Do Your Facebook Settings Keep Your Clients From Finding You?

Ok gang . . . it's "Pet Peeve Time" -

Odds are that many of you on Facebook are marketing yourself as a professional photographer. Yet, the settings on the Facebook profiles of so many people have their info under strict security as if they're under the witness protection program. 

If your page settings are all "private", people that are NOT friends with you cannot see your business name and therefore cannot click on any link to even view your business page. If your settings are such that only "friends" can see that information, a potential client searching for you by name cannot easily get to your business page from your personal page. (And how many clients refer you by your name rather than your business name?)

 

So, you have to make some choices; stay in hiding and fore go the marketing benefits, or let potential clients know that you're a photography professional. If your photography is what you're trying to market via Facebook, you will want to have this information visible as your "work" when someone hovers over your name.

Do you have your page so locked down that nobody can see a thing? As a potential client, would not being able to see any info cause you to question doing business with someone?

My suggestion is to edit your work information so that at least your studio name is visible when the cursor is hovered over your name. (See the example here.) Because that link is clickable, it will allow potential clients to click through to your business page even if the two of you aren't "Facebook friends".

Fortunately you can now allow certain parts of your info to be public while keeping the rest visible only to friends. How do you change these settings? It's really pretty simple.

• When you're logged into Facebook, click the arrow at the top right of your screen next to "home". 
• Click "Privacy Settings"
• Click on "Edit your Basic Info" (in the first paragraph), then edit your Work History.
• Choose "Public" from the drop-down menu.
• Click SAVE.
• You're done!

Just to make sure, it's not a bad idea to ask someone who's not on your friend list to check it for you. (You and your friends are able to see it, but you want others to as well.)

This simple trick allows people to see your studio name and link without giving them complete access to your profile info.

Happy Facebooking!

- David Grupa