Welcome to the very first post on PWT. I really want this blog to become a useful resource for wedding photographers, and photographers in general over the coming months and years. I actively encourage comments and interaction with the site – please leave me your feedback and I will aim to reply to everyone. Subscribe via the RSS or email subscription to ensure you get the latest article each week.
Onto the first post….
Facebook, Twitter, Linked In are all great social media tools for you and your photography business. Most of the wedding photographers I know have a Facebook account and some of them also have a Twitter account.
I set up my Facebook account a few years back, before I was even a professional wedding photographer. My core group of friends then are still my core group of friends now. When Facebook created Business Pages and Groups many photographers quickly set up their own groups and pages (mine is : http://facebook.com/kevinmullinsphotography) as a mechanism for using Facebook as a marketing tool….and it works. I can post updates and announcements and to my group and all the “fans” will receive that information.
Wedding photography is all about social networking – you network with suppliers, you network with other photographers, you network with your clients, and, crucially on the day and after, you network with potential future clients.
The single most beneficial feature on Facebook to you, as a “social” photographer, is the ability to tag people. Tagging a person, depending on their security settings, allows them and their friends to view that image.
Tagging is imperative if you really want to optimise Facebook as a tool for getting new clients. Consider this; you shoot a wedding, you upload five or six group shots and a few of your best images from the day, the bride tags herself and her friends and they are all then looking at your wonderful wedding work. Simples right?
The problem with Facbook fan pages is that you can’t tag fans in the images. This means, that the only way you can tag a bride or client to unlock this wonderful marketing tool is to “friend” them yourself.
Now, I used to play a lot of rugby, and a lot of my rugby buddies are my Facebook friends. Do I really want my brides and potential brides to see pictures of me face down in the mud? Or do I want my brides from seeing some of the harmless fun that they may post to my wall.
No – and I doubt they want to see it either (though sometimes it’s very humourous, especially the story with Flagpole and that Armenian Chickens).
The answer is Facebook Friend Lists. In essence, you give your friends a category. My categories are “Personal Friends”, “Photography Friends” and “Wedding Clients”. You can then use the privacy settings to dictate which list sees what, and, when you post a status update you can dictate which list that update is displayed to.
Here are step by step instructions:
Step 1:
Click on the Account drop down on the top-right of your Facebook page, and choose Edit Friends.
Step 2:
Click on Friends, under the Lists list.
Step 3:
When your friend list appears, choose Create New List, from the buttons across the top.
Step 4:
A Create New List pop-up will appear and you can enter the name of the list here (such as “Photography Clients”, “Photography Friends”, “Personal Friends” etc.).
You can also quickly go through your friends list selecting each one you wish to be a member of this list.
Once you have created your list, it will appear in the Lists list (as per step 2).
You can now go through your friends list and assign everyone to one or more lists. Some of my friends are on my Photography Friends list as well as my Personal Friends list.
Once you have your lists created and your happy that your friends are in the correct lists, you’ll want to decide which list gets to see which bits of information.
To do this, go to Account again, and this time choose Privacy Settings, then Profile Settings.
On this page, you get to choose who sees what to quite a refined level:
As an example, I’ll run through how to show a certain photo album to only certain lists but the same principle applies to all settings:
Select Edit Settings next to the Photo Albums option. For the album you want to customise, choose Customise from the “Who Can See This” option:
You can then choose who can see the album and, crucially, who can not see the album; In the Except the people box at the bottom of the dialog, enter the name of the list of friends you do not wish to have access to this album.
Once you have done this for all the relevant sections, you can safely add clients to your personal Facebook profile with the knowledge that they are not going to see you in your underpants when you were three years old.
The next step of course, is to add your wedding clients and start tagging. My rule of thumb here is simple (this is just my personal preference, you can do what you wish of course):
- I upload most, if not all of the group shots – especially the ones of the bridesmaids and bridal party.
- I upload a few of my best shots from the wedding also.
- I tag the bride (and groom) and send them a message encouraging them to tag the people on the list.
- After a few days (and hopefully some great comments), I’ll add a comment myself telling people that they can come to the website to order prints etc.
Assuming you want to, and assuming you have the inclination to do this; using Facebook Friends lists really can get you clients for future weddings. It works for me and I know several other photographers who it works well for also.
This is the first post on this blog, I really hope you find it useful and I really hope it helps you get more weddings booked.
Please, please take time to comment or give me feedback – positive or criticism is fine. This is a resource for you.
-km (listening to: Tom Ames’ Prayer; Steve Earle)
Brilliant article and great idea for a blog.
Hi Kevin as you know i have been working on Websites and such like in recent times and i have no doubt the help you have offered me and others inspired you to do this blog. Great for me.
Facebook is definatly a powerful tool for potential clients and i have reluctently used it because of my thinking will clients want to see my drunken antics from my submariner days or again me face down in the dirt from rugby i doubt it. so this will help a lot thank you.
Also a update with the word press site im building its going ok at the moment ive managed to set my home page as static but cant set any others is this a problem
also anychance of a update on how widgets work and how to customise them, on your site home page i could only imagine that the scrolling images with text over is a widget and the poloroids is that widget too.
keith
Hi Keith – I think on hosted WordPress you are at the mercy of WordPress’ configuration when it comes to Static pages. If you use a custom design, then you can easily build in the options for static pages into the design. Take a look at: http://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_a_Static_Front_Page – but I think you’ve already done this.
I’m going to cover WordPress widgets in the next few weeks as these can be really powerful. On my site, the Polaroid images are not widgets – they are custom pieces of HTML I’ve put into the templates. That said, if I wanted to have them in the sidebar, I could put the same code in a standard Text widget. The scrolling images are a plug-in called Featured Content Gallery.
-km
This looks like it has the potential for a great source of information. I’m not a photographer, but I hope I can make use of some the tips, especially how we can utilise the web to promote our businesses.
I’m really excited that you’ve created this site Kevin, I’m hoping it will be a fab resource that will help me to make great sense of the web! looks brill visually too!
Brilliant first post.
So far I have been rude & ignored friend requests from clients and some other photographers for the ‘underpants’ reason you describe!
Now I can go ahead and start networking!
Thanks…. and watching for more tips!
Cracking idea and great article. Will now go back, re-read it and off to implement it.
Looking forward to future articles.
Very useful article. Looking forward to more.
Great piece of information Kevin. Had no idea that I could create lists like that.
Looking forward to reading more.
Thanks Kev – great stuff. Really helpful.
Rich
Some great advise! Will bookmark and be back! Thanks!
Great first post Kev, really looking forward to reading and learning more from you.
Thanks. Going to give this a try. I’m a complcated person who can’t deal with complicated operations!
I have been asking myself this very question this last week, having just set up a FB fan page. Know I know- off to try it out. Thanks so much for sharing your experience and expertise- invaluable for me and I’ll be back often!
K,
I agree with everyone – that Facebook conundrum has been rattling around my head too and I’ll be using your tips this week for sure!
Great site!
Owen L
Fantastic article, I’m a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to Facebook so found this so helpful. Love the new blog and will use the information on here loads.
Top stuff Mr Mullins – I use the Friends lists as well but inly used it to filter what I saw – i.e. show me my photographer friends status updates, show me my family’s updates etc – I never twigged I could also use it essentially in reverse.
Great advice! Looking forward to the next ones.
Excellent post Kev.
I think one of the most important settings to change is ‘Photos and videos of me’. You can’t stop your friends from posting embarrassing photos of you and tagging you in them, but at least you can stop your clients from seeing them in their news feeds!
Brilliant. Thanks so much for sharing this tutorial!
Thank you, this is a very useful and practical suggestion for those of us who don’t want to mix our private and business lives on our single facebook account. I’ll be putting this into action asap!
Very useful information! I’ve always wondered how to separate my Facebook business and personal posting.
Thanks, Excellent Info!
Excellent post, especially now with the privacy concerns on Facebook. I’m looking forward to seeing more from you. I point photographers to the best information that helps them grow their photography businesses. I have several thousand fans at Pro Studio Supply and am close to maxing the 5,000 friend limit at Nancy Stall. They will benefit from your information. Thanks.
Thank you for posting this very helpful information Kevin – I still haven’t got my head around social media, but you’ve managed to make it sound far less daunting!
great article! really helps in figuring out how to separate personal and business on facebook
Excellent blog Kevin – thank you. I need to concentrate on this area of my business, so really glad I came across it.
Something that isn’t mentioned is how to hide friends from friends.
It’s under basic directory information privacy settings.
1) Logon
2) Click on profile at top
3) Look left and scroll to Friends. At the top of this list, where it says friends there is a pencil symbol to the right of it. Click on it and change visibility settings. You will now be given an option to restrict friends of yours from seeing other friends and also friends requests.
I’m sure there is an easier way but haven’t found it yet.
Anyway, why use it?
Simples (still doesn’t get tired – thank you Meerkat – ok maybe a little), I don’t want some of my photo friends (who only joined because they wanted see pics of their friends’ marriage) from seeing my personal friends and what they get up to.
You can also test what others see by going to privacy settings -> customize settings and at the top preview my profile.
On the screen that appears, at the top, there is a box asking how your profile appears to specific person. Put a persons name in and see what they see.
That’s what got me to find how to stop friends of wedding clients from seeing my other friends.
Hope this tip helps.
Thanks,
Anurag
Great article Kevin ! I am nearly a year behind with following all your sound advice, but atleast I am getting there – Done !
Also great little ad-on there Anurag. Something that I wouldn’t of thought of. Its all good housekeeping…..