When putting together your social media strategy, be sure to include the one outlet that is most likely to make your life more entertaining and interesting: Facebook. This company has taken over the social networking scene for those over the age of 25, and its fastest-growing demographic is those 35 years and older.  What does this mean to a person who wants to license their images?  Your age demographic is here.  Although these people may not be directly connected to image licensing, they represent a sweet spot that you want to hit.  With Facebook’s broad reach – more than 300 million active users worldwide – Facebook represents an uber-network of potential customers.

Sure, Facebook is a great tool for keeping in touch with personal friends and family. Who doesn’t love to log-in to discover that a good friend is on the way to Paris, has posted an image of the latest addition to the family, or plans to meet up with 10 other mutual friends at an outdoor concert? In addition to providing an easy-to-use forum for such personal posts, Facebook provides a great social media outlet for promoting your LicenseStream business.  That said, it may be wise to post only those images you plan to use as “teasers” with links to your LicenseStream store, only very small images that are unlikely to be used elsewhere, or images that are heavily watermarked.

Why?  While Facebook states you own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and that you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings, it goes on to say in its Terms that “For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us 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 that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.” 

Here are a few basic steps to leveraging the power of Facebook to effectively market your business:

1. Create a Facebook account. Be sure to completely fill out your Facebook profiles so that people can learn more about you and the type of work you do.
2. Share images of your work, and provide a wide sampling of your abilities and specialties. Just be aware of the Facebook user agreement mentioned above. Be sure to include links to your LicenseStream gallery.
3. Ask a selection of clients connected to other potential customers for permission to post one of his best images to the client’s Facebook account. That way, anyone registered as a friend of the client on Facebook will see the posted image. This offers you exposure a much larger group of potential customers. The appearance of your work on that one friend’s site provides instant validation of your work, and is likely to drive additional business to you.
4. Write about what you’re doing on the wall of your Facebook page. If you are displaying your work at a real-world gallery, then use the wall to promote your show. If you’re about to publish a book of photographs, let the Facebook community know about it!
5. Create a Facebook fan page and use it as a promotional tool for your business. Highlight shows, books, new areas of endeavor, or new ways of selling your work (say, special offers or unusual pricing packages).This is a great way to establish and build on a public persona that aligns with your business. Again, make sure your profiles are complete and accurate.
6. Be sure to regularly post fresh new images to your Facebook pages that demonstrate your continued momentum as a photographer, that highlight new aspects of your work, and that serve as reminders that your services are available.
7. Join groups on Facebook that are related to your photography work and interests, and actively comment and answer questions posted in them. Actively helping others is one of the surest ways to interest them in your work.

In fact, the more you engage in social media activities and communities, the greater the chance that someone will find your work when they conduct a search for 'Professional Photographer' or “Professional Outdoor Photography,” or any one of the keywords that you might have woven into your comments, questions or responses on Facebook.

It doesn't hurt that Facebook is good for improving search results; the major search engines index fan pages and the profiles of those Facebook members who do not restrict them with their Search Privacy settings. Just remember, like Twitter, this is a community to monitor and contribute to on a daily basis.  Not every potential customer will be on Facebook or Twitter, but as with any business, the more contacts you have, the greater chance of success.

While there is no guarantee that any of these social media outlets are going to sustain themselves long-term, they are very active now and offer tremendous opportunities for building your business.