Social media is a crazy thing. There are professionals who share how to use it, fancy agencies with carefully crafted strategies to leverage it, and millions spent advertising with it. And then–seemingly out of no where–some kid in his parents’ basement finds a way to use it in a way that changes how we share. And this happens every day.
When you ask if you’re missing out not using Facebook (or Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, SnapChat, Vine, Tumblr…you get my point), my quickest answer would be yes and no. Yes, you’re missing out on marketing opportunities to prospective clients…but you’re not missing out if those aren’t clients you’re aiming to reach. The key is to really focus on the platforms that heighten what you’re good at.
For example, I’ve selected three social media platforms to focus on that yield me the most client leads (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, in that order…YouTube is a close fourth). Am I missing out on leads from Vine by not using it? Yes, but the Vine demographic is largely too young for my services (wedding photography for teenagers isn’t a big niche) and I’m not good at conveying a marketing element in a six-second video.
Facebook is a huge and powerful platform for marketing photography services. Most of my leads come from Facebook, by way of my clients. My brides share their photos on Facebook and when they tag their friends in the album (bridal party photos, cocktail hour photos, reception photos), that folder–by way of Facebook’s ever changing and gnarly algorithm–ends up in more feeds than I could ever imagine. This is huge.
