Hello, everyone!

We’re currently working with our development team on timelines for future updates. At this point, we’re hoping to have the rest of the major site features in place by the end of the year. This will include a revamped commission page, a review system, commission search functions, a WYSIWYG text editor across the site, an announcement category, increased visibility for promoted submissions, increased visibility for users open for commissions, additional moderation tools, and a wealth of bug fixes.

Understandably, this is a lot, and we want to make sure things work right before launching them. We’ll have regular updates about the release schedule as time goes on, and if we have any delays, we will let you know.

This week, we discussed the issue of finding commissions with users on social media. Surprise – the most common way for them to shop is through social media.

Social Media is Crucial to Sellers

Simply put, almost all furries use some sort of social media. We’re a fandom that’s largely based on the internet, and we use these tools to communicate with our friends. The easiest way for sellers to find a buyer is going to where the people are.

Twitter, Tumblr, and Telegram groups are some of the most common, though Discord groups are currently on the rise. The great thing about these tools is that they can create sub-communities for individual sellers – if you have followers who love your work, they’re likely to jump at the chance for a commission.

We’re currently looking at ways to take advantage of these already existing communities. When a seller opens for commissions in the future, for example, they may have an option to make a post on Twitter or Tumblr announcing commissions. This would make spreading the news easier for sellers, and posting on social media would help target likely buyers. Having a specific combination of words or a hashtag may even make it easier for users to search.

We’ll discuss some of the other common strategies of looking through sellers’ galleries or – as it sometimes happens – just getting lucky. We’ll also talk about ways FN may be able to help with those strategies. Thank you again for all your support!

Digby