Social Media Marketing for Photographers // Photography + Community

Facebook has been in the news again over the last couple of weeks as it has made some change to its privacy settings. Once again we’re seeing some folks choose to deactivate/delete their Facebook profiles in protest. Portland news anchor Stephanie Stricklen (pictured) tweeted last night about knowing several people who are deleting their profiles, noting that the level of chatter around Facebook is greater than ever before.

Sure, Some Things About Facebook Suck

Facebook’s terms of service that, among other things

specifically give us [Facebook] the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content…

Yes, that means that Facebook is claiming a rights grab to use any photos (or other content) you post to their service. I’ll also be the first to admit that their rapidly-changing privacy and information sharing policies can be a bit confusing if one isn’t paying close attention.

On the Other Hand, Facebook is Perfect for Certain Photo Markets

While Facebook’s audience is expanding, the core group of users (especially those who use it actively) remain those who are currently in high school or whom have been in college/university over the past few years. This is the crowd for which Facebook was originally designed, and Facebook has become a core component of social interaction for the connected generation. If you’re a senior portrait photographer, well, Facebook is where your clients are at. Similarly if you shoot weddings, a good portion of your clientele (engaged folks between 18-30) are using Facebook.

Is Facebook Worth It?

Only you can decide if the terms of service and frequently-changing privacy situation are prices you’re willing to pay for exposure to Facebook’s services and users. From where I sit, a wedding or senior shooter deciding not to use Facebook seems like a damaging business decision. On the other hand, if one works mainly with corporate clients (annual reports and so forth), Facebook might not be as critical to one’s business. That said, keep in mind that everyone needs headshots, and everyone needs avatar photos on Facebook, and the two just might overlap.

Are you ditching Facebook over privacy considerations? Will you stick around since you need it for your business? Are you okay with things as they are?

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Contests are a popular use of social media. I’ve blogged about my thoughts on contests on Twitter, run a couple contests here on Social Photo Talk, and used Twitter and Facebook to drive traffic to my contests. Yesterday it came to my attention that Facebook has recently updated their Promotions Guidelines, which set the rules by which Facebook members can conduct promotions and contests using the service. I learned a lot – if you’re going to use Facebook in any way for a contest or promotion, read on.

Head over to check out the Facebook Promotions Guidelines; I’m not a lawyer; what follows is my personal interpretation and opinion.

• “You may not administer any promotion through Facebook, except… with our prior written approval.” Yes, that’s right. Facebook requires that any promotion on Facebook be approved by Facebook, in writing.
• Users may only enter promotions on Facebook in two places: “On the canvas Page of an application on the Facebook Platform” and “On an application box in a tab on a Facebook Page.” Contest entries that use Facebook status updates or any sort of wall posting are forbidden.
• All promotions need to include language that the promotion is not endorsed by Facebook. I’ll leave it as an exercise for a lawyer to figure out how they can both require Facebook approval and then require a statement that they’re not endorsing the promotion.
• “You do not need our prior written approval if you are publicizing a promotion that is administered completely off of Facebook.” If you’re not actually running the contest on Facebook, it would seem that you don’t need approval, but…
• Contests can’t include entry by “taking any action on Facebook, for example, updating a status, posting on a profile or Page, or uploading a photo. You may, however, condition entry to the promotion upon becoming a fan of a Page.” The only thing allowed, it seems, is asking for fandom.
• They wrap things up with a disclaimer with loopholes as wide as Texas: “We may modify these Promotion Guidelines at any time without notice to you. You will subject to the most current version of these Promotion Guidelines then in effect.”

Read the entire set of guidelines and choose to proceed at your own risk. Like many things with Facebook, it’s worth weighing if the benefit of the reach of their platform outweighs the risks of their overly-restrictive terms of service.

Were you previously aware of these rules? Will this change how you conduct business on Facebook?

Photo by Gauldo, used under Creative Commons licensing

Tagged as:
contests,
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terms of service