Photographers and Social Media
Posted by TJ Dinsmoor on Mon, Jan 25, 2010 @ 10:54 AM
As the count for social media users keeps growing and growing each day, undoubtedly you've been asked are you on Twitter or Facebook yet?
As a photographer, having an online presence of some sort is a good thing, a great thing to be exact. As more people go online each day, they are looking for more information online than ever before.
However, before you indulge into the world of social media (if you haven't already) you should first ask yourself "why should I create social media accounts?" Think about what do you want to get out of it for both you on a personal level and your photography business? Research the tools available and think about how those tools can help you achieve your goals.
Why Use Social Media?
- Become part of conversations
- Find like-minded photographers
- Engage deeper with friends, family, and clients
- Become a "hub" (ReTweet posts, post articles, engage). Make people curious and anxious about what you're going to post next.
- Show your personality.
- Market your photography business in a different way. Integrate online and offline methods together. Promote each channel through your other channels (if that makes sense?) Promote your Twitter profile within Facebook and your blog and vis-a-versa.
The key is to identify what you want your objects to be online. From there, learn the tools for each social networking service. As your network grows, learn about it, see what types of links, articles, and information intrigue people. Then carry out your plan to accomplish your goals. It takes time to build those relationships online, but stick with your plan.
What You Put in is What You Get
People can use social media however they want. If you don't like how someone presents themselves then don't feel obligated to follow them just because they wish to follow you. Each person has an online presence for a reason and theirs may be different than yours.
You will find many photographers that use Twitter who feel the need to follow everybody and to reach as many people as possible. Fine, but like the latter, you do not need to follow them if you don't want to. It's better to have 100 followers that care then to have 1000 followers who don't. Don't feel the need that you have to cater to everybody and just because they are following you doesn't mean you have to follow them back.
Look for people that want to be followed and follow you back. To do this you must put in time, post, engage, start conversations, etc. This is true across the board for all social networking whether you blog or use Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Digg and so on...
How The Lab by Apollo Uses Social Media
If you follow one or all of our social media accounts you know what to expect from us. Whether it is our blog, Facebook or Twitter account we post information that we think is important to our clients and photographers. We post information about our services as a photo lab, monthly specials, news, upcoming events, reviews, different and marketing tactics for our clients to use.
We feature our clients in our monthly e-Flash newsletters as Featured Photographers to recognize their photographic success and achievements. The Apollo Cares section showcases extraordinary efforts in the communities that photographers do on their own time to give back.
Become a Fan on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our blog
Get Started
Don't feel the need to sign up for every service at once. Start out small and once you feel comfortable move into a new service. Again, think over what you want your goals and objectives to be. If you see there is no need to start social media then don't.
If you feel you just want to share your photography Flickr could be an option where you can create photo galleries to showcase your images. If you want to make your studio to have a greater online presence, start a Twitter account to pursue people in your area and push monthly specials.
If you have questions on how to start using social media or any questions in general leave a post, we'll be happy to help you.
