Does facebook cheapen or enhance the photographic industry?

[William]

Further to Dylans comment, I was down the beach at a place called Flatrock this morning , Would you believe I was walking back to my car I saw this gentleman looking at me , He had a tripod and Camera slung over his shoulder, He came over to me and said , Liquidboulevard !! Yes I said , He said he was from Canada and been following our daily images since we started , He came specifically to this part of the Gold Coast directly from viewing my morning shots, He was hoping to spot me during his holiday , Made his day and mine , He thanked me again and left happy

[ricktas]

So with the recent changes to FB, where even if someone has 'liked' your page, about only 10% of those people now see any one post, unless you 'pay to promote' it, has any here noticed the decline in activity on their pages by likers? Have you paid to promote something? Did paying really get the post more attention?

I think we might be seeing a whole transition at present as to how powerful a tool FB will be, and just how many are willing to pay to continue to get their name out there and ultimately we might see anything other than personal pages being based on a payments system entirely. After all FB now has shareholders to answer to.

So those of you who purely use FB and no other marketing, what is your strategy should you have to start paying to promote? What other marketing ideas are you using/considering?

[Redgum]

When you think about it, Rick, there has never been free advertising other than word of mouth and that's been insignificant in the greater scheme of things. Facebook is simply a duopoly that enticed people to join to create a database, went public, and to satisfy its shareholders will now charge for its services. Facebook pioneered the way but it is unlikely, near impossible from a financial perspective, for another organisation to compete in that marketplace with a free service. Our greatest fear is that we may have to talk with each other one to one but even that is the cost of a telephone call which will always remain dearer than Facebook. I suppose we could go back to email.

[Chris G]

Can't say I personally promote on there apart from my sharing my own page every now and then.. But I do know people who do; do it and with that your looking at about 1500 - 3000 people it reaches. And I'm pretty sure you can pick who you want to target and vise versa..

As far as I'm concerned people should be looking at most of the networking sites to help promote your business / work. But at the moment facebook is clearly the major contender on most fronts. Though there is word that MySpace is about to make a major jump back with a whole new look.. Kinda looked like Windows 8 personally lol

Kinda surprised you guys don't have a facebook group already???

[Dylan & Marianne]

I don't use the pay to promote scheme and have noticed a significant reduction in the numbers of people 'reached' according to their stats. Users have also noted images not showing up etc. I don't think I will ever use the scheme but the way I see it, 10% of the target reached is still 10% more than if I weren't doing anything. I mean, I'd rather 100% but I'll take a 10% freebie

[Chris G]

Yes Dylan your work gets alot of attention matey..

[JM Tran]

I dont need to pay to promote on FB. As its just 1 medium for me out of many.

Currently have over 2200 friends on my personal page - 70% of them added me because they are fans of my work.

Approaching nearly 1000 on my photography fan page - most of these people have not added me on my personal page.

I estimate with just over 3000 people there I generate about 25-30k per annum alone on FB for my work, which is about 1/3 of my total roughly per year.

This is without even constant spamming like other photographers do on my FB.

I also follow the pages of other famous photographers.