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5 Ways To Tell If Twitter Is Working For Your Photography Business

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Social media sites come and go. And if you are like most photographers, you probably have your social favorites. Do you favor YouTube or Facebook? Pinterest or Twitter?

While Twitter is now one of the “old timers”, it can still be an effective tool to get the word out about your business. Here is how you can tell.

Crowdbooster

Crowdbooster is a social media analytics tool that offers suggestions and resources to help you improve your online presence. It provides you with a plan of action to show you how you can reach out to the influencers in your sphere, create content that resonates with your audience, and when to send content to be most effective. It can help you track long term engagement and how best to interact with your audience. And if you have multiple accounts, that’s okay. Crowdbooster can bring all of your Twitter accounts together with your Facebook Pages accounts, and give you one stop views of how your marketing is working.

TweetCharts

TweetCharts allow you to generate a customized report for anything you can search for on Twitter. Use words, phrases, usernames, URLs, or hashtags to check out everything related to your niche. This is a great tool to use as you are tracking your campaigns and marketing programs. Track to see how many times your Tweet is mentioned, or how many times it was retweeted. You can also track if your followers and retweeters are more male or more female – perfect for understanding who your audience is and who you should be promoting your business too.

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Get Ready For The Newest Industry Trend … Nostalgia

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“In an era of unscratchable touch screens and sleek, perpetually Internet-connected devices that seem to smoothen all the edges of the world, people suddenly find themselves yearning for the reassuring roughness of the imperfect.”

In a recent article in The China Post, the writer questioned if we may just be at the tip of a brand new era. Technology? Nope. Information? Not quite.

Instead, what this writer proposes is we may be at the beginning of the nostalgia era. People are looking for a way to revive the feelings they once had by things of the past before we morphed everything into a digital rendition of itself. We miss touching and feeling things that had meaning without the necessity of plugging it in or running an “app” for that.

And in fact this article may be on to something.

Think of the most recent sale within the photography industry. Instagram sold for $1 billion dollars; its an app designed to make photographs have an old-world look.

When you take a photograph, you simply use an app to turn it into something from another time. With a touch of a button, you capture an image and apply various techniques. Then shoot it out to your friends through your favorite site, whether its Facebook or simply placing it on your blog. You aren’t giving up the things you love about today – instantaneous capture and manipulation, and sharing with friends around the world. Yet you’re giving it a look you remember from your youth.

And this isn’t the only example. [Read more...]

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The Day We Were Almost Sued

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Whew, yesterday’s post had me keeping up with comments all day. Thanks to everyone who enjoyed the discussion – I’ve enjoyed hearing what you have to say.

Wow, I Never Knew It Was So Easy To Make Money At Photography

One comment surfaced that made me want to share a story.

We had been in business for years, had the proper licensing and insurance in place, and had a very strong and lucrative business.

We met with a client and both “fell in love”. This bride and groom to be were from New York City, high powered, traveled the world, and were planning a very exotic wedding right here in the Rocky Mountains. They loved our work. We loved their personality and everything they were planning.

They were heading back to New York after meeting with us, and called a day later to book us. We forwarded a contract to the bride to be – in Word. She printed it, signed it, and sent it back. We likewise signed the copy once we had received it, made a copy for her and forwarded it back to her.

Several months later, we photographed one of the most fantastic weddings to date. It was on top of a mountain, beautiful day with not a cloud in sight. The food was great. The party was amazing. The bands were flown in from New York City. The wedding decorations were flown in from all over the world.

And the photographs were gorgeous.

So of course we started sharing them. We sent some to the caterer. Some to the wedding planner. Started using some for marketing. And then it happened. [Read more...]

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Blogging Is Booming For Business … If You Do It The Right Way

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Its easy to get caught up in the promise of big returns by using the latest social site – whatever that may be. Yet by jumping on the “latest and greatest” social networking site, you may be missing out on an opportunity that has been there all along.

Blogs are sometimes overlooked as the strong marketing tool they are. A recent study showed that blogs as sources of online buzz have increased over the last five years  from 36 million to 181 million. Yet why are blogs still so strong? Should you be using them? And is there a right way … and a wrong way … to use a blog for your photography business?

Blogs Are The Backbone Of Success

Sarah is a photographer. When she decided to start her photography business, she had been unemployed for several months and didn’t have a lot of funds to invest in her new business. So she did what any savvy business owner would do and did everything she could for free. She printed off business cards on her home printer. And she started designing a Facebook page to showcase her work. She spent several months adding posts and content to Facebook and gradually built up a pretty good following. She gained over 2,000 followers and had a steady line of prospects and customers – enough to keep a steady income coming in every month.

Then someone got a hold of her Facebook password and started posting spam from her account. Facebook received a number of complaints and shut her account down. [Read more...]

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3 Reasons You Should Give Up Your Dreams Of Being A Photographer

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I had an interesting comment thrown at me a few days ago and I’ve been pondering it ever since.

“You’re just lucky. You just happened to fall into the right place at the right time and happened to make some good money.”

The implication was very few can do it, its almost an impossibility to do it again, and photography is a market that simply has no money in it. If you make a decent income, it won’t be in photography.

So I decided to take the approach that maybe this person was right. Maybe there is no way you can make money at photography. Maybe the only people that do are lucky. In which case, if you are a photographer, maybe now is the time to give it all up. That’s right, walk away. And I have 3 reasons to prove that now is the time to do so.

1. The only way to get ahead in life is to be lucky – one in a million is the only shot you have.

Do you play Powerball (lottery, mega millions, whatever you happened to call it)? Did you stand in line for hours to buy a ticket? Did you hope and pray that your one ticket would be the magic winner and you would walk away a changed person?

That’s luck. You don’t have to do anything other than stand in line and buy a ticket. No planning (other than which line to hang out in). And it all comes down to chance – will your numbers be the actual numbers pulled.

Photography is much the same way. You grab a camera and start shooting. If people like your work, they pay you. You may book a few clients. Or maybe not. It all depends on your luck for the day.

2. The only way to make money is to work for someone else – there is no room for small business and it’s way too risky to try.

Paychecks are where its at in today’s world. Nothing is safer than having an employer keep you safe and secure. You work for them 40 hours per week (or more) and they give you a paycheck at the end of the week. Hopefully. Your benefits may go away. You may worry about the pink slip. But at least your safe as long as it lasts.

The true risk is small business because it simply doesn’t work. You never know if you will succeed and there is no way to build a future that brings in a healthy income. [Read more...]

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Google Places Policy Change Can Have Big Impact On Your Photography Business

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As a photographer, you run your business in one of three ways.

1. Your business is a brick and mortar studio where all of your clients come to your studio for your photography. Everything from photography to sales is completed at your location.

2. Your business is home based and serves some customers at your home and some on the road.

3. Your business is home based and does not serve any customers at your location.

All are an acceptable way to run your business. But if you’ve ever inputted your information into Google Places and you don’t have it set up correctly according to your business model, you could be at risk for having your account deleted.

On March 22nd the official Google Places Quality Guidelines were updated to include the following:

If you don’t receive customers at your location, you must select the “Do not show my business address on my Maps listing” option within your dashboard. If you don’t hide your address, your listing may be removed from Google Maps.

Google has decided to do this to make the content side of Google Places more accurate. Several years ago when Google Places was just starting to grow, people experimented with placing their businesses into the Places feature, no matter what type of business it was. And it worked. If you checked the “hide address” feature back then, it was like checking the box that said “hide my business” as well. So word quickly spread that in order to receive the benefits from Google Places, it was better to include your location no matter what type of business you had.

As Google keeps changing, they now want to provide the best results possible. Which means if you have a brick and mortar business, your address is of benefit. If you don’t, it’s a hindrance. By adding this new policy change, it is believed that the “hide address” feature will no longer negatively impact your local focused rankings.

While this policy change isn’t widely known, it can impact you if you don’t comply immediately. Many businesses suddenly find themselves “gone” from rankings simply because they aren’t following the new policy. If you’ve ever created your Google Places profile, head back and check to make sure you comply.

Filed Under: Online Marketing Tagged With: , ,

7 Secret Marketing Strategies Top Photographers Use … And You Already Know How To Use Them

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Many small business owners have trouble with marketing. They think its difficult, an acquired skill that takes years to learn.

In reality, marketing is something you have to work at for the life of your business. Yet it isn’t difficult to learn or do. You just have to realize it is a part of your business and you have to do it. Many of the things that will help you be most successful you already know. See how many things you are already doing.

1. Understand, know and love what you are selling.

Sounds easy enough; yet in reality many people create packages they aren’t really sure about. If you don’t have faith in what you are selling and know it inside and out, you’ll never be able to sell it to a prospect. And they really want to buy!

Marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. And you don’t have to create complex messages. In fact, the simpler the better. If you aren’t sure if your packages are simple enough, explain them to a family member or friend that doesn’t spend a lot of time in your business. Can you explain it in a few sentences and have them get it? If not, go back to the drawing board and rewrite your content. You should be able to quickly describe what you do, what you have to offer, and have them wanting more information.

2. Have your information in a variety of ways.

If you’ve ever told someone what you do, what is the next question they usually ask for if they are interested? They ask for more information. People are skeptical by nature. They don’t hear a few sentences and immediately buy, especially if it’s a larger ticket item. In order to appease their instincts and help them determine if they can indeed trust you, they ask for more information to prove in their minds that you are legitimate. While you don’t have to have volumes of content, you do have to have your content in a variety of ways. Your website is the easiest, especially if its in blog format, because you can add a ton of content to it any time you choose. You can also have postcards, brochures, videos, and a variety of social profiles. Make sure they all say the same things and frame your business in the same way. They should be able to move from one place to another, improving your image in their minds. [Read more...]

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7 Ways To Use iBooks For Your Photography Business

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One of the newest products released from Apple is the new iBooks Author application. iBooks Author allows anyone to create beautiful multi-touch books for iPad. And its not just the “book” concept that makes this exciting. With iBooks, you can incorporate a whole lot more than text – galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects and more. Which means you can bring your entire business to life that we couldn’t even dream about a few short months ago.

When iPad was first released, I attended a workshop on how best to use iPad. And even though there were several experts from Apple doing the presentation, the one thing they left open was the true purpose of an iPad. While it was developed with specific things in mind, the “brains” behind the iPad also knew that they really had no idea what direction iPad would take. With collective minds from all over the world developing apps to run on an iPad, the future is being rewritten every single day.

Start by taking a tour of the iBooks Author platform.

In many ways we are seeing that today as a consumer-driven iPad is quickly moving into the business space. Businesses and photographers are using it for everything from taking notes and communication platforms, to marketing and eventually replacing the need for hauling around heavy laptops.

With the release of iBooks Author, you can now take it one step further and incorporate a multimedia presentation into everything you do. Here are 7 ideas that will completely change the way you manage your business – and how people view you as a photographer and a business owner.

1. An interactive brochure

A brochure you can hand out is great. A brochure you can have people download to their iPad is revolutionary. Not only can you showcase your images in a unique way, you can also incorporate a viariety of other ideas into your brochures. How about a 2 minute interview with you? Or a video showing how you photograph at an event? If people can see what you do and learn from you, they are more likely to be inspired by you. [Read more...]

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3 Reasons People Are Walking Away From Your Photography Business

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What is the one thing each of us wishes we had more of? Time. Because we all have way more to get done each day then we actually have time to accomplish, we start looking for shortcuts that will make things easier. Online banking? Check. Delivery service for everything from dry cleaning to dinner? Check. If we want to spend our money, we want to make sure its giving us something in return, not causing us more work.

Which is why simple messages always work. Look at your favorite products and services. Do you have to think before you buy? Or do they convince you before hand that you will be making the right purchase from someone you can believe in and trust?

Makes sense, right? Yet its amazing how many entrepreneurs manage to confuse what should be a simple process.

1. Problem: Too Many Areas Of Expertise

Having more than one niche you can focus your energy on may seem like a good thing up front. And it does offer you the ability to pick and choose what you want to do each day.

Yet the problem with being good at everything is no one will understand the one thing you are really great at. Instead of being the go-to person for one area of focus, you will be the catch all person that picks up things when no one else comes to mind.

Solution: Niche and segment

Its okay to have more than one love. But if you combine them and try and get your clients to understand your two different niches, it may be a chore. Consider a photographer that loves weddings and product work for catalogs and magazines. Both are photography related and can showcase your creative side. Yet weddings may be considered a bit “frilly” for commercial work. Some executives that would happily hire a seasoned commercial photographer may have a bit of reluctance when they see you compete for weddings on the side. Different mentality. Different areas of expertise. And sometimes the image of what it takes doesn’t cross over from industry to industry.

I would suggest creating more than one website if necessary, allowing each of them to focus on the area you are promoting to each set of clientele. Don’t hide the fact you cater to different industries. Just don’t focus on it where a potential client can spend a lot of time reading about the other niches you cater to. [Read more...]

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Photographers – 12 Commonly Overlooked Deductions That Can Add To Your Bottom Line

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Tax day is creeping up on us once again. And if you are like most photography business owners, filling out tax forms are anything but a fun time. Whether you do it yourself, or hire someone else to do it for you, nothing can make the experience a little more bearable is seeing the word “refund” instead of finding out how much more you owe.

With thousands of pages of code and a plethora of changes that occur every year, its easy to miss things that could impact your bottom line. Check out these commonly overlooked deductions to see if you qualify for more this year.

1. One of the most overlooked credits is the American Opportunity Credit, which has been extended through 2012. This credit allows eligible taxpayers to claim up to $2,500 for each of the first four years of college for each student. Whether you or a child is currently in college, this credit is nonrefundable, which means you could get back more in a refund than you paid in.

2. Have you donated anything to charity this year? While you’ve probably cleaned out your closets a time or two, don’t forget about the things you’ve donated for your business as well. A donated portrait session still has value.

3. Mileage can be a huge bonus to your bottom line. In many cases, you probably use your car for personal and business. Everything business related can be deducted. Also include volunteer mileage as you are driving to and from charity functions. While you do have the option for reporting actual expenses or taking the mileage credit, the mileage credit is usually the easiest way. Keep a log handy in your car and record everything you do for business. [Read more...]

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