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Writer's pictureMark Paulda

Using Social Media Part 2 :: Facebook For Photographers

Updated: Nov 26

SOCIAL MEDIA FOUR : FACEBOOK INTRO

Facebook


Facebook For Photographers

Facebook For Photographers


In todayʼs internet, Facebook has become a force to be reckoned with. For many people, Facebook is their internet. It is where they get their news, catch up with their friends, go for entertainment, and follow their favorite brands. Being active on Facebook is one of the best ways to promote your business via social media.


Founded in 2004 as a way for college students to connect with one another, Facebook has grown to be the largest social networking site in the world. Boasting over two billion monthly active users, most users spend close to an hour every day interacting on a Facebook owned property. That hour is precious time that you could use to win new customers.


Even if Facebook doesnʼt end up being your main hub of social media activity, there are several reasons why using it can be beneficial:

• It can give you amazing insights into your target audience and your competitors.

• It can humanize your business and give you the ability to create a community around your brand.

• There are also SEO benefits to being on Facebook.


SOCIAL MEDIA USING FACEBOOK FOR MARKETING


Using Facebook Pages for Marketing

The basis for all marketing on Facebook is a Facebook Business Page. Pages have been around almost as long as the network itself and have become an important way for anyone running a business to communicate directly with their ideal audience. They differ from a Personal Profile in a number of ways, but the most important perks are the insights and tools that Facebook gives you on a Business Page. Youʼll be able to see data on the demographics of users who like your Page, which posts are most ef- fective, some insights into your competitors, and more.


Optimizing Your Business Page Having an optimized Facebook profile is fundamental to the success of your marketing efforts on Facebook. If you have yet to set up a Business Page for your photography business, itʼs really simple. Just navigate to the dropdown menu in the top bar on Facebook and click Create Page. Youʼll be asked what kind of Page to set up, and youʼll likely want to choose Business or Brand.


Then name your Page and choose your category, both of which will help people find you in Facebook search results. When youʼve done that, then you can add a profile photo, a cover photo, a short description of your business, and a username to help people find your business.


SOCIAL MEDIA FACEBOOK - YOUR PROFILE AND COVER PHOTOS

When you upload a profile photo, choose something that reflects your brand. If you are the face of your brand, then use a professional headshot. If you use your company logo, make sure that it is legible when seen in the Newsfeed. Ideally, a Facebook profile photo size is 360 x 360 pixels. But, at minimum, they must be 180 x 180 pixels. Donʼt worry if you donʼt already have an image in a square format, you will be prompted to crop when you upload.

Your cover is also an opportunity to show off your photography or editing services either in a photo or video. The optimal size for a Facebook cover photo or video is 828 x 465 pixels. You will be given the option to drag to reposition your cover image if it doesnʼt fit the dimensions.


When designing your cover, remember that it is a great way to let visitors know about current seasonal offerings and promotions you have, or simply to give them an idea of your overall offerings.


Once you have uploaded your cover image, you can click on it to edit the descrip- tion to include a sentence or two of text and a link. This way, if you are promoting something specific in your cover, visitors can seamlessly jump to the linked page.


SOCIAL MEDIA FACEBOOK - CREATING A PAGE DESCRIPTION, ABOUT SECTION AND CALL TO ACTION

When youʼre in the process of setting up a new Page, Facebook will prompt you to create a short description of your business. You will have 155 characters to write a few sentences about who you are, who you serve and the benefits to your client.


Your About Section In order to access and edit all the information for your Business Page, navigate to the About section. This is accessible on the left- hand side of your Page under your profile photo.


The About section for your Page details everything about your business, and has vital information like your phone number, website, email, mission and more. Listing this information helps you be found in both Facebook and Google searches. For local businesses, such as brick and mortar studios, having information about where you are located is also helpful and important.


Facebook has also rolled out the Our Story section to help showcase the personal side of your business. This is extra real estate to share a photo and speak in your own voice to tell a more personal story.


Add a Facebook Call to Action While Facebook has a lot of great features to help you interact with potential clients, oftentimes the customer journey does not stop there and you will want to drive users to your website or have them get in touch with you. In order to offer an easy way to drive website traffic or messages, Facebook rolled out the Call to Action Button, which can be found under your cover.


This button allows users to book with you (using certain app integrations), message you, visit your website and more.


Use the call to action (CTA) that best fits the customer journey most of your clients go on. For example, if you know that most of your bookings come from your lead magnet and newsletter drip, then you can direct Facebook users to sign up under the Contact you section.


SOCIAL MEDIA FACEBOOK - BUILDING YOUR FACEBOOK FAN BASE

Many marketers will tell you that the amount of “likes” you have on Facebook, or any social media platform, is a vanity metric. However, the larger your fan base on Facebook, the more people you have the potential to reach with your posts. Although Facebook has throttled the delivery of organic posts over the years, some people and businesses are still able to maintain engagement with their fans by being strategic about what they post.


The most important thing to do when youʼre building your fan base on Facebook is to avoid the temptation to buy likes. While it might make that vanity metric look nice, most companies that sell likes are selling fake accounts. This means that while it may look like your fan base is growing, these people will never engage.


Having an engaged audience on Facebook is the most important tool anyone can give you for how to succeed on the platform. It is better to have only a few hundred Page fans that engage regularly than it is to have thousands of fans that never engage.


So how do you find fans who are interested in what you post and willing to engage? Thereʼs no secret sauce to building your fan base. The best ways to build your community is to optimize your Page, invite some initial friends or colleagues that you know would be interested in your Page, and then be consistently active and engaging on the platform.

So, fill out your About section as much as possible, and this will help Facebook un- derstand your business better. When Facebook understands your business, it is able to suggest your Page to users who like similar businesses.


Invite friends to like your Page. Just make sure not to be spammy if and when you do. You can also promote your Facebook Page on your website by using the Facebook Page Plugin and embedding a link and mini feed into your site. This way, your website visitors can keep up with you on social media.


SOCIAL MEDIA FACEBOOK - WHAT TO POST ON FACEBOOK

Everything that you post on your Page has the potential to show up in your followersʼ news feeds. However, as the news feed has gotten more crowded, competition has become stiffer. Facebook has given more preference to posts that are seen as relevant based on initial follower response. That means that posting helpful information for your fans, and posting when they are online, is key.


In the past, the Facebook Algorithm has favored video, and in 2018 Facebook shifted towards showing more content from a userʼs friends and family. While this may have meant that the power of the Business Page has the potential to shrink, by focusing on creating content that people care about and engage with, you can work on creating staying power in the news feed.


Some ideas to stay visible and relevant in the news feed:

• Still use video, but use it strategically and prompt a discussion with your followers.

• Take advantage of live video. o Facebook says that live videos, on average, get six times as many interactions as regular videos.

• Post tagged photos more, post links less.

o Facebook prefers content that lives on Facebook, not content that will drive users off of the platform.

• Post content that is meaningful to your local community by sharing your events and relevant updates.

• Utilize your brand advocates.

o If you have a referral program, incentivize social sharing. According to Sprout Social, people are 16 times more likely to read a post from a friend than a brand. And even a few advocates can help drive large reach.

• If there is something newsworthy from your industry or community, share that.

• You can also occasionally encourage followers to select to see updates from your page first.


SOCIAL MEDIA FACEBOOK - WHEN TO POST ON FACEBOOK

Conventional wisdom has held that people are on Facebook the most during work hours. New 2020 stats of the best times to post on Facebook back this data up, showing consistent engagement between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday.


Your audience might be more specific, and you may want to determine a custom schedule for your posting. In a future post we will discuss how to dive into your social media analytics, but you can explore the data in your Facebook Insights, which are ac- cessible at the top of your Page.


Until you build up enough of a fan base to get some meaningful data, post regularly and keep an eye on the times that your fan base seems the most active. Before work, after work, and when people are on their lunch breaks are always good bets. Think about the kinds of content that you can post that will educate, inspire, or create a connection with your fan base. Posting promotional content occasionally is fine, but too much will simply seem like spam and is the fastest way to get people to unfollow you.


SOCIAL MEDIA FACEBOOK POST TYPES

Now that we know the overall content mix we want to share and when, letʼs dive into some of the top types of Posts Facebook makes available to us.


Facebook Images One of the most important and most highly used is an Image post. According to Buzzsumo, Facebook posts with images see more than twice the engagement than those without. Remember, itʼs a crowded news feed out there and there is a lot of vying for your audienceʼs attention. So, having eye-catching visuals is one of the best ways to stand out.


The recommended image size for the Facebook News Feed is 1200px by 630px. No matter the size, make sure to keep a 1:1 ratio.


To post a photo (or a video), click on the Photo/Video button when youʼre writing your post to attach an image.


Facebook Video As we discussed, video is a great way to engage with your audience and the Facebook algorithm has shown some favor to video posts because of its high engage- ment. In fact, a few years back, a Facebook executive predicted that all content on the platform would be video based by 2021. So, if you have videos that share stories about your business, share them with your fans.


You upload a .mp4 or .mov video the same way that you would a photo. It will take some time for Facebook to process the video and then you will be prompted to title your video, describe it, and add tags. You will also be able to add subtitles and cap- tions if you have those available.


Facebook Live Facebook Live is a great way to broadcast yourself to your fans in video format, and you will be able to stream to your Page via your smartphone. Fans will be notified and be able to join you and ask questions throughout your broadcast. In order to broadcast, use the Facebook App on your smartphone.


If this is your first time using Facebook Live, you will be prompted to give Facebook access to your camera and microphone. Then tap to add a description. You can also change the privacy setting of your broadcast. You can broadcast publicly, to just your friends, or just to yourself. If youʼre testing Facebook Live for the first time, using “only me” is a great option because then it wonʼt show up in your fansʼ news feeds. When youʼre ready, click the blue button.


Start Live Video button


Engage with viewers by asking them their questions and sharing some of their comments. Reintroduce yourself and your topic every few minutes for new viewers by saying something like “If youʼre just joining us, Iʼm your name and today weʼre talking about live video topic.”

When youʼre done broadcasting, just click on Finish and your video will be saved to your Page in the Videos section.


Facebook Links As we discussed, Facebook likes to keep users on the platform. But that doesnʼt mean you shouldnʼt share relevant links that your audience would appreciate. Blog posts, links to your lead magnet, and articles that your audience would find relevant are all great content to share.


To post a link, simply drop it in the area where you would write a post. Facebook will automatically pull the information from your link and populate a preview of the content. You can then delete the link from your text to make it look cleaner if you like.


SOCIAL MEDIA CREATING YOUR FACEBOOK MARKETING STRATEGY

The core of any marketing strategy is knowing who your audience is. Once you know the ideal persona that you want to engage with, you will more easily understand what to post.

As you gain fans, you can use your Facebook Insights to see some demographic information on them like their age, gender, and where they are from. Weʼll take a deep dive into Facebook Insights in a future lesson.


Driving Sales with Facebook With the algorithm changes implemented in 2018, it may mean that Facebook is working harder to keep users from clicking away. The result of that may mean that posting links to outside content on Facebook could find your post reach throttled. So focusing on creating engaging content that keeps users on Facebook could be key to organic reach. But what about driving bookings and sales?


Most brands find success driving awareness and engagement with social media. While sales do happen on Facebook, social media is generally not the primary driver of revenue for businesses. The sales that are made on the platform are usually the result of fans who are already brand-aware and have engaged significantly in the past.


Weʼll also talk in depth about Facebook ads in the next chapter, because with these newer algorithm changes it may be that in order to stay in front of their fans, more and more businesses will have to pay for news feed space. However, algorithm changes aside, Facebook ads can be a fantastic way to help find new fans and move current fans through the funnel towards a sale.


Now that you know all there is to know about using Facebook for your photography business, letʼs go onto Instagram in the next post.


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