Should you pay to advertise on Facebook?

The number one mistake portrait photographers make when it comes to Facebook Ads is.. well, not using them! Facebook is not only the world’s leading social site with over two billion active monthly users (at least twice the size of most other big-name competitors according to TechCrunch data), but it’s also fast-growing at more than 400 new accounts per day.

If you want to simplify your marketing efforts into one social platform, Facebook is where you go. Forget how much “hipper” other social sites might seem to us artist-types. Numbers don’t lie.

Of course you don’t need to reach two billion clients, right? Just a few. But consider: No matter how hyper-local you make a promotion, more of your target audience will be on Facebook to respond to it. That’s especially true for portrait photographers, since our clientele’s main decision-makers are intensely active on the site — women! Eighty-two percent of all women are active on Facebook, and the vast majority of those are aged 30-49. Photography studios should read this as “mothers of families, high school seniors,” etc. They book the sessions and pay the money!

Targeting Your Ideal Client

Finally, your ability to hyper-target an ad to just the right people is.. well, almost spooky! It goes well beyond choosing location, targeting demographics and narrowing by interests. You now can tap into user behaviors through Facebook’s advanced algorithms, too. To put it simply, when you create an ad, you can simply click a button to target people who are more likely to behave as you want them to — whether they’re more likely to “interact” with your post or “convert” to paying clients, for example.

But understand, you must pay for Facebook Ads! Don’t believe for a minute you can do all this organically, by merely interacting a lot or posting more “engaging content” to your Page. Did you know almost half of Facebook’s users have never even “liked” a business Page? And even if they did like your Page, you’ll remember from my article on the “Facebook Blackout” that you almost never show up in the Newsfeed anymore. So don’t waste too much time be super-social. Be a smart marketer instead!

Expected Cost

Don’t worry too much about the cost. Facebook is not only the best place to advertise, it’s also relatively cheap. Ever wonder if you’ve paid too much for a Facebook ad? It helps to know the average CPC (“cost per click” on any ad by a potential client) among all Facebook advertisers is just $1.72, accordion to Wordstream research. (Although it averages a little higher for service industries like photography.) In the end, I personally find our studio pays just a few dollars in advertising per client who actually books a portrait session. Incredibly well worth it!

No wonder 93 percent of social media advertisers use Facebook according to Social Media Examiner’s 2017 report. Look at what successful people do, and follow their footsteps!

What About Free Strategies?

So are unpaid marketing strategies and organic Page posts dead? Not at all. Over years, we’ve taught many photographers and other small business owners clever strategies to reach people on Facebook for free. In that bygone era, you could succeed with free strategies alone.

Sure, succeeding for “free” is much harder now. But your marketing will be so much stronger if you use those clever old organic strategies in conjunction with a little paid advertising. Why? Because of the Law of Six Degrees of Separation. Whereas the popular joke was once “everyone on Earth is just six degrees removed from Kevin Bacon,” we now know from Facebook’s own data that everyone on their platform is in fact only 3.5 degrees removed from each other. Wow!

Conclusion

So what does this all mean? For starters, it means advertise to the right crowd consistently and expect to see your bookings multiply as free word-of-mouth and social credibility come your way! 

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