Better Living Through Social Media - a podcast by Ugo Cei and Fabrizia Costa

I was inspired to record this post by reading a post on Facebook by a friend of mine, who recently wrote:

“I belong to a LOT of photography groups here on FB. I thought they would help me to become better at my art. Really all they’ve done is make me want to quit. If you haven’t noticed I haven’t been posting a lot(well, except from the gym because that’s been fun). I’ll still be taking photos and doing shoots but I’m no longer going to pursue this as my sole profession. I gave it a good try.”

This is what I replied to her, slightly edited:

“It’s sad that you are quitting, but understandable. This profession is not easy for anyone. I haven’t given up on my day job yet precisely because of this.

However, if I may respectfully add my own two cents, maybe you made a mistake in thinking that Facebook groups (and Facebook in general) could give you recognition, inspiration, peer encouragement, customers, or anything you were hoping of getting out of them.

If you are very very selective and proactive and careful, then maybe you can find a group of peers that can give you guidance and support, but random groups that everyone can join? Forget about it.

Also finding customers on Facebook is next to impossible. If you want to reach potential customers, you got to find them somewhere else, unless you have very deep pockets, spend a lot of money on ads and have an extremely optimized sales funnel to send people to.

I mostly use Facebook to share the things I put on my various websites. I know Facebook shares won’t attract much traffic, but they don’t cost me anything, so I just do them and if I get a handful of visitors, I won’t complain.

I hope you will still be doing photography professionally, even on a part-time basis, because your work is great.

If you can pursue that on weekends and grow your business from a small group of clients that are willing to refer you, that would be the way to go, in my humble opinion.

I am sure there are gazillions of customers that would want to pay you to have their portrait taken. You just have to reach out to them, via word of mouth, local advertising, partnerships with local businesses, creating great content for your website, and all the things that will make people know, like, and trust you.

In short, everything BUT social media.

I know you can make it.”

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