How To Keep Your Photography Business Online In The Post PC Era

I was sitting around my local coffee shop the other day waiting for a client and started to look around. Remember the days when everyone had a laptop? Not any more. As I sat there, I did notice a couple of laptops. But most people sat there with their mobile phones and tablets putting in a little work time while they met with clients or enjoyed their coffees. Me included.

Yep, I doubt it will take too much longer before those heavy laptops all but disappear. And sitting down to a desktop … they’ll be gone too before you know it. Why do you need something big, heavy and tethered to one location when you can move freely with mobile devices?

Creating a site that is optimized for mobile doesn’t just mean moving off a Flash platform. It means thinking a whole new way about the experience you wish to portray to your clients who are finding you via their mobile devices.

Yes, it may be a low percentage today. But that’s increasing every day. Stats are showing that mobile could be in the high majority in as little as two years. The last thing you want to be is the last photographer focusing in on why your old, archaic website doesn’t work. Here are some things to start considering now as you make your move.

It’s The Internet, Not Two Separate Tools

When mobile technology first made its appearance, many photographers had a major problem. Flash doesn’t work on iPhones or iPads, which means your Flash site isn’t viewable on those devices. While many photographers said “So what?”, to do so ignored a huge population that may be potential clients. Likewise, many retail store thought of their retail and online stores as two separate units. I remember trying to return something I purchased online to a local retail store in the early days of the Internet, and they simply couldn’t take the item back.

Today, many people think the same way when it comes to a website and a mobile website. They are two separate units – build one for traditional online users, and have another for mobile technology. Again, that’s the wrong way to think. A prospect is a prospect. Some will want limited information – your phone number for instance. Others will want to pour over your site and spend hours doing so. You don’t know who your visitors are and what they desire. So you should always be giving them the optimal experience, no matter where they access it from. One site; one purpose. [Read more…]

Nobody Looks For A Photographer That Way Anymore

Have you seen the movie 21 Jump Street? We rented it over the weekend and had to laugh at the generational differences facing the police officers as they went back into the high school environment. Channing Tatum’s character kept shaking his head, wondering what kind of parallel universe he entered where the cool kids completely changed the way they act and think. And Jonah Hill’s character was upset because if he had been born 10 years later, he would have been “cool”.

And while there were many hilarious lines throughout the movie, I loved the one where Jonah Hill called and talked to the main girl he was pursuing, asking her to his party. She stared at the phone ringing, answered it kind of awkwardly, and told him “nobody calls me except old relatives once in awhile – we text”.

Yep, that’s right here in the US. Things have changed fast over the past few years. And they will continue to change just as fast here and around the world in the coming few years.

If you head over to different parts of China, they use smart technology even more than we do.

If you head to other parts of the world, they may be lagging behind. We noticed more smart phones and similar mobile behavior when we were in Spain, yet in Italy, most people were still using standard cell phones for talking only – no smart technology yet.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming. We had a lively discussion with our cousins when we were in Lucca, Italy one night. It’s a generational thing. The 70-somethings and the 40-somethings were amazed at the smartphone concept and what we were currently doing here in the US. The teenagers pretty much knew it even though they didn’t have the technology in their hands. They’ve been online and have a friend or two with enough knowledge that they understood it – and had it on their “gift” lists from mom and dad.

So even though certain places and people may not be using technology at lightening speed now, they will. Very quickly.

It’s easy to stay with old technology – an old website – because your clientele is older and isn’t accessing things through mobile technology. It’s easy to tell yourself that. But it simply may not be true. [Read more…]

Following Trends and Using Instagram

Certain apps gain more power than others. And that is the case with the less than one year old Instagram.

Instagram is a popular iPhone app that is taking mobile photo sharing to new heights. Instagram now has more than 5 million users, which have posted collectively around 100 million photos.

What makes Instagram successful is the features this one tool has. With your iPhone, you can snap a photo, or take an existing photo from your phone’s gallery, enhance it with eleven different possible effects, and then share it on the various social networks. Instagram itself has its own social networking aspects, and has turned somewhat into a phenomenon in the photography world.

While other apps tout integration with other social networking tools, none have been able to make the seamless transition the way that Instagram has. And that is what is attracting the attention of consumers, businesses, and even non-profits ready to find new ways to tell people about what they do. And whole new niches are starting up.

Mashable recently posted a story on the booming trend of fashion, or street photographers using Instagram to create a whole new interest in what they do. Some have never worked with street photography before, and now have followers into the tens of thousands. Not bad for a few months work.

And while Instagram is a simple app that keeps things clean and simple, because of its success other apps are being developed to give more power to the Instagram app.

Carousel

Carousel gives you the ability to view your images, double click photos to enlarge and save to iPhoto, and has a variety of keyboard shortcuts to give you even more options.

Instagallery

Allows you to see the most popular photos of people you follow in gallery format, and allows you to share your photos in a number of ways.

Extragram

Extragram gives you an easy way to view your favorite Instagram photos on the web. View them in three different styles: grid, filmstrip or map view.

Statigram

Statigram provides you with metrics – find out who the most engaged followers are, filter and tag usage, like and post comments, and more.

And like many other apps out there today, its only available in iPhone or iPod running  iOS 3.1.2 and above. Androids will have to sit this one out for now.

Are you using Instagram?