I have found Facebook to be an excellent resource for networking with other industry professionals such as makeup artists, models, clothing stylists and other photographers.

As far as seeing any business from it... almost none at all. I did get a referral form another photographer the other day for a $300 business head shot that he was unable to do because of a schedule conflict.

A full time commercial photographer that I have great respect for and who has, but barely uses his FB account put it to me this way: "The people that I need to see my work are busy business people, they are not on Facebook".

I think think that FB is biggest legal first class of lobotomy.

Surely Twitter is even worse?

I'm an old stick-in-the-mud having a 'discussion/argument' with a friend of mine regarding the merits of my having a FB account (which I don't have)! His argument for an account is that everyone has one, you can't be in business without one and that must bring in new business. I earn my living primarily from commissioned photography for industrial clients in the food sector + a little pocket money from stock. I am dubious on a time-invested vs new client billing basis of the merits of the social media whilst my friend reckons that it must be good for business.

I'm no high-flyer, big deal photographer. Nor do I have an outstanding style/technique to my work......so it's not like I'm going to be noticed among the millions of other photographers with an account. My friend insists that with an account, the world will know that I exist and be able to find me. I argue that the world will not even notice and that I'll be just one of the billions of FB account holders, so why should I expend my time on maintaining an account when I could be more profitably spend it on other methods of acquisition.
My question is, do you directly get work from new clients from their looking at your Facebook account or is FB just a part of your more direct approach to acquiring new business via the more traditional methods (personal contact, phone, direct mail, word-of-mouth recommendation etc)?

I already have a site with a fairly complete selection of the work that I do. Do I need a Facebook account as well? TIA for any comments/advice.

I think someone just entered my brain and posted this...

I was wondering the exact same thing. I constantly have to explain myself why I'm NOT on FB.

From the little I've seen of FB (not to mention the IPO development LOL LOL LOL) I cannot comprehend how this would be beneficial for business (a photography business).

Every professional photographer has his/her own web site, with their own personal touch to it. It mostly can be easily found on Google by the name of the photographer, why FB?

I can also not understand where people get the time to hang on FB for hours just to look at other peoples kids, houses, pets and other $hit that has no impact on their own personal life whatsoever.

Why don't people spend their time with their family or significant others in person?

OMG I must be too old... Times are a changing  

I was wondering the exact same thing. I constantly have to explain myself why I'm NOT on FB.

I don't. I have exactly three 'friends' on FB, all of whom I communicate in more traditional ways.
I seem not to know anyone else who is on FB other than a few people who are members to keep in touch with their globetrotting kids, certainly not that I need to FB with - I can see them or phone them.
I don't get it either. A normal website is so much better in so many ways, and what's wrong with email?
I guess I'll find out if I ever get time to do Lynda.com's "Facebook - Essential Training" course. I watched the first chapter and was no more convinced of its point.
There's a cartoon in a recent Private Eye showing a bloke at a job interview and the boss is saying, "You're not on Facebook - what are you hiding?"

...
Facebook :  as a business, I first have a personal account there, and then a business "page".  As the whole facebook "world" does not interest me at all, it took me half a year to understand how to "behave" there, and how to connect.  Today, I post links to my blogposts there, talk about every new photo session, and they result in just a few likes.  Not worth the trouble then?  May-be, but I give my customers a dvd with highres photos + websize photos, and the websize photos bear my watermark "Anyka".  My customers post these watermarked photos all over facebook.  People who "like" these photos link through to my facebook page, and finally arrive on my website.  So yes, facebook is "viral" and has its merits for a business, though I think it has more effect on private customers than on companies buying food images.

So how does your business site on FB work out? Since your photos go "viral" you should be swamped with work through FB inquiries..., or is it more along the lines of the OP that you, I and others are just one of millions of photographers on FB posting our awesome shots not really turning the exposure into business?

Maybe I did not explain well :  I hardly get any direct business through my facebook page, just a few likes.  But my customers post my photos on THEIR facebook accounts, and these photos are marked with "Anyka".  Friends and family of my customers see those photos, click on "like", ask where they can get such awesome photos too etc etc.  That's what I mean with viral.  I don't get any orders through facebook, but many facebookers arrive on my website because they saw my portraits on their friends' facebook pages.
I keep my list of friends very local, because my portrait customers are local.  If I do a pregnancy photo shoot, I add the customer to my friends, because she's a potential customer with her baby.
You'll understand that I never post stock photos there - I would not like it if my stock bestsellers went "viral".  But the portraits are paid for by my customers, so they can post them anywhere they want.

Excuse my ignorance, but if I understand correctly, you are posting images from your paid shoots on your FB wall or gallery or whatever they call it and add the client to your friends list?

So basically everyone who is your friend already knows about your business anyways (e.g. you are not inviting/soliciting people to check out your business).

In the end it's still word of mouth that might bring business to you or is it that one (you) hope(s) that friends of friends check out your FB profile?

Is there anyone here who is a PRO in terms of using Facebook? I know that it's not intended to be a business network like linkedin but if companies do create business with FB how does it work?

I have a FB account, but mostly for keeping in touch with family and friends. I don't want to spend hours sitting there looking at everything either, I spend way too much time in front of my computer doing work. I swear one of these days I will go to get up from the chair and it will be permanently affixed to my body!

I also have a "business" page, where I post some of the graphic, web, photography and painting projects I am working on. But everyone who is a friend on that page is a personal friend too. When I set the page up, I couldn't figure out how to have "friends" on the business page and keep them separate from my personal friends. It didn't make much sense to me, and I wasn't curious enough to go track down the whole concept and fix it.

That being said, I am bidding on a web design project right now because of someone I "friended" on FB. (Friend of a friend). So I view it as more of a networking thing, just the same as if my sister worked for a company who needed web design and called me. I don't plan on doing any heavy "social media marketing campaigns" because I just don't think it pays off in the end. I would rather drive people to my regular website.

I'm with clickclick and shady sue. And I must be getting old, too.

A little OT, but along the same lines...watched a little bit of the country's athletes entering the stadium for the Olympics last night. I couldn't believe the number of athletes walking with cell phones, cameras and tablets in their hands, recording their walk. I just think that I would want to be SO in the moment, enjoying the applause and the excitement and the comraderie, instead of busy worrying if I was getting the right shot in the viewfinder so that everyone else could enjoy the walk.  

Thanks for all your posts. Most informative. Anyka, you seem to have found the smart way to use FB for your business. Let your satisfied customers do the walking/talking for you. An electronic word-of-mouth. Facebook is as it's name suggests a book of faces. And when you're in the people portrait business, by clever coupling of different marketing tools, it can be made to work for you, obviously.
As I mentioned in the original post, I'm not in the people portrait business and I still find it difficult to imagine any great business benefit for me from being on FB. However, I also take other comments into consideration too, eg........view it as something between a newsletter & Rolodex..........chance to tender for work via a friend of a friend. Perhaps I'm less negative about it now than I was but I still can't see it as an 'efficient' method for me of acquiring new business.

Think of your marketing as multifaceted and facebook is just one part of a marketing mix. Include a great website with SEO. Write blog articles and get them published with link backs. Use facebook and linkedin for other connections. Try Youtube for info videos about your knowledge. Its all just marketing and FB is just another fishing line in the lake.

I see a business plus just from being "seen."  How often do you watch MAJOR TV commercials to see or hear, "or check our Facebook Page and/or Twitter Account?"

It works.  Like Anyka, I'm gradually learning proper media etiquette.  

I see a business plus just from being "seen."  How often do you watch MAJOR TV commercials to see or hear, "or check our Facebook Page and/or Twitter Account?"

Yeah, and how often is it a waste of time looking there.
Their website is almost always much more useful.

It's hard to beat the good old telephone when it comes to getting business. You do a bit of research, call someone who might need your work, and see what happens. Eventually someone does and if you don't screw it up, you can get a long term client. If you do a good job, you may get a referral as well. I find with long term clients, you don;t need anything except the time to take them for lunch now and then. A web page is good for newer clients and FB is a complete waste of time.

Maybe we are looking at this from the wrong angle:
How does having a FB Page "harm" your business?  It's FREE!  Isn't that a magical word in the marketing business?   

I think the point is to direct the FB generation to your website.

Maybe we are looking at this from the wrong angle:
How does having a FB Page "harm" your business?  It's FREE!  Isn't that a magical word in the marketing business?  

It probably doesn't 'harm' your business, but it's time-consuming - I see lots of causes having to waste their time on FB, Twitter, Tumblr and goodness knows what else just to be kewl, when they have perfectly good, utd websites.
And who bothers with how many people 'like' something? The savvy know that companies have competitions ('draw for an iPad', as mentioned above, and literally for a restaurant I ate at this week) for those who 'like' their business on FB, so hardly a recommendation.

Also, SEO isn't great. I just Google(UK)d "portrait photographer New York" and was on page 5 before I got a facebook link.
OTOH, if the customer is welded to FB and search within FB, you only get FB sites, so that's presumably why even charities feel they must have a presence there.

I don't really find it overly time consuming or have a problem with negativity. I still spend most of my time creating new images. Occasionally, I'll write a Facebook post about what's new (which gets automatically mirrored on Twitter) or a blog post if I want to write something longer. It may translate into sales, but it may not. Either way, it's a simple way to build a public image.

I don't really find it overly time consuming or have a problem with negativity. I still spend most of my time creating new images. Occasionally, I'll write a Facebook post about what's new (which gets automatically mirrored on Twitter) or a blog post if I want to write something longer. It may translate into sales, but it may not. Either way, it's a simple way to build a public image.

I was thinking more of larger companies, after Warren's post about Coca Cola. I wouldn't expect you to have any issues yet, Cory. But think about in the future, when you get to the size of istock. 

... Someone looked into that only to discover that 82% of his followers were created as robo-followers (ie they didn't exist) to presumably make him seem more important than he was.

This is the exact reason why I have not much trust in these services.

There are tons of companies out there advertising that they can get you thousands of followers for $50 or whatever but all those followers are just numbers and not people who actually are interested in you.

Quote from: cthoman on July 29, 2012, 14:19

I don't really find it overly time consuming or have a problem with negativity. I still spend most of my time creating new images. Occasionally, I'll write a Facebook post about what's new (which gets automatically mirrored on Twitter) or a blog post if I want to write something longer. It may translate into sales, but it may not. Either way, it's a simple way to build a public image.

I was thinking more of larger companies, after Warren's post about Coca Cola. I wouldn't expect you to have any issues yet, Cory. But think about in the future, when you get to the size of istock. 

Wouldn't that be a good problem to have?   

Quote from: WarrenPrice on July 29, 2012, 17:13

Hard to judge a product without personal experience, isn't it?
Here's my most recent experiment.  The image is downsized but I got in a hurry and forgot to include the copyright notice (on the image.)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2330982370164&set=a.1014820146931.2325.1717890652&type=1&theater

It had 31 likes in less than an hour; produced 4 queries; and 2 sales pending.

Any idea where these people came from?

Quote

And, It was posted on another's FB Page -- that's a reference to "learning proper FB etiquette."

You've lost me. How do you mean it was posted on another's FB page?
You posted the picture on someone else's page? Why?

(I haven't got that far in FB Essential Training yet: still on the early bits about how to find 'friends', which apparently only proves that the three 'friends' I have are indeed probably the only people I know who are on FB.)

 

[/quote]

@Sue ... I just edited that comment.  I saw that it could be confusing.
Used another's page because just posting pictures to be shared by your "friends" can get very annoying.  That is all that comes from sharing sales figures (image sales) from DT and others via Facebook.

The page I chose to share the image is designed just for that purpose ... sharing material of mutual interest.  MY MARKET.   

I was thinking more of larger companies, after Warren's post about Coca Cola. I wouldn't expect you to have any issues yet, Cory. But think about in the future, when you get to the size of istock.  

LOL. I don't think there is any danger of that happening. It did make me curious though. I had to go check out iStock's Facebook page.

We (ie Warmpicture) have a considerably larger following on Twitter than on Facebook, but honestly I wish it were the other way around. Twitter strikes me as a gazillion people tweeting their business cards 24/7, over and over. I wonder at times if anyone is paying attention. I know the search engines pay attention to Twitter activity, but that will only last as long as they are relevant.

Facebook seems a lot more intimate/personal to me. The connections I have made through FB on a personal and business level have been meaningful ones. When I post something, people read it. When they post something, it gets my interest too. The level of interaction is high.

I recommend any photographer watermark their images for use on Facebook. That watermark should either have enough text on it that it can't be "stolen" for someone else's design, or at least have relevant info on it which states your copyright, and your website address.

In the last month we have had 2 sales as a direct result of our Twitter account. We also have had 2 sales as a direct result of our Facebook account. We have 15000 Twitter followers, and 80 Facebook followers. 2 results from 80 people is pretty good. 2 from 15000 kinda sucks to be honest. To me, I just think the Facebook Bang for the Buck is considerably higher.

I'm not going to sell you on the merits of Facebook. I'm not a believer that social media benefits all business situations. You probably aren't going to have an image go "Viral". Rather you want many small victories. Someone in the thread mentioned "word of mouth" as being a great source of future business. That is exactly how I approach Facebook. When a photo gets "Shared" or "Liked", it is the social media equivalent of "word of mouth."

So maybe your Aunt Marge shares one of your cool photos, which in turn gets shared by a few of her connections, and eventually gets shared and seen by someone who is looking for similar work to contract, purchase, etc. The odds are no different than word of mouth in "the real world" leading to an opportunity.

Another way to use Facebook is by getting your existing real world customers to follow your business on Facebook. It's easy for a customer to forget about you. But if they see your posts every so often on Facebook, or they see you have new photos, or are running a special sale, etc., you are keeping them connected with your business. In that sense, it is about mind share and staying relevant.

And by the way you don't have to share your photos. You can share articles related to photography, articles about your latest shoot, links to your new images, etc. So if you don't feel comfortable putting your photos online, just don't.

Does anyone see a problem running a home-based business, NOT posting their business address on FB?

I've heard too many scary stories of Facebook users being stalked etc. simply because their address leaked or something similar so I was wondering, how one can do serious business without posting their actual location?

Is this widely "accepted" now in today's FB world or is it "still" frowned upon to just name the city where I live do business in?

Does anyone see a problem running a home-based business, NOT posting their business address on FB?

I've heard too many scary stories of Facebook users being stalked etc. simply because their address leaked or something similar so I was wondering, how one can do serious business without posting their actual location?

Is this widely "accepted" now in today's FB world or is it "still" frowned upon to just name the city where I live do business in?

I rarely post my address or phone number., although I'm sure neither are really that hard to find. I give them out when clients ask for them, and they are usually on my invoices. I haven't noticed anybody in the bushes stalking me which is probably lucky for them. I doubt I'd be very exciting to stalk. 

The concept of running a business but not having the phone number or address, eludes me. What? Is it a secret club or something.

Imagine someone wanting to buy a pair of shoes, but the store has an unlisted number and unlisted location. Doesn't that seem a bit odd? 

Just like a photo, if you want something to be unknown, private, and never at risk, never put it on the Internet.

I don't sell shoes or any other physical product, so there isn't really any reason for anybody to show up at my doorstep. There is nothing they can see here that they can't see online (other than me). As far as the phone, I find phone calls distracting and inefficient, so I'd prefer to get emails. That said, I still do face to face meetings and phone conversations, but it is much easier to run everything through email.

If you want an anecdote, I turned down a job a few months ago. They wanted me to meet them at their office. It was about a 30 minute drive to the north side of town where their office was. In the time it would have taken me to get ready, drive there, have the meeting and drive back, I probably could have finished the job. I turned the job down. It just didn't make any sense to spend all that time to meet for such a small job.

Quote from: cthoman on July 31, 2012, 10:40

...
If you want an anecdote, I turned down a job a few months ago. They wanted me to meet them at their office. It was about a 30 minute drive to the north side of town where their office was. In the time it would have taken me to get ready, drive there, have the meeting and drive back, I probably could have finished the job. I turned the job down. It just didn't make any sense to spend all that time to meet for such a small job.

Now you can hear someone say: You never know, if you met them it might have led to many more lucrative jobs on an ongoing basis...

Thats why you qualify it and ask for enough detail to determine if there's a bigger opportunity or just a one hour job that will be unprofitable.

I wonder what percentage of photographers do any job that pays even if it loses them money.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on July 31, 2012, 11:30

Quote from: click_click on July 31, 2012, 10:47

Quote from: cthoman on July 31, 2012, 10:40

...
If you want an anecdote, I turned down a job a few months ago. They wanted me to meet them at their office. It was about a 30 minute drive to the north side of town where their office was. In the time it would have taken me to get ready, drive there, have the meeting and drive back, I probably could have finished the job. I turned the job down. It just didn't make any sense to spend all that time to meet for such a small job.

Now you can hear someone say: You never know, if you met them it might have led to many more lucrative jobs on an ongoing basis...

Thats why you qualify it and ask for enough detail to determine if there's a bigger opportunity or just a one hour job that will be unprofitable.

I wonder what percentage of photographers do any job that pays even if it loses them money.

Some clients are clever in that they say they have a small job and little budget bbbbutttttt in the future they expect to need more shots for which they'll have a normal budget. 'Course the big job in the future never materialises!
I got roped into something earlier this year by a client who sells golf equipment. He was opening a new store at a city 9-hole course/driving range and the management of the course needed some shots for posters at an expo. They got my name via the client and, of course, the shots were needed yesterday. Budget was too low but to have not done it would have meant that the expo at which my client was also present, would have been a little bare. I realised that these were cheapskates when I enquired about the haste involved for the shots.....the expo was 10 days away after all. That was because their printer in Poland needed at least 7 days from order to delivery of mounted prints on board!

I didn't make a loss but thought that whilst I was there, I might as well do some shots for stock, one of which has already sold a couple of times. Still waiting for their BIG job with budget to match though. Dunno if I would be tempted to do similar again. If the location offered a fairly unique opportunity to do stock that I ordinarily wouldn't be able to do, I would consider it. Actually working at a loss......not so sure about that though.

Yep, and for them you could say something like "great... could you give me more detail about the massive opportunity? If we could include both jobs in this contract I could probably work out something special for you".

If they ask for more detail, there might be a bigger opportunity. Any other response means there is no opportunity.