Launching Facebook presence

<p>So finally we have decided to try this new fandangled thing called the social media networking thing called Facebook. Have you heard of this? It's pretty wild. Apparently there are more people on this than the nation of India!<br>

Anyhoo, we have set up a business presence. Not even sure if we did it right. It seems to need a personal account to manage it. Can it not be self-managed without a personal account?</p>

<p>Added a coupla photos, links what-have you on it. Should I wait to add more or should I just start sending it out to friends also known as fans.<br>

Any other tips or successfully launching this? This is more difficult than figuring out multi-strobe set ups!</p>

<p>My little newphew told me that it is almost impossible to run a business without Facebook these days. To demonstrate how effective Facebook is he told me that his downline(number of fans) had increased to about 60,000 members in just one day. Since he is a medical student he has a blog that publishes Health information on a weekly basis. He decided to write an article about a famous British Rock Star who lost a significant amount of weight recently(I forget her name) and all of a sudden her fans were automatically linked to his page. This is how he was able to increase his followers by 60,000 in one day. <br>

To me this all so superficial. Tell you the truth I rather trust eBay than to take my chances with an unregulated social site. Although I was impressed by the number of people he was able to draw to his site, it left me wondering about what next ?<br>

Most people when thy shop already have in mind what they want to purchase. I need a p[air of shoes, I need a new watch, I need some tires I mean their motive for shopping is already established before they even pull out their credit card. Something like Facebook might draw allot of people to your site, but I don't think it means they are all going to be buyers.<br>

It got to atmit it is a great way to market your product, but there are other ways that are far more effective. OTOH he did point out a photographer friend of his who was doing great taking portraits and head shots. According to my nephew Facebook was the engine behind his business. </p>

<p>I haven't set up a FB page yet, but have been planning to for a while. Soon...</p>

<p>Nothing wrong with using the available resources.</p>

<p>A competition is a good way to get it kicked off and spread the word.</p>

<p>Scott.</p>

<p>FB does NOT have more population than India for heaven's sake... and no, it is NOT absolutely necessary to maintain a presence there in order to have a business - it all depends on what your target audience is! If you target to brides and seniors, then by all means, go ahead. If you're targeting serious professionals, then a good, easy to navigate, clean site is all you need.</p>

<p>Do you need every random person out there with more time on their hands than anything to post literally ANYTHING that comes in their heads on your "business" FB page? If you care about your outside image, you'll end up spending countless hours every day simply cleaning up the crap people post simply because they can.</p>

<p>Is it fun? sure, it can be. Is it professional? Doubt it (and, mark my words, this fade will too pass)...</p>

<p>Beware that FB owns the copyright and licensing rights to all photos you upload. And they now offer "download in high resolution" of images, which can cut into your profits, depending on your business model.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Beware that FB owns the copyright and licensing rights to all photos you upload.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is nonsense. If you read the terms carefully, you will see that the poster owns the copyright and licensing rights (the copyright part is explicit in their terms) and that the rights to use, which are necessary for putting up your FB page, end when you remove the content. They would be incredibly stupid (and they're not) to license the content to someone else and then have to track it down when you remove the content.</p>

<p>From Facebook's <a href="http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf">Terms & Conditions</a>:<br>

<br /> For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your <a href="http://www.facebook.com/privacy/">privacy</a> and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/editapps.php">application settings</a>: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.</p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

<p>BTW, Henry's post points out that it is even more stringent than what I said, that certain settings mean it can't be used at all even within the Facebook terms.</p>

<p>I have recently set up a smugmug site to sell photographs of local bicycle racers. To increase awareness of and drive traffic into my site, I have used several methods:</p>

<ol>

<li>announcement on facebook,</li>

<li>emails to bicycle clubs,</li>

<li>emails to promoters,</li>

<li>posting on related blogs run by friends.</li>

</ol>

<p>When I put new material on my site (from a race), I do the above in varying order and observe traffic statistics that smugmug provides. From this info, I believe that #2 and #4 are highly effective at driving traffic into the site (#2 is immediate, #4 takes a day or so) but #1 (FB) is not effective at driving traffic into the site.</p>

<p>I also notice that print and download sales are coming from a relatively wide audience, mostly to people I do not know directly. As I know a large number of people in the local bicycle racing scene, this makes me believe that #2 and #4 are reaching a wide audience.</p>

<p>My FB experience may be unique because I have a very specific targeted market and have a strong channel to reach this market w/o FB.</p>

<p>Given that FB is not effective at driving traffic or delivering sales and has IP protection issues, I am ramping down my use of FB. I think it is still useful and free, but it is not the most effective tool. Therefore when I put 100-200 images from a race from my site, I'll put maybe 1-3 on FB and then move on.</p>

<p>Smugmug also allows visitors to FB "like" photographs. This puts a thumbnail of the photo and a link to my site in their FB feed (but not as their profile picture). This feature has not been used often, so I don't think it is helping me with awareness. It may also serve as a substitute for people who would pay to download an image and then use it as their FB profile picture.</p>

<p>I had to watermark my smugmug photos because it is possible to go around the "buy" button and the disabled right click and screen capture them, which violates my copyright. Any thoughts from the community about what I should do with someone who admits in writing that he screen captured my photo and is using it as his FB profile?</p>

<p>Install Google Analytics and review traffic coming into your site from facebook. If they convert to lead than it works. You might also review the number of page view per visitor and time on site from your various types of traffic. If FB visitors look at your content, than its a great option.<br>

Take baby steps and review results. You can alos run FB ads with small budget and see how it works.<br>

Art</p>