Dear Jasmine,
How important is having a Facebook page? Not a huge fan of FB but am I missing out?
Sincerely,
Fear of Missing Out

Dear FOMO,
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.

To answer your question, FOMO, I think 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.

I just booked a wedding by way of email and here's how things unfolded: the prospective client saw her friend tagged in a few photos I'd taken at a recent wedding. She then visited my Facebook fan page to view more work…then found a link to my blog and visited…once there, she perused my YouTube videos to see how I interacted with my clients…then she checked my Twitter account to see my updates. This prospective client? She did work. Lots of it. I provided a myriad of ways for her to get to know me–really get to know me–online. Shortly thereafter, she sent me an email, recounted how she found my work, and sent me a check to secure her wedding date. Just like that.

Was this all because of Facebook? No. But using Facebook and providing a mix of social media content to cross-check, she felt confident I was the photographer for her. I wish the same for you once you choose the platforms you want to invest your time in.

Find your platform and leverage it,
j*