I’ve been a bit obsessed with Facebook lately, from a personal aspect and a business perspective too. From the personal aspect, I’m just learning about all the newer applications available throughout the site and things you can get to interconnect with FB. From a business perspective I’m amazed at the advertising possibilities available through the site. Everything from paid advertising to the possibilities of creating group and fan pages for you business.

As a business owner I find it important to stay on top of media trends. Knowing what potential clients do and look at is helpful to any business and I think it’s fair to say that FB is really taking off. Mostly because of the baby boomer generation. Any average user has probably noticed a spike in older people adding him or her as their ‘friend’ and laughed about it. Let’s face it, I couldn’t help laugh when my wife’s grandma said she had been using Facebook. After thinking about it though, I realized this is a significant turn of events. No longer are social networking sites a place for high school and college-aged students to post ridiculous (and most the time inappropriate) photos of themselves on the internet. It’s actually become a tool for people of all ages to reconnect with old friends, classmates and coworkers.

What this means is that as more and more people find their way to FB, it increases the potential to reach customers on another plane. Customers with money. Before, FB was primarily known as a sophomoric social networking tool allowing students to share photos and update their relationship status while giving their friends a ‘poke’ every once in awhile. And let’s face it, they were all broke for the most part. Most high schoolers and college students are. It no longer fits this demographic though. It’s evolved into a beast of its own, showing potential for entrepreneurs of any kind, but photographers especially.

Not only can someone be friends with me by searching my name, they can also now be in a group called ‘Lifeworks Imaging’, they can become a ‘Fan’ of the page and I can mass email these groups to let them know about specials, events or updates. I can also upload a series of photos and with a few clicks of a button, search for a few names and tag anyone in my friends list that might be in that photo. Something that comes in very helpful for sports photography. All I have to do is add my own watermark before uploading and I’ve created a relatively safe way to share photos with players and fans without actually giving them away. Sure, some people will still nab the photo and save it to their computer. **cough, cough** Shane…. but that’s okay.

A link that Stephen Haas shared on FB the other day, “Why Your Blog Sucks,” made a great point. When you’re using the internet, most of the people using it with you aren’t working by ‘your rules.’ In other words, they’re going to take your photos, tag themselves, change them, possibly even print them. If someone really wants to print off one of those photos with my company name watermarked across it, let them. Why, because it’s some of the best advertising you can get. Feel honored someone likes your photo so much. That just means when it comes time for senior portraits, one of the first names they might think of is you.

I certainly don’t try to hide the fact that I’m advertising to clients by doing this. I’m also not insincere toward my customers either though. I think the fans and players appreciate showing off these photos to their friends and family. With FB, they no longer have to print them off and then show the photo to grandma, grandpa, Uncle Louie and Aunt Sally. Instead, next time Uncle Louie wants to look at his FB account, there’s a little wall update that says “Timmy Thompson was tagged in 5 photo from the album Baseball Game 5.”

And when Louie pulls up that picture, there in the corner will by my company name. Just a little reminder that we’re still in town and still do quality work. Plus, if they really want the photo with no watermark, it tells them right where to go and what password to enter to buy it.

For those of you that may not have a FB account, I suggest getting one. It’s really not as painful as you might think, just don’t blame me if you waste an entire day on it. It’s a lot easier to do than one might think.