Our featured FABAtv LIVE class for the month of May is Australian painter, Annie Reynolds!
Her company, ACA Larrikans Entertainment, has been providing quality entertainment and body art around Sydney, Australia for over 13 years.
Since she started to paint, Annie decided she wanted
A few weeks ago we had a special guest come visit from Chicago. Chantal of Fanciful Faces stopped in to Silly Farm and guest starred in a YouTube tutorial for us! Chantal will show us one of her popular festival faces, a spiderman face painting design for girls! This Spidey
Do your volunteer faces keep disappearing when you take your face painting kit out? Maybe your kids now run away instead of towards you when you break out your kit. Sometimes finding a face to paint can be a challenge. Well, we’re going to change that. Practice heads are a easy and affordable way to…
In the 1980′s being professional was all about carrying a briefcase and having flown on a plane. In the 90′s being a professional was all about having a cell phone and a college degree. In the 2000′s being a professional is synonymous with being web savvy.
The millionaires and trend setters of our time; Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Tony Hsieh, all used the Internet to take their businesses to the next level. It’s not enough to have a fancy business card, people want to know about you. We live in a transparent society, where the internet gives you 24/7 access to personal information. Having a functional and good looking website, where potential clients can meet you before they “meet” you at their event, can only benefit your business. As a a parent, I want to know who I am hiring to come to my home and interact with my kid as well as my close friends and family. I want to know who is the person that I am trusting to do a good job, be family friendly, be trustworthy, and responsible. The same goes when I sub-contract work to someone. I want to see images of them on the job, read reviews about their services, and see who I am sending out to represent my company. Having a website also makes you more reachable. Google is the worlds largest search engine, millions of people search for things they need every second. By entering your name in the Google game you are more likely to reach clients and expand your business.
I get asked a lot, “Can’t I just use Facebook?” The answer is no! Facebook is an awesome way to drive traffic to your site, but it’s a personal social media middle man. Facebook was created to link people to people. Businesses are using Facebook as a means to drive traffic and promote their particular pages, but the main function of social networking is still to share and connect personal information. I made the mistake of connecting all my business to my personal page. I accepted friendships with several customers and clients and now I have to watch what I post. I should have driven them to my business/fan page so I could maintain a personal and professional life. If you are on facebook, your business should be separate from your personal life.
Visit our Facebook Business Page
Even if you aren’t web savvy or don’t have a lot of funds to invest in a site, there are several affordable options to help you get started. When you buy a domain from GoDaddy they give you a free one page site template. If you want someone to record themselves singing the alphabet backwards, create a quick graphic for you, or write your name in macaroni, Fiverr is a great website for services at only $5.
Join the wide world of web exposure and make your goal in 2013 to be Google-able. Transform your hobby of face and body art into a business by taking it serious, and taking steps to 21st century professionalism.
Leave a comment below and tell us about your website. Did you build your website or hire a web designer?
Happy Painting!
-Silly Heather
References:
The website from this articles thumbnail image is Face Formers.
The websites in the first image of this article are Silly Farm Supplies, the FABAIC 2012, and the Faba Blog home page.
Hello! I'm Silly Heather. I'm a professional face painter, mom, entrepreneur, workaholic, and avid Starbucks lover. I own Silly Farm Supplies, and FABAtv. I co-produce the Face and Body Art International Convention.
When I started face painting, I didn’t realize that I’d really get into this. I started a web blog on a free service… It looked nice but really did nothing for my business although it was linked to Facebook, Twitter, etc. When my husband saw that I was spending more time, he recommended I buy the domain name… 1) it would be easier to remember my website 2) it would improve the look of my business 3) when you look professional, customers believe you are.
Sadly, my first choice wasn’t available but after a bit of brainstorming, we came up with Smiley Face Art & ran with it. Although my husband is quite the geek, my little hobby/business was something that I enjoyed handling myself. A few days ago, he noticed that I wasn’t coming up on any of the search engines. He did some of his tech magic, and now I’m first on page 2 of google for Face Painters Chattanooga/Knoxville. By adding content regularly, I’ll soon be on page one.
It used to be that people would look for business’s via the yellow pages… do you know what it costs to have your business listed there? I do & believe me when I tell you that you will only see a return on your investment if you use the internet – I promise if you use it wisely, you’ll see the benefits!
I have a lot to learn when it comes to Face Painting but I do know how to manage a successful business!
Hi Lori,
What is the best way to go about better search engine optimization. I use GoDaddy but am way down on the list. What is th most cost effective way to do this, any body you reccomend?
Thanks, Christine
One more comment for Heather — You mentioned regretting accepting non-personal friends on your personal facebook page. Have you seen the feature under Settings where you can click on the Subscribers box? Allowing any public posts to be seen by all who subscribe to you, but keeping all your personal posts for friends and family. You could announce in a post that you would be cleaning out your friends list for just friends and family, and inviting anyone who wants to stay with you to subscribe (or to just go to your Silly Farm or Faba pages etc). A lot of work, but you’d only have to do it once. Just a suggestion, you may have seen that Subscriber feature already
Hello Heather and all other face painters.
I also believe that having a website is critical. I am constantly driving new customers to my website by promoting and word of mouth on face book, but It is my website that really allows me to set the ground work for a professional agreement between the client and my self. I use Vistaprint for my website. I don’t know if it is the best in comparison to others but I know it definitely made everything easy to do, and that is coming from someone who considered them selves computer illiterate. So far I am happy with the service, possibilities and the customer service as well. I also agree that it is important to keep your personal Face Book away from your professional one. I created a personal FB, a professional FB Fan Page and a Face Book just to connect and network with other face painting artist from around the world (PixiesBrew ForFacePainters). I recommend having all 3 and keeping your personal page personal.
BTW, Heather you are the best at everything you do. You are an inspiration, a true leader, radiating with positivity and good vibes for so many artist.
Thank you for the work that you do.
I don’t want to discourage or scare people off… but there is one thing you don’t address here and that is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you build it they may NOT come. If your website does not have SEO capabilities… your website may wind up on page 10,000 when someone just puts a general search term like “face painters” or some other similar search term. To get the most out of your web investment, you need to have a web master who can constantly get your web site listed on the 1st or no farther down than the 2nd page of Google/Yahoo/etc. If people do not know your specific domain name… you have just “spit into the wind” so to speak. Yes… it is going to cost you some bucks… but it is seriously worth it. For example… if you type in “face painters + iowa… my website is the #2 listing on the 1st page of Google.
The other thing is… you need to constantly update your verbiage in order for the “web crawlers” to continue to rank your website high in a general search. You can’t just build it and let it sit. Without new content… your web site will begin to sink in the rankings.
For what it’s worth, there’s my two cents worth on web sites. If you are going to do it… do it right… or you are wasting your dollars… and nobody likes to do that!
Lori, you are so right. Along side a nice and clean website with all of the information on it that people are looking for, SEO is most important for a successful run on the internet. I have built my entire business online thanks to Google, Yahoo and Bing plus hours of learning how to setup our website. Without the internet and SEO (which I do all myself) our team would not be as successful as we are.
I built my own website. I love to be creative (that’s why I do face painting and airbrush tattoos) and I love playing on the computer. I was using jimdo.com’s free site, but moved to wix.com as you can have animation and they have some really cool stuff to make your website with as well as being able to make each page unique if you want. It is also easy to use and let’s me unleash my creativity, which is something that is an absolute must for me. I went with their premium which I could pay on a monthly basis and was very reasonable. I had to pay for a domain name, but that was inexpensive as well. I have only to get my behind the scenes stuff so search engines can find me better.
I am new to WordPress since this January,although I have had a basic website template for the past 3 years. Since moving over I have more control, more positive feed back and more business Google anylitics on my website allows me to focus my marketing efforts and allows me to see areas that need improvement.2012 looks like it will be an even better year than last, especially as I can attract the right customers too!
I still don’t have one, the fiver thing you told me about didn’t work out. I just don’t understand it’ll and every place I have tried wants an arm and a leg. I want a web site so bad but have no clue. It is probably not as hard as I’m thinking it is but I keep failing so I’ve given up.
Heather, your blogs, your facebook pages, and your Silly Farm store are all on my faves list. I have purchased my face painting supplies from you guys for years. One more idea if you don’t want to do GoDaddy or a paid web page, is just use a Free blogger or wordpress page. I am retiring now, but my blogger page for my face painting business brought me nearly all of my work! I also posted on craigslist, with a LINK to my blog. ~Tricia