7 Facebook Habits for Photographers

1. Post daily!

2. Vary your posts! Especially on Facebook, a link to a blog post, an image, and one funny/amusing/weird/personal status per day is enough to give your followers an idea of your kick-ass personality, your awesomesauce photography skills, and get clicks on your website by linking that blog post(hello boosting your search engine rank!!).

3. Don’t overdo the sales! When you’re posting about your sales, discounts, coupons, etc. don’t over post it. A few times a week as a reminder is appropriate. Posting about those things too often can give the impression that you’re desperate for work. Having sales all the time also undervalues your work if people never have to pay full price. Clients and customers will come to expect sales when you’re not having any.

4. Keep it positive! You’re a business owner, a professional and Facebook is the public’s eye on you. It’s not professional to complain about things to your followers. How other photographers in the area copy your photoshoots, how expensive photography is, all the work that goes into the behind the scenes…all of that (despite how truly annoying it is how clients don’t understand why photography is so expensive) can be seen as unprofessional to whine about in front of your clients. Let it bug you behind the scenes, talk to your photog friends about it in a private Facebook group, but keep the rest of it off the internet!

5. Don’t bash others! This goes without saying and we’ve all made this mistake somewhere along the line. When “that” photographer who was stealing others images became the topic of the day for social networking so many photographers posted about it, shared her page, and engaged in the negativity surrounding it. How does that make us look to our clients? I remember when an image was going around Facebook that a photographer took of a newborn and the newborn was not safe and was crying. Everyone was sharing this image on their business pages. I made the mistake of doing it too and wrote something like, “poor baby!” It’s true that wasn’t safe photography and safety is number one when you’re photographing anyone, especially newborns. Should I have gone around and engaged in plastering this photographer all over my Facebook? Someone pointed that my professionalism in doing so to me on my business page and they were right, I deleted my post. Lesson learned!

6. Keep the controversial subjects private. Politics interest me greatly and oh boy do I have opinions – but those are for me only and its important that I don’t have any sort of “affiliations” that would turn away potential clients. It’s important to take caution in what you post in these sorts of areas.

7. Utilize your Wall Photos Album. I wish I knew the science behind this, but when I post photos individually to my wall I get more views, more likes, and more interest overall posting one photo per day or a few photos to the wall after a session than I do posting 20 or so in one album specific to that client. One of the benefits is that if you post one image and someone comes along and likes it they can easily flip through all your other images at the same time in that album without having to look through several albums.

This post brought to you by the letter ‘M’ for our marketing week! We’re talking about all things marketing this week in effort to prepare and get marketing on the brain for our live online class (webinar) next Monday night all about photography and marketing. I’ve added more spots to this class due to its popularity, but spots are still fairly limited. Please join in and >Register< as soon as possible. If you can’t be there live, you can still watch the class recording later!

Carrie Swails Photography