Are you leveraging Facebook in your marketing?

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Almost everyone knows LinkedIn is the social marketing tool most used by business. Some photographers even scoff at Facebook, saying it’s only good for personal interactions and so on.

On one of the forums I read daily, a photographer mentioned that he’d just spoke with a new marketing manager from an old client firm. The firm’s lawyers, are working on a firm-wide universal master contract to use with photographers. The client mentioned that they must be able to use the photos on Facebook, and other “social media”. The photographer asked, “Can any of you help with a few 30-sec sound bites that will alert her to potential dangers?”

From my perspective, if his images were watermarked, and as often as possible he was given a link to his site adjacent to the image, I saw no “dangers” in jumping into social media.

ASMP President James Cavanaugh wrote an eloquent reply to share his own Facebook success story. He wrote:

I’m on Facebook. A number of my clients are. I have posted two or three images a day on Facebook for the last 70 weeks. Including over 350
architectural photographs. My clients post my images. I also do this on
LinkedIn and Google+. Just haven’t had the time to start twitter.

A photographer recently contacted me to say he saw one of my images on the Lexus Facebook page. (An architectural photo of a new dealership.) I checked. There were six of my images from the project!

I was stunned. six of my images all “shared” from my original posts. Over 1,000, 000 “likes” on the site and 66,000 active discussions and each post linked right back to my Facebook business page. Stunned. You bet, and happy as hell. I could never reach 1,000,000 high end people that could afford a Lexus and show them my work.

This is exactly how social media is supposed to work.

Keep thinking it’s evil and miss the boat. In my last ASMP Presidents Message I talked about how my business grew 85% last year. This quarter, up 300% from last year! Still think social media is “dangerous”?

So what about you? Are you utilizing Facebook in your marketing to business clients? And if you’re in the retail side of our business (weddings, portraits, etc), how important is Facebook for your marketing of your studio? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Related Groozi:

10 Comments

It is acceptable that most of the people using LinkedIn and Facebook for their business development. But in Facebook there are large number of users and we can get maximum number of likes and shares. So, Facebook is the best marketing tool to promote our business.

Yes, I definitely agree with you here, this all shows how social networking sites have had a dramatic impact on businesses, I have personally seen how it can impact a business for the better and for the worse! I do think Twitter is the most effective in terms of marketing. Thank you for sharing this interesting post!

This just shows how Social Media creates a huge impact on small businesses online. As for me, Twitter would be the best Social Media marketing site, but it should always be accompanied by Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkdIn. After all, for a small business, VISIBILITY is crucial.

Blake J. Discher replied April 15th, 2012 at 6:58 am:

No question, social media can have an impact on the success of any business. Jim Cavanaugh, author of “It’s Not Personal, It’s Business!”, is tearing it up with his renewed efforts on linkedIn.

I don’t think that Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or Pinterest are essential for a webmarketing strategy. Lot of technicals like the SEO can give some visibily for an enterprise without define a social media strategy.

Blake J. Discher replied April 15th, 2012 at 7:01 am:

Essential? Perhaps not for everyone. It just seems to me that adding Facebook to one’s social media mix can only improve the visibility of any company.

I cant think of enough stuff someone would be interested in to keep facebook interesting. A great photo would help.

I “friend” every client I shoot on my personal profile (because for whatever reason the business page doesn’t allow that) then I tag them when I post their image on my professional page which I do daily. That image appears on their wall and all their friends start talking about it and commenting. FB SEO goes up, my posts are visible for at least a day and I get free advertising on their site. I also have a “check in” deal that allows them to check in with “places” on their mobile device at the studio on the day of their shoot. They get a small reward like free retouching and bam, free advertising again that appears on their wall. Is the effort and time worth the return? Not so sure but it’s a way to continue branding because when a friend refers another friend and that friend has already seen my work on FB, they are more likely to call.

I use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pintrest, and a few others and I can honestly say that with out them I would be invisible. I don’t normally shoot weddings but I am shooting one this weekend because of Facebook. That is how a friend recommended me, to my Facebook page. Then I have a portrait shoot on Sunday because an old colleague found me on Pintrest and went to my FB page.

Social media? Yeah it is a good thing. Just remember to only post images you don’t mind losing control of. If they are well marked the only real control you lose though is who is doing your marketing for you!

It’s taken photographers longer to figure out Facebook and Twitter are the newest and greatest marketing tool – businesses jumped on board immediately. BUT – 100,000 housewives in China – or 66,000 Likes are not going to get Mr. & Mrs. Lexus Owner to hire me to shoot their next ad campaign or magazine layout – I don’t shoot weddings. I feel Facebook marketing is a bit of a shotgun effect unless your FRIENDS and LIKES are “all” potential art buyers. I’ve been using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. for years and yes, it allows you to reach millions of potential art buyers, but again – those 100,000 people in China – could care less about your wedding business in Denver. Twiter is by far the better marketing tool; don’t ask me why – but for some reason people in India want to Follow me and hear about the athletes that I photograph for local magazines. Facebook reaches a lot of people, but are those the type of people you want to reach? DIRECT Marketing is still your best bet.

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