For any photographer today, one of the most powerful tools in your disposal isn’t a camera – it’s Facebook. Being able to promote your vast skills on social media is a must, but many people find it hard to pull off accordingly. We get why; it’s very hard to sell yourself professionally without sounding overly forced or adversarial. To help avoid that, we have put together a simple guide of must-know Facebook tips for photographers. This will hopefully help you to manage your business and show off your portfolio with a touch more panache than before.
Always detail location
The first one of the Facebook tips for photographers is to aim of any kind of social media advertising and the like is to try and get yourself some work. You don’t want to be getting job offers from another continent, though, so investing in the opportunity to add location data should be used at all times.
When you make your profile, fill in the About section with location data. List you details like your phone number, address, website URL and everything else. Try and add a Google Maps widget, too, as it allows people to see where you can work – or where is realistic.
It’s always worth the time to look further at the detail side of things, as it can really give you the upper hand. Other people will rely on their brilliant photography luring people in to then contact them for more details.
When people see your masterpieces, give them the basic information they need to get down to business and hire you!
Make a professional start
One of the best Facebook tips for photographers we can give you is to not mix your Personal and Professional accounts on Facebook. You might want to talk about how your local football team got on this weekend, or talk about a party you went to with friends. Doing that through what is meant to be your business page, though, isn’t the smartest decision.
Instead, invest some time into having a Personal profile, and a Professional one. We even recommend making your own normal profile Private; people will come scouring for you and look through your other page to find all manner of reasons not to get in touch.
Avoid giving anyone that kind of reason and just build a more professional page. Get a brilliant photo, one of your top professional shots, as the main cover page profile. And then get either the company logo or a photo of yourself on the professional profile.
Always ensure it uses a business name, such as your full name with Photography added at the end, perhaps.
Use holidays to your advantage
Without doubt, one of the most beneficial times that you can post a picture is going to be when a major holiday is on. Whether that’s Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Movember, whatever. Just make sure you have a nice little catalogue of cool, holiday-themed photos that you can post. People really appreciate this kind of stuff, and it can go a really long way to making you stand out and look a little cooler.
Get something creative that you shot, and you might get some people posting it around their own pages to their own friends. It’s a good way to use a specific time of year to create an annual celebration. It shows you are the celebratory type, and also ensures that people can see you are well-mannered and know your days.
It also lets you show people just how many kind of photographs you can snap well. From a romantic Valentine’s Day shot to a comical Easter egg run, you can snap all manner of holiday-inspired snaps to get attention.
Build your reviews
Now, Facebook has one of the most powerful tools that you can possibly use for business generation – it’s reviews feature. Reviews on Facebook are gold dust for both search engine visibility and overall credibility. It’s like an instant signifier of how good you are – and even having ‘no reviews’ is as bad as having a negative or two. So, what you need to do is to start using your abilities of creativity and persuasiveness to get people to start leaving some reviews on Facebook.
As a photographer, it’s likely you’ll be on good terms with the people who you contract with. So, at the end of the service, asking them to leave a little review on Facebook shouldn’t too much to ask. It’s not always necessary, but sometimes you can offer basic stuff like 5-10% off a future photography job, or off certain kinds of print-outs and promotions, if someone leaves a Facebook review.
Either way, building your reviews will almost certainly see your Facebook page profit and make it much easier for you to keep growing.
Keep ‘em comin’!
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when using their Facebook page is to post rare updates. Just always posting about a new product you offer, or promotions, or just advertisement for your services, looks bad. People will scroll through your Facebook page and if they just see you self-promoting all the time, they’ll wonder how good you really are.
What you need to do is invest in making sure people have a good reason to actually come to visit your page. Posting irregularly is as bad as posting too much. While it can be hard to strike a balance, some general rules should be put in place.
For one, write these Facebook tips for photographers down and make sure that you post at least five times a week. Try and get good hours, too, posting during the afternoon – say 1-4/5PM – when people are either in work or finished work looking at their Facebook. You might be a night owl; but posting your status updates when people are in bed is a little pointless. So, too, is being an early riser and posting your updates when everyone is taking the kids to school, rushing to work or just lying around in their beds, sleeping!
Post variable shots
Unless you specialize in only one kind of photography, you want to be able to advertise your versatility as much as your quality. So, make sure you are posting your portrait shots and your vertical hits rather than just those lovely images of fields and cities. Vary it up a touch. Once upon a time, Facebook did not deal too well with vertical imagery and many people would make sure you didn’t waste your time posting such content.
To avoid that, people would always just post their grandiose horizontal shots. This leaves you with an uneven representation of what you can do. Given it was a layout error on the websites part, you’ll be happy to know that modern Facebook is far more friendly with portraits.
Use the fact they take up large amounts of the screen when someone is browsing to make the desired impact. A variety of shots really helps you go that extra mile.
Link for progress
The best thing that you can do as a photographer is to make sure all of your branding is linked up. People love a brand and the best thing that you can do is give them a reason to see you as a brand. Get your Facebook linked up to all of your other portfolios. Instagram, for one, is a must. But, your website should always be one of the main links that you are looking to promote. Yes, your website. Why? – Because it creates an impression of your photography business. It’s a place where people come to see who you are and what you do. You should be looking to use social media management to help make sure that the brand imagery and overall message from your website to your Facebook is as balanced as it can be.
So, one of the best Facebook tips for photographers we can give you is to et ALL of your social media pages pointing to your website, your contact details and your overall portfolio. In time, you should find it much easier to create a generally greater appeal and clamor for what you have to offer.
While it can be tough to get it right all the time, you should definitely look to have everything as linked up and as in-tune as possible.
Availability creates accessibility
Make sure you use your social media profile to push how open and easy you are to get in touch with, too. Your business is far more likely to thrive if you show people that you are easy to get in touch with. So, what you want to do is make sure that your Messenger is always set to online. Yes, it might be a bit annoying always getting hit with messages when you are out with friends and living life, but who can complain when their problem is being in demand too much?
Really, you want to have a messenger that always shows you how open you are and how easy you are to get in touch with. Always make sure you are open for a face-to-face meet in jobs that you can do, too; always close everything in person, never through social media. There’s too much that can go unchecked, so use Facebook to open up the job offer and then your personal charm to close it in person.
Creating a slogan
As a photographer, people want to hire you because you are creative, stylish and capable. They also expect you to be good with your words, though, and this means putting in a lot of effort into creative captions. Tap into that brain of yours, and see what kind of comical captions you can come up with in your mind. You can find that, sooner or later, this is going to make a big difference to how your overall creative appeal is identified.
It’s a small thing; but the little things well and truly matter.
A bit of extra wit in your writing can set you apart, but if you don’t feel like you can do a good job then just settle for a basic caption. Explain what the picture is, when it was taken, and by who. Tag the people involved in the images, too, and make sure they want to share it on Facebook with their own friends and family.
Get Promoting
Lastly, the main tool that you should be using to amplify your power on Facebook is Facebook Promotions. It is your single most powerful and direct tool to market your name and give people a good idea of who you are. It’s going to cost you directly and a poor campaign will hurt you, but it’s far more credible and easily to target and be accurate with than, say, a newspaper ad.
You can use the amazing range of options on the Facebook Promotions tool to tailor your search in terms of location, position, gender, age and anything else that you like. Provide a clear Call to Action with contact details, and you’ll be well on your way to success.
Always budget accordingly, though; allowing things to run without budgets could cost you far more than its worth. Start slow, build it up and eventually get promoting in the ways you find work best; it takes practice. But, when you get it, it’s perfect!
Of course, to pull the majority of this off it pays to have some kind of platform. While Facebook is a fine platform for building a client base, networking and getting to show off your personal style, it all needs to lead somewhere else.
A Facebook profile, no matter how well set up, is going to struggle to really showcase all of your talents. If you want to do this, ensure you use the Facebook tips for photographers above to help people click on a link to your website, or your portfolio, in a bid to secure contact details and (hopefully) some extra commissions for your business!
