Facebook as a Portfolio

Hello all -

I see that several of you use Facebook as a portfolio and I have two questions -

a) Does anyone have any examples and;

b) Are there any concerns about transferring the copyright to them. I ask this because of a dust up with MySpace when they said that they own the copyright of any photos on the site.

Thanks!

Jonathan

Personally I would never use facebook as a portfolio, but it is great for networking and getting better. Keep your images off the site (except for samples). They don't own them but they have no problem deleting them or the like whenever they feel lke it. Good on networking, bad on image display. If you cant use a smugmug type thing, make one yourself using squarespace, or buy space on onemodelplace if you have any glam at all.

There are no controls on Facebook to keep people from taking your photos. None. Consider that.

snails wrote in post #10198003
There are no controls on Facebook to keep people from taking your photos. None. Consider that.

Yeah, but I have a website that also has no controls...

JetCityImage wrote in post #10198007
Yeah, but I have a website that also has no controls...

Facebook is fine for networking and showing off some images, but the display quality there is somewhere between abysmal and awful. Use that networking to drive traffic to a proper gallery site like smugmug, or pbase...

I hate the photo gallery function on Facebook. Half the time, it only partially loads pages. It's not reliable enough, in my experience, for use as a portfolio. But it's a great way to drive traffic.

As crappy as the display IQ is on facebook, the business I get from the networking and targeted marketing far outweighs that negative. The colors on most folks' monitors is off anyway, rendering it moot whether they see the pics on your site or facebook or anyplace else. If people want to grab my photos I don't care. As long as they're not using them in a commercial capacity or falsely claiming credit for the creation of them, it's no skin off my back.

Paranoia is a waste of time and energy. I found that out the hard way.

snails wrote in post #10198003
There are no controls on Facebook to keep people from taking your photos. None. Consider that.

There are no controls on the internet to keep people from taking your photos.

cdifoto wrote in post #10198415
As crappy as the display IQ is on facebook, the business I get from the networking and targeted marketing far outweighs that negative. The colors on most folks' monitors is off anyway, rendering it moot whether they see the pics on your site or facebook or anyplace else. If people want to grab my photos I don't care. As long as they're not using them in a commercial capacity or falsely claiming credit for the creation of them, it's no skin off my back.

Paranoia is a waste of time and energy. I found that out the hard way.

If people like what they see on facebook, they'll click through to my website. That's the whole idea of a fan page to me.

And even if you can disable right clicking on your site, there are other ways for people to swipe your photos if they really want to.

PMCphotography wrote in post #10198439
If people like what they see on facebook, they'll click through to my website. That's the whole idea of a fan page to me.

And even if you can disable right clicking on your site, there are other ways for people to swipe your photos if they really want to.

I have a fan page but I don't really use it. I use a business/personal combo and people just message me directly through the fb messaging system. They don't click through to my site.

I don't care how people see the photos or the quality level at which they see the photos. What I care about is getting people to contact me for my services. THAT'S what really matters.

cdifoto wrote in post #10198588
I have a fan page but I don't really use it. I use a business/personal combo and people just message me directly through the fb messaging system. They don't click through to my site.

I don't care how people see the photos or the quality level at which they see the photos. What I care about is getting people to contact me for my services. THAT'S what really matters.

Ahh ok, I prefer to keep my personal page and fan pages seperate, but you are absolutely right getting people to contact you is the key- whether fb is your portfolio or a portal.

PMCphotography wrote in post #10198605
Ahh ok, I prefer to keep my personal page and fan pages seperate, but you are absolutely right getting people to contact you is the key- whether fb is your portfolio or a portal.

I have the fb fan page set up but quickly realized it's not really going to benefit me directly because the functionality is limited. So I kind of just have stuff there but don't really do anything with it.

My facebook profile itself started out for my business and always has been for my business, but I find that infusing some personality into it helps people see you as human, not just a faceless company like the makers of Snapple. There are even some random snaps taken with my phone on there as well as albums of my work. I get quite a few messages through facebook about my services now and since most of us have smart phones or get facebook notifications via text, it's pretty common for me to turn an inquiry into a session within a matter of minutes.

Facebook as a portfolio...No..A way to network yes...

snails wrote in post #10198003
There are no controls on Facebook to keep people from taking your photos. None. Consider that.

..so?

scorpio_e wrote in post #10211005
Facebook as a portfolio...No..A way to network yes...

What he said.

I believe there is also somewhere in the Facebook terms of use/privacy that enables Facebook to claim anything you upload as their own.