Facebook Pages or Website – Which Is Best For Your Photography Business?

You’re starting up a new photography business. You know you need to have something online.

Yet you really don’t have the money to spend on marketing. So you do what a lot of photographers do and you head on to Facebook and design a Page. You don’t need anything else, right?

Yes, designing a Facebook Page seems to be a growing trend. In 2011, US business owners spent more than $3 million designing Facebook brand pages. But are they getting their money’s worth?

According to a new study conducted by Incyte Group and Get Satisfaction, nearly 90 percent of respondents stated a company’s website – not their social network – is the preferred place to research products and services that will ultimately lead to a purchase decision. The study showed there is an extensive gap between the way consumers want to engage with companies via social media and the way companies are choosing to use those tools.

Consumers aren’t looking for a company with vast amounts of Likes, Pins or Tweets. They want relationships they can count on, personal referrals, and engagement from the company itself.

When customers are ready to buy, they want information that will help them lead to an informed decision. And that means they head right to a website.

And if you think about it for a moment and compare it to your own spending habits, you can see why that is true.

How Do You Search?

If I’m out on my social sites, I’m usually there for personal reasons. I have extra time and am looking for ways to communicate with friends and potential clients. Or I’m there sharing things to build up my own reputation. I’m usually not there to do research on whatever I may have plans of buying in the future.

When I’m doing research on what I need to buy – a new car, a new accountant, or a photographer for my daughter’s senior portraits – I don’t do my research on Facebook. Instead I start in Google and do a search to find potential companies that meet my needs. [Read more…]