Why You Need to Ditch Your Personal Facebook Page

• Connect with clients as a professional business.
• Encourage people to “like” your brand, thereby increasing your following via word-of-mouth.
• Add more than 5,000 followers (the personal “friend” limit).
• Convey to clients and potential buyers that you’re serious about your work and ready to do business.

How are photographers actually utilizing Facebook Pages for their business?

Here at the top 5 ways we found professional photographers are making the most out of their Facebook Pages:

1. Promoting my photography beyond my personal friends.

Wildlife, nature, and fine art photographer Mike Cavaroc says that he created his  Page because, in his words, “I was increasingly wanting to share and promote my photography beyond friends and family, without my personal life interfering…having my Page keeps me from potentially alienating my customers and fans, whereas on my personal profile I can still continue to be my goofy, opinionated self.”

Jon Luton – who specializes in music, portrait, and wedding photography – agrees that a Page gives him the ability to find fans outside of his immediate circle of friends. He also uses Facebook’s tagging feature to alert people when he’s posted a photo of them. “I have the ability to tag photos of people and bands that I’ve taken,” he says, “which then brings their friends or fans over to my Page.”

Caribbean photographer Steve Simonsen also uses Facebook to promote his photography, but in unique way that’s fitting for Facebook – he asks his followers to vote on images that he’s considering for photo books or calendars. “It’s great to get everyone involved in the process and such an easy way to reach out there.”

2. Connecting with followers in a professional manner.

Many photographers expressed a deliberate concern for separating their personal and professional lives. Fashion and lifestyle photographer Mike Henry says: “I chose to use a Facebook Page over my personal page because I wanted to make it all about my work and photo business, and keep my personal page, well, personal. No need to tell my fans that I have checked in at the local sushi joint [via FourSquare].”

For example, Mike shares a post about how his photo made it into Shape  magazine:

Celine of Celine M. Photography shares a similar sentiment (and might have the cutest like-gate we’ve ever seen). “I wanted to share pictures with the people I photographed, but didn’t necessarily want to friend everyone and share my personal pictures with them. Also I don’t want to bother my friends with all my clients’ pictures!”

Documentary photographer James Morgan, who has over 1,300 fans, puts it pretty simply: “Not everyone i know is interested in photography so it’s good to have a page specifically for people interested in photography!”

3. Using custom apps to gain fans.

One of the most popular apps for Page is the “like-gate”, which is basically a landing page that non-fans see when they come to your Page, and encourages them to like you. (Read a more detailed description here.) You can custom design your like-gate to fit your brand, and many photographers have said that it’s a very effective way to get more fans.

“It’s exciting when I get email notifications that tell me someone new has voluntarily liked my page – it’s just a nice little bonus to my day,” says Mike Henry.

Documentary and editorial photographer Quinn Ryan Mattingly‘s custom Facebook Welcome Page gives his contact information and links to recent work.

If you’re curious about the various custom apps you can use to amp up your Page, definitely check out our free ebook Facebook Fan Pages for Photographers, specifically the section “Creating a Custom App”.

4. Using Facebook to drive traffic to my website.

“30% of my PhotoShelter website‘s traffic comes from Facebook,” says Jon Luton. That’s a huge source of referral traffic to your website, and something that shouldn’t be ignored. John encourages his Fan Page’s visitors to click through to his website by posting images from his galleries, and including a link to the gallery on his website. It’s an easy way to drive traffic to your site and share more of your work.

PhotoShelter’s Google Analytics also shows that the average user gets 7% of its total monthly traffic from Facebook, which is highest among all social media platforms (other top referrers are Twitter and StumbleUpon.)

5. Gaining “Insights” into what interests my target audience.

Facebook Insights is a new addition that literally provides insight into the demographics of the people visiting your Page and how they first came across your content. “Reach” is charted over time, and tells you how many people viewed any given post. There’s also “Talking About This”, which tells you how many people liked, commented, or shared your post. All these elements go into calculating the “Virality” of your post, i.e. the percentage of people who engaged with your content over the total number of viewers.

Photographers can use Insights to better determine what content has potential to be viral among their fans. Mike Covaroc says that Insights have encouraged him to try different kinds of posts to see what people respond to and then share more of that material. Jon Luton agrees, saying, “I can analyze the effectiveness of different types of posts, whether it’s posting a photo, sharing a link, or just putting up a comment, and see how people respond.”

Paul Petch, who operates Outdoor Stock Photography in New Zealand, has been working on ideas to increase the sharing of content since he started his Facebook Page a few months ago. And Jennifer Davick likes to see how many people she can reach with her posts.

Takeaway

As with any marketing tool, you have to find the strategies that work for you and your business. If you find that Facebook is a valuable tool for growing your business, however, remember that you need a Page in order to put your best foot forward.

For more on Facebook and other social media platforms, download the free Photographer’s Social Media Handbook.