Portfolio Platform Review – Part III: Facebook

This is a guest post by Tara Hornor, if you want to guest post on this blog, please contact us.

In this third installment of our portfolio review series, we’re going to take a look at Facebook as a portfolio platform. While you can use your personal Facebook page, I highly recommend setting up a business page which can be made public to anyone on the web. This is much easier to manage and gives you plenty of features; therefore, showing off your latest booklets you just sent to your online printing company doesn’t have to wait for the actual print version.

So this review will focus on the pages features and how you can use this to market your work. Some of the big benefits of using a Facebook page are:

• Connect safely with other Facebook users – Fellow Facebookers are much more likely to visit a Facebook page than to leave Facebook and go to your personal website.
• Built-in timeline – As you upload content, Facebook automatically organizes it in chronological order.
• Familiar layout – Since a major portion of web users have a Facebook account, they are familiar with how to navigate a Facebook page.

One other serious consideration to keep in mind is that you have zero control of what Facebook may or may not do to how your page looks. The Facebook folks have been known to make major changes to the layout of the site in spite of massive moaning and groaning from their community members.

Ease of Use

Odds are, if you’re reading this you have a Facebook account of your own. Uploading photos is a breeze and managing your content is about as easy as you’re going to find. Sometimes editing your profile can require going several links deep, but for the most part Facebook is a very simple portfolio platform to manage.

Image Protection

There is no image protection built into Facebook. You either have to upload content with a watermark already on it or resort to low-resolution images.

As opposed to your personal Facebook page, you do NOT have the ability to limit the visibility of images. You could put high-resolution images on your personal account and limit visibility to Friends or other groups. But your business page is all public.

Professionalism/Quality of Presentation

Facebook has a built in image viewer that is wonderful for showing off your work. It allows you to put images in a folder and viewers can see a larger version and click to see the next image.

But the major drawback to the current mode is that your viewers are also exposed to ads on the side. You have no control over what ads are displayed. While they are fairly low-profile, you don’t get the pure presentation of your art.

Community/Environmental Considerations

One of the upsides of being involved with the Facebook community is that there is no anonymity. If someone wants to comment on your work, their profile is listed next to the comment. This has traditionally meant that the comments are much more professional than a standard, anonymous comment system on a blog or on other sites.

Customization Options

None available. You are at the mercy of the Facebook developers on this one. The only customization you can bring to the site is your unique content in the form of graphics and posts you put on your wall.

Contact Options

On the Facebook page, you have the option of adding content to your Info tab. You have the option of adding a website, but your email address is not standard. You can insert an email address into another section of the page, but it will not work as a clickable link. You can also list your phone number, but it is not a default option as well.

In short, the contact area is not perfect, but you can make it work by adding anything you want as far as text content goes. You cannot add images to the Info tab, nor can you add custom contact options.

Summary

Overall, Facebook is a great, free resource for sharing your work. My opinion is that it should not be your primary source, but you would be missing out on the potential to draw clients who might not have otherwise found you if you did not have a Facebook page. It’s easy to use and is one of the most trusted websites in the world. Tap into the community and you find yourself as busy as you want to be.

About the Author!

Tara Hornor has a degree in English and has found her niche writing about marketing, advertising, branding, graphic design, and desktop publishing. She writes for PrintPlace.com, an online printing company that offers business cards, posters, brochure printing, postcard printing, and more printed marketing media. In addition to her writing career, Tara also enjoys spending time with her husband and two children.