend.” This came up relatively early in my Facebook journey. A personal trainer from Pittsburgh asked to be my friend. I wondered what I could possibly have in common with him. We had no friends in common, and I could not see any art connection. He was not wearing a shirt in his picture. That created my “you must be wearing a shirt” rule. What other rules might you create? Perhaps you choose not to friend people who are not really personal friends.

1. What if you decide that you do not want to friend someone? Most of you have a Facebook Page. The easiest thing to do is to message the requestor and let them know that your personal page is only for family and close friends. Suggest that they “like” your Business Page and tell them that is where you share all kinds of info on what you are up to. In all likelihood, they are interested in your business side, not what you and your family did last weekend. And, it is possible for you to go back and do this now.

1. Someone asked me if it was possible to go back and make adjustments to move everyone to their business page. The answer is yes, just start doing so. You can message people that you are only posting business info on your business page and will be deleting them. Also post this on your personal profile page and encourage people to head over to your business page.

1. How about those requests from real strangers? Lately a lot of people are getting requests from people who have no friends in common and no real basis for connection. I think a lot of these come from men trolling Facebook. One of the recent ones I got was from two men with the same first and last name, only reversed. What are the odds? Look at who are friends with these strangers. I was surprised to see a good friend of mine “friend” someone without any other connections. I dropped her a note about it. She had not really even looked, just clicked friend. She removed him.

1. One of the other problems is friend requests from people you are already friends with. First you might wonder if you did not friend them after all. Or perhaps they accidentally unfriended you. Perhaps you click “confirm” without even thinking about it. What is likely happening is someone is impersonating your friend. Reasons can vary from hackers trying to collect personal information about you and others, to stalkers who are trying to gather information on your real friend. Whatever the reason, do not add the imposter as a friend, let your real friend know and report this to Facebook.

Facebook can be lots of fun and valuable as a business tool. Take the time to figure out how it will work best for you.

Please share your experiences on our ICAP Facebook or Google+ pages? By sharing your approach, you may help someone else.

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Morna McEver is the founder and CEO of the International Association of Creative Arts Professionals where creative arts entrepreneurs craft business success. Her weekly e-zine offers tips, techniques and inspiration to help you craft business success from your creative arts passion. You can sign up for a FREE subscription at http://www.creativeartsprofessional.com.

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Do you ever look at the Facebook posts of what your “friends” are doing with a tiny bit of envy? They are all successful, fulfilled and live the most exciting lives. They take glamorous trips, enjoy extremely loving relationships, their art garners all kinds of awards, and their dinners look so fabulous. The list just goes on, or so it might seem to you.

Of course, it is likely a bit of embellishment if you really ask, but it still can throw you off. It can make your life look boring and leave you with feelings of lack and loneliness, feelings of not enoughness, and feelings of sadness.

One of my clients made this observation recently and compared her results to those of someone she followed on Facebook. My client felt she had not done enough with the online art class she was offering. She did not have as many signups as someone else. She felt that she had somehow missed the boat and “failed.” In reality, she got more than 50 students in her first online course and the participants loved the program.

Interestingly, the University of Michigan conducted a study a couple years ago and found that the more college-age students used Facebook, the worse they felt.  The study has since been repeated with somewhat similar results, noting feelings of envy. What can you do about it? Here are some thoughts for handling times when you feel overwhelmed by what others are sharing on Facebook.

1. Think realistically about what is posted. Most people post the positive happenings in their lives — the good, not the good, the bad and the ugly. They curate what they share — the happy picture without the back story. Remember not to compare your whole life with what we could really call their highlight reel. I have always said that none of us knows what is going on behind the closed doors of the other houses on our street. That could not be more true with Facebook.

2. When you are touched by something someone had posted, like it or comment about it. Leave it at that and move on. Do not dwell on it or look to compare yourself, your business, your stuff to theirs.

3. Limit your time on Facebook or other social media. Instead make some real-time connections, either on the phone or in person. It has a more positive effect on how you feel.

4. Talk about gratitude on Facebook. Lately I have seen posts where people ask others what they are grateful for today. It is great. It sets you up with a positive feeling. It is hard, perhaps impossible, to feel negative when you are being grateful. I think it stops the “comparisons.” Wouldn’t it be weird to be “one-upping” someone’s gratitude?

Do you ever feel Facebook envy and what do you do to combat it? I would love to hear your thoughts on social media below. Maybe you have had some good experiences. You are also welcome to go to leave a comment on the ICAP Facebook or Google+ pages.

How effective are your efforts to engage and connect with your fans on Facebook? Perhaps you don’t realize that many of your fans never even see your posts. On average most Fan Pages reach only 12% of its fans. Not much for the effort you are putting in to try to engage your fans and develop leads. What can you do to increase that percentage? Here are a few ideas:

1. Post more often. Yes, you are already trying to post once a day. Consider that not everyone will see you post if you post once a day at the same time. I’ve heard that posts “live” for three hours, that’s the amount of time you have to engage someone. You can post more often and see if you get results. And, this is easy if you schedule your posts.

2. Post something people can respond to. That means ask questions, take polls or surveys. Think of ways that you engage the reader to respond or have a conversation.

3. Use graphics or photos. According to Hubspot, photos on Facebook generate 53% more likes than the average post. Think about your own experience on Facebook. Don’t you tend to respond more to posts with pictures? I know I do.

4. Pay attention to the analytics on your fan page and make adjustments accordingly.

The bottom line is that the more engagement (commenting, liking, sharing), the more likely your are to increase your fan base and the more exposure you will get for your business,

What are you doing to engage with your Facebook fans?