If you’re like me, you probably spend a lot of time on Facebook. Good news! It now serves a real purpose in your life. Facebook, blogs, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, and so many other sites are now there for you to indirectly profit from. Sure, you can give them money for ads that may or may not do anything, but really being involved as a person is going to set you apart.
From New School Wedding Photographer:
I get the most random referrals from highschool friends that I didn’t even know in highschool.
Facebook has been the driving force behind getting up and running as fast I did. I was completely open, and used my personal profile as a business page. I stripped out anything I wouldn’t want a bride considering my services to see (i.e. untagged some party photos)
I have no problem allowing brides to see me/add me to Facebook. It shows that I’m a real person, with real friends, and disarms the ‘I bet this person is going to take my money and run’ feeling a little bit.
It might be a little weird to be this open – but I really truly believe that like personalities attract like people. I want to be as open as possible so that I’m always attracting the correct bride. If a picture of me snowboarding scares off a potential client – it probably wasn’t meant to be.
It really creates an involved client experience when a bride adds you to Facebook. The more my name pops up on their news feed, the closer to the top of their head I am. The other plus comes after the wedding. Throw a few images online right after their wedding for their friends and family to see. And always put an http:// link to your website under it.
Sometimes I ‘cheat’ a little bit, and post a wedding party shot involving as many people as I can, just so everyone gets tagged.
Say you have 500 ‘friends’ on Facebook, and the 8 members of the wedding party have 500 friends. They get tagged, that’s 500 people you’ve been exposed to again + all of the tagged peoples friends. Say each of them has 300 friends. 300 friends x all 8 members of the wedding party = 2500 (plus your original 500) people that could have now seen your photos. Of course, not all of them will click it, and some friends will be overlapping – but it’s just a rough little idea of how big and fast the network spreads.
I keep an ongoing folder of favourites from the year, and add a few images from every wedding. That way, they can click through my entire best-of gallery if they choose to. Best free marketing you can find.
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