By Steve Bridgwood

As my wedding photography business has grown over the years, I have discovered that Facebook is one of my most important marketing tools. In this article, I share how to effectively use it to drive people to your website.

For my business, Facebook delivers more tangible results than any other form of social media. While Instagram and Pinterest are great for showcasing my work, I’ve found that these channels tend to be used primarily by brides that want to get ideas and inspiration for their wedding photography. I find Twitter most useful for connecting with other wedding professionals, which has benefits but doesn’t necessarily provide me with enquiries. So for the purposes of this article I will concentrate on how to best utilise Facebook to grow your business.

How To Grow Your Audience and Referrals Using Facebook

• Send all of the couples that have booked you to photograph their wedding an invitation to ‘Like’ your Facebook page. This means that when you share photographs from their wedding, or link to a blog post about their big day you can tag them. Tagging people allows all their friends to see their pictures and in the case of a blog, to click directly through to your website to view the images and leave messages for the newlyweds. It’s always great when couples write a few words of thanks about their photos—there is no better form of testimonial!
• When you tag a blog you can almost guarantee that friends, family and the couple themselves will share the post. This is crucial, as you want them to share your Facebook post rather than pictures from their own Facebook accounts. This means that your post and website is reaching a bigger audience and gaining more likes and views.
• Also make sure that you tag the wedding venue and any key vendors. In most cases they will share your post with their followers, which again increases the post’s reach and puts you in front of a new audience. It also helps to build your relationships with wedding venues in particular. They are always keen to showcase how fantastic their venue can look when photographed professionally, which in turn helps them to gain further bookings.
• Let the reach of your post grow organically first, before you decide whether you want to pay to boost it further through a Facebook sponsored post. It’s all about getting the biggest audience you can.
• Where I can, I will always post a few killer shots from a wedding on the day that I photograph it, again following the important rule of tagging the couple and the venue. Friends and family will be keen to add their congratulations.
• When I’m almost ready to deliver the full set of photographs to a client, I post a few teasers on Facebook letting the couple know that their photos are nearly ready, again tagging the couple to build the anticipation among them and their family and friends.  
• Always include a link back to your website on any post!

At every stage of photographing a wedding from the day itself, to editing and then finally in delivering the finished images, these tips will help you get your brand and style in front of a switched on and ever bigger audience.

I even encourage my couples to share their private online gallery with friends and family so they can also view their photographs via Zenfolio’s password-protected client-access area on my website. They can even directly order any prints or artwork of the photographs without any involvement from me, which is a great way to increase sales.

When you consistently use Facebook to promote your work and website, your brand and reputation will get stronger among both wedding professionals and potential clients. Each year I have steadily seen more and more referrals from couples who have shared their pictures with friends and family who have viewed their wedding on my website. It’s great that I still get old clients sharing my new posts and tagging friends who are planning their wedding.  

I recently promoted a blog on Facebook from an amazing wedding that I photographed in Marrakech, which generated 238 likes, 12 comments and 10 shares. It was also picked up by one of the UK’s leading wedding blogs, which will be publishing it soon. And of course when they do feature it I will be sharing their post too!

Steve Bridgwood is an award-winning wedding photographer based in Staffordshire, UK, and a proud Zenfolio Ambassador. He is considered one the UK’s top 50 wedding photographers according to GoHen and is named one of the world’s best wedding photographers by Junebug.