Photography Tip—12 Tips for Using Facebook to Grow Your Photography Business

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A digital photography business, like any other commercial enterprise, must have a proactive plan to promote its services, and a Facebook page should certainly be part of that plan. Before creating a page for your photography business, spend some time looking at other photographers’ pages, and then review the 12 tips in this PhotographyTalk.com article to create demand for your services.

Common Tips to Use Your Facebook Page

Login as a page.
The first Facebook business strategy is to login into Facebook “as a page,” so you can use it as your business account, and not a personal account. It’s very easy: Click “account” in the top right corner and then click “use Facebook as a page.” You’ll receive notifications, “like” other pages and comment on digital photos and walls, as your page instead of as an individual.

Create an easy-to-remember URL.
From your page, select “edit page” in the top right corner. Then, click “basic information,” which will allow you to create your page’s username and URL. You want a short and sweet URL that more people will remember, instead of the huge string of numbers of most URLs.

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Place a badge on your Web site.
Create a Facebook badge and place it on your Web site, so visitors can leave “likes” without the need to be on Facebook. Go to “settings” for your Facebook page. You’ll find the badge command under “marketing.”

Specific Facebook Business-Building Tips

Link your personal and professional pages.
During the first few months, after you launch your Facebook page, create a link from your personal page to your professional page. This will help to generate some activity from your friends and acquaintances that will want to look at your business page and examples of your digital photography.

Establish a share link.
You can generate exposure for your business page by clicking on “share” at the bottom left of the page, under “people who like this.”

Communicate as an individual.
Use “status updates” from your page to comment on specific client projects or events in your life, so you project an image of a real human being, and not just a business entity.

Communicate as a business.
Even as you give the world some insights about you, the person, on your Facebook page, you also want to communicate the latest news about your business: special offers, recent projects, client testimonials, a new service introduced, awards won, etc. Keep it fresh; with a new post at least every 60 days. People are more likely to remember your name if they see regular and new announcements about your digital photography services.

Ask for business.
As any sales and marketing expert will tell you, you must ask for business, and often aggressively, instead of waiting for it to come to you. On your Facebook page, however, ask for business with a bit of personality and not hardcore advertising copy. For example, ask, “Didn’t you think it was odd when your friend told you that she wasn’t planning photography for her wedding?” or Wouldn’t you want to help your friend find a great photographer for her wedding, especially so you would have an excuse to buy a new dress, and then appear in many of her photos?”

Tag people in your photos.
Place a few samples of your digital photography sessions on your business page and tag the people in your photos (if you have Facebook access to them). If you can’t tag them directly, then consider communicating with a friend of the person you want to photo tag, and ask him or her to create the photo tag. The tagged photos will appear in all of their friends’ news feeds, providing you with an instant referral to all those people.

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Nikon 24mm f/1.4	Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II	Sigma 24mm f/1.8 EX DG
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Nikon 35mm f/1.4G	Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L	Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM
Nikon 85mm f/1.4G	Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II	Sigma 85mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM
Nikon 300mm f/2.8G AF-S ED	Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS	Sigma 300mm f/2.8 EX DG IF

Create client galleries and tag every subject.
This is a great reason to provide your clients with Web images, as proofs or for any use. First, you need a signed release, but then you can create photo galleries on your page for each client. Tag the individuals in the photos, as explained in tip #9 above. Brand your images with your Web site URL to generate traffic and interest in your digital photography services.

Thank your clients.
From your business page, access the profiles of your recent clients and post short thank-you notes. Not only is it a basic strategy for customer retention, but also an excellent Facebook strategy because the note is likely to appear in the friends’ feeds. Your clients must be in your personal friends’ list or have unlocked profiles, however.

Advertise.
Good-old advertising also works in a social environment. The great advantage of Facebook is that it only takes a few clicks to target your message to a specific gender, town, age group, marital status and many other audience characteristics. The ad can direct people to your Facebook page or to your Web site.

A classic advertising promotion is a contest. Offer a few hours of your digital photography services for free, for example. Make one of the rules of the contest that entrants must share your page with their friends.

Facebook is quickly becoming more than a social setting; its business tools are helping any size business gain exposure to the entire world and billions of people. It’s time your digital photography business had a Facebook page, too.

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