Now at least some of the self-publish book companies provide a link to advertise your new book on FB.

Think about all the valuable stuff FB already has--your names, your interests, your email, your connections. If they started grabbing and using your photos for free without asking for permission it would hurt their business...and what is Facebook going to do with your pix...sell stock photos and clip art??

Technically, yes, they get more rights to your stuff than you want to give or that they deserve, but think about it. Do you really think FB wants your wedding pix? Or your client pix of the Smith family's cute kids and their dog? C'mon.

Unless you're creating viral stuff or taking illicit or celebrity/political/valuable pix of some sort, in my opinion you're HURTING your small business if you don't take advantage of this powerful tool because of some useless stand against "da man" and your fear of FB stealing your stuff.

In my opinion, this outrage over FB's rights grab is just an academic argument---in real life it won't affect you.

A much more realistic concern is your clients' privacy and their idea of the ownership of their own image, and the fact they may not understand what FB's terms are. I would BE SURE to get a "release" signed by your clients in case you wish to post their pix on FB. I bet if you google: photo release form Facebook, you'll find one someone's already written. This release should say something like they agree to allow you to post their pix on FB "under the then-current terms of Facebook, whatever they may be".

You're far more likely to experience more legal trouble from your own clients than from FB.

I just started a Facebook Page for my photography business (http://www.facebook.com/BrociousPhotography) and I have been starting to work on it. Any new followers would be appreciated BTW!

Just FYI, if you have more than 25 followers on your page, you can set a username at facebook.com/username. So for example, instead of facebook.com/smithphotography-0192826738 that Facebook initially assigns your page, you can pick facebook.com/smithphoto, etc. and have an easy URL to link to.

And you can setup Posterous to post items to your facebook fan page, twitter, flickr, etc. all at once so you don't need to do multiple postings.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/P-H-O-T-O-N-O-M-Y-Timothy-West/239122635042

Cheers For this

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pradeep-Sanyal-Photography/169930726981

For instance, if I post information to our After Dark Education website blog, I can feed the headline and a summation to our Facebook fan page http://tinyurl.com/ybbttpm where there are about 500 fans.

I can add our twitter hash tag #afterdarkedu and send a quick note based on blog content to our followers http://tinyurl.com/y8vshjo and track retweets and whether the post was buzz worthy.

While both can prompt photographers to sign up for our photography education events, both facebook and twitter seem move valuable for branding and awareness.

Anybody using TweetDeck?

I have been mentoring a friend who is an aspiring photographer. He has been posting to Facebook for a while and has developed over 700 supporters in a very short time leading to work opportunities.

I believe Facebook is the ultimate network for photographers to develop their own customer base.

Besides, if Facebook decided to show my work to millions of users I would not be the least bit upset.

The following article helps to clarify Facebook copyright issues.

http://www.ppmag.com/web-exclusives/2009/03/ppa-sheds-light-on-facebook-li.html

#1 people think of you more often, you enter their realm of awareness, which will translate into $$ down the line

#2 people get to know your personality

#3 it's an instant platform for getting feedback on photos, and generating ideas.

As a part time photographer and full time advertising/marketing sales director, I can assure you - you are using a very powerful tool. In fact, stats now show social networking is outpacing email. Establishing a professional page (separate from your personal page) on Facebook will serve you well. I would also set up an account on Twitter using your name... It might take a little research - but you can develop a following and link to your own website and Facebook for maximum exposure.

I could go on and on, give you stats and links...but I have work to do!

Good luck! There are many very successful photographers sharing their work in the same way!

Thanks Sean for a great article.

Cheers,

Todd

This one is of certain interest to me because I too have several business angles to market through friends/family/and acquaintances, and truly believe that the more social networking one does the better. I have two clients that I have begun training on this, one a photographer herself.

My business coach (www.travisgreenlee.com) has 4999 friends on Facebook because that's the largest amount they'll let him have at the moment, and yet he does a TON of his networking and income-grabbing through his social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. He has only just joined LinkedIn but I'm sure his numbers will grow exponentially there too.

Travis is the perfect example of making online marketing work, and he's made a business of training on it. So anyone who says it can't or won't bring you business needs to check out his Facebook and reconsider.

You can also start "fan" clubs on Facebook and that way your friends can tell their friends to "fan" you so that eventually your fan page grows into a second website of its own- look at pages of any band you like and see, it's additional marketing.

I hope this helps.

Facebooks is a wonderful way to put a very personal "face" on your business. This is a relationship business, and the more you have your face in front of your customers faces, the better off you are.