I am just curious to find out how many of you use facebook or myspace to build a network for your photography clients and friends. And if you are, how is it working for you?

computer says noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

does this go for all computers or just yours?

its actually an english joke... little britain.....

oh do a search and you will see there was one a month ago about this....

hahaha! I used to LOVE that show!!!!

I use Myspace for my senior marketing but not for weddings. High school kids are all about Myspace. It works really well.

I use Facebook for marketing - A lot of my seniors add me before their session (or before I've even heard from them yet), then I get to tag them in photos after their session and all their friends see them.

And if they haven't added me yet, I'll add them and tag them.

I don't send group messages or anything like that (maybe I will in the future), but just thru tagging people I'm exposing myself to potential clients who may not have heard of me yet - And it's been awesome in the summer because I shot my reps awhile back, did the facebook thing, and they haven't been given rep cards yet because school hasn't started but their friends have still seen the images on facebook and are booking because of it.

I've booked somewhere around 8 seniors in the past month-ish just from facebook - I know these seniors probably would have heard about me eventually when school started and rep cards are being handed out, but it's definitely nice to have a head start on the fall bookings!

I'm just starting out, but other people posting my pics on myspace has given me some busines from friends of friends.

Yeah the tagging thing is huge! It's so helpful.

I've juuuuust started doing this, so I can't tell you how successful it is in securing work, but tagging the bride and groom has been HUGE for getting people to see the images and get them back to my business page.

Ya totally didn't get it....i'm just a utahn living in Utah!


Thanks kacyjo I was wondering how this would convert a senior market.



Kimberly, totally didn't see that it would do that much for weddings....that is so good to know!

But I seem a little facebook challenged. Explain a little more about tagging...

We have used facebook since day one. We get about 90% of our bookings now because of it.

facebook and myspace have both booked me work. i love them!

I use facebook and it has been great at connecting me to old high school friends who are getting married. I haven't tried myspace, it's a little young for brides in my opinion. Watching my google analytics, facebook is the main thing driving people to my site (besides OSP!). I love it that I can chat with potential clients there if they add me. Then I can talk to client and "work" at the same time!

We've had a lot of success with facebook. We don't group mail or anything, but I make a point to add our brides and grooms if they have an account. They know I'll put a couple of my favorite watermarked images up and tag them. It's fun to see how many use an engagement or a wedding image as their profile pics. It drives lots of traffic to our website as a result.

tumbleweeds are rolling through my myspace account, but I use my facebook accounts for marketing and it is very successful so far!

I even have the feeling sometimes that my facebook is working better at getting me clients than my website or blog but oh yeah, It works!

I only have like 13 people as fans on my Facebook page and it took me ages to figure out how to create one. I don't get much off MySpace either but I keep it updated. I need to try and add my past clients. I only have a couple on Myspace.

Lots of Good Comments!

I would love to see some of your facebook accounts if you guys don't mind sharing!

I'm not that familiar with Facebook. Can someone explain how you make so many bookings? As I understand it, people can't see your profile on Facebook unless you add them as a friend. So how are they viewing samples of your work?

Lori, I don't know what others do, but in our case people see our work because we tag their friends in our images. Those images are visible to anyone who is friends with the tagged person. From there they can follow the trail back to us.

You don't have to be someone's friend to see their profile. Usually everyone in the same network can see each other's profiles unless you set it differently. Conversely you can also set it so anyone in any network can see it.

You can opt to have your profile public, which is what we have done. Pretty much anyone can see my profile or Adam's profile. Business wise we mainly use Adam's facebook for networking with high school seniors. He uses mine to test stuff before trying it with our customers.

If you get a business account you don't have to be registereed to look at your site (provided you don't set restrictions).

I'm on myspace, but I haven't really had any luck with getting new business from there.

Make your profile public! Just don't share anything you don't want as public knowledge!

Here's my facebook account, feel free to add me. I have it set to private for personal reasons. Then I have a page for my business as well. Honestly, I haven't given it much attention at all and it still drives me clients.

Elizabeth does a great job on her page here... Alot of the photographers I have added on Facebook, like Rebecca, do an incredible job at staying in my feed (and so that means their clients feeds too.)

It's definitely an area that I haven't tapped the full potential of. I think that's a testimonial of how well it works, though. I do a bare minimum and still get new clients.

I never set up a Myspace for my business, only because I think it's target audience has become teens, and currently I'm not a senior photographer.

So I must be facebook challenged? because I can't find where you tag people. And how you do find people to add as friends before you tag them?

After you upload a photo, there are some options on the right side..

Tag this photo
Edit this photo
Delete
Make profile picture

Click on tag and then just follow the prompts.

Also, I just realized that my page is actually a group.. I just sent in a request to convert it to a page. If you are thinking about creating this, definitely go for a page, NOT a group. I think the layout and benefits are better.

m

I'm slow.. so I had tried a while ago to find some of my clients via their email address and found like one person but now I finally just looked by their names and I found a bunch of them and sent friend requests. So.. I am going to try tagging everyone .. Actually put some effort into this MySpace thing.