Facebook fan page question

KBedore

Can anyone tell me how fan pages are working?
Are you seeing results?
I'm a little concerned about the credibility impact when there are only a few fans. Has this been a problem?
Any words of wisdom?

Any other suggestion for growing a photography business would be greatly appreciated.

I've done the free session thing, done a couple of horse shows and sporting events, one of my free session "models" has promoted my website in her facebook posts - and received high praise of the photos, but I just don't seem to be getting results. I know I need to do more, and trying to prioritize. Facebook seems like a good idea because I live in the town my husband and I grew up in so we both have substantial local contacts on out friends lists. Thoughts? Suggestions?

www.MadeYouSmilePhotography.com

Rocketman766

The first thing that pops into my mind is, don't do the free thing. There are many posts which go into detail about doing the free thing....

Do you advertise anywhere else? It sounds like you already know everyone in your town. I think FB can be a useful tool, and when I figure out how to use it, I might have something better to say here about FB.

Wachel

Get your Facebook fan page up and running. Ask all your friends to "fan" or "like" your page. Don't publicize your page until you have 50-100 fans. Simple.

Now...how does it help get clients? I don't know. I do know that almost all businesses have FB pages and it is just one more way to get your name out there. Promote discounts for FB fans. Give discounts for referals. I wouldn't do too steep of discounts but throw a bone out there for folks. I also am a member of Oplove.org and that gets my name out there as well.

Good luck.

ColoradoSkier

I have booked two portrait sessions now because of my fan page. I'm a believer.

Wachel

Facebook just sent me a coupon for $25 in free ads. I might try it out!

Dionysus

What I do is I pick like 3 or 4 people to shoot for "free" they still have to buy the photos, if they want pro prints, I just don't charge them a fee.

In exchange for the free shoot, they have to make a SEPARATE photo album with nothing buy my pictures, and basically "pimp" me out to all their friends that are like "OMG who shot those?! How can I get a hold of them?" They also can't tell them that I shot them for free...they have to tell them that he is really reasonable, but I got a little bit of a discount because I'm a personal friend.

The nice guy in me tends to target facebook friends who I know don't really have much money to spend on things like photo shoots of their kids/family, so that way its mutually beneficial..as long as they have lots of facebook friends.

I've gotten quite a lot of business in NY doing that. I don't lose out on anything buy my time...

EDIT:

As to your original question, I haven't gotten much business purely from my fan page, since most people that are my fans are previous clients, and go through me again anyway, no need to advertise to them. Though I will often times run SPECIALS on my fan page (coupons for discounts on art prints, discount shoots for limited periods of time, etc.) and it's a good way of getting the word out.

Kevin Kramer

Facebook's worked for me.

Get a few people, take photos of them... TAG them in your photos, and put at the bottom of each photo saying "Become of fan of My Photography! Visit www.facebook.com/yourfanpagelinkhere and select Like!"

I also set up some sort of "Focus Group" asking my fans if they think I should do Beach Portraits, or offer Gift Certificates, etc. and if I get a certain number of likes for one thing over another, then I'll go with who liked more. I came up with an idea of beach portraits, and successfully implemented that in our packages now.

it worked for me.. and it will work for you!

(queue cheesy infomercial music!)

-kev