12 Ways To Use YouTube To Market Your Photography Business

You’re a photographer. You should market your business with your photographs.

But what about video? YouTube is now one of the top sites online.

With those kinds of statistics, it’s hard for any business owner to ignore YouTube.

And while the most viral videos online are the silly, amazing or downright unbelievable, you don’t have to go viral to have success. What would a few hundred hits translate into your business? Possibly a client or two.

If you haven’t created your own channel yet, head over and do so. Its free and easy to do – take a look at my recent post 10 of the Best YouTube Channels For Photographers to get some ideas on how to set up a good looking channel.

Then start posting. Not sure what to create a video of? Here are some ideas to get you going.

1. Showcase your skills. Have your assistant video a few minutes of posing from a portrait, wedding or commercial shoot. Showcase your talents, and show off the finished image.

2. Share a slide presentation. You can incorporate a series of images into a dynamic presentation perfect for sharing on YouTube. [Read more…]

Social Media – Your Best Friend or Your Worst Enemy?

As a photographer, you look for inexpensive ways to market your business. You use a free blog with Blogger, and free networking with Twitter and Facebook.

You start building your network, and building relationships in a variety of ways. Its fairly easy to gain friends into the thousands, and build a nice little business for yourself.

But what if it all disappears in the blink of an eye?

Chances are you’ve heard some of the horror stories surfacing right now. Like the Tucson photographer that had his reputation destroyed in the social realm due to his $125,000 lawsuit against a newspaper for using one of his photos of the 9 year old shooting victim.

His jury wasn’t in the court systems. His jury was online. And in a matter of days, the photographer learned just how effective social networking can be.

I’ve seen the arguments on both sides.

  • You can say the photographer did everything right – it was a case of traditional media using his image without right, and they should pay the price.
  • You can also look at it through the eyes of the situation – the family was simply sharing a favorite photograph in an extremely difficult situation.

Both sides are true, and can be argued. But that doesn’t change the situation. The photographer in this case wasn’t tried in the courts – he was tried with social media, and lost.

This wasn’t the first photographer to be affected by social, nor will he be the last. And in some ways you simply can’t predict what will happen. You take a stance, and the rest is fate.

But the key that is beginning to surface now is that social is here to stay, and it has an impact on everything we do. Decisions are made quickly, and you have to live with the consequences. You can’t ignore it – it will happen with or without you.

Can a photographer recover after a moment like this? Of course, but only time will tell in this case.

Even in a situation like this, you can’t shun away from it. Embrace social. Tell your side of the story. And wait for time to cool things down. Reevaluate. And make a decision on your next move.

Life is always about risk and learning. All you can do is move forward.

What Great Networking Means In Today’s World

This post is Day 27 of 30 Ways In 30 Days To Redesign Your Life With Photography. This series seeks to provide you with practical steps to get you from wherever you are today, to exactly where you want to be – this year! If your goal has always been to take your photography to a whole new level, hang on and start enjoying a new lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of.

When I say the word “networking” what do you think of? Everyone has a slightly different slant to the connotation of the word.

You may have thought about a particular group you go to regularly, and how you interact with people that are more then business owners – they’ve become friends.

You may have thought of the word fear – you hate walking into a group of unknowns, and be expected to walk up and start a conversation.

You may have thought about online networking – yep, Facebook and Twitter, wondering how you can gain more leverage by using social networking sites.

Whatever your idea of networking is, it ultimately impacts how successful your business will be.

Is It Networking or Notworking?

I worked with a mentor a number of years ago who helped me grow my business. He had an interesting view of networking. He felt that most people weren’t networkers; they were notworkers.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, networking means: the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business. The key emphasis should be placed on the word “productive”. [Read more…]

Using WordPress For Your Photography Site

Still using a traditionally designed website? You are missing out on one of today’s top tools to help you gain traction online. A few years ago we started designing all of our sites using WordPress, and today they are completely integrated into our online business. With the tools and plugins available, there really isn’t a reason to use anything else. Here are some of the top tools we use every day, and highly recommend to anyone getting started with WordPress.org

A Site Of Your Own

People ask all the time why they can’t stick with Blogger or WordPress.com as a free alternative to a site. My answer: You get what you pay for. Free sites offer very little details or customization. You only have access to a small amount of storage space – which means very few photographs. And do you really want to risk having your site shut down because they have ultimate control, not you? (I hear stories all the time of large sites being shut down, and you have very little recourse. It’s free after all, and they really don’t provide a lot of customer service for free.) Get your own domain name – you can do so for around $10 per year. Get your own cpanel hosting and use Fantastico to quickly install WordPress is 3 steps, or download WordPress, and load up your own theme. With thousands out there, there is something for everyone. And you can customize along the way.

Themes

WordPress is the platform that makes it easy to add content. And in order to customize your look and feel, and create a brandable site online, you’ll need a theme. With thousands available, you’ll find one that’s perfect for you. Then customize it to your hearts desire.

[Read more…]

Facebook – The New Idea Generator

Are you a part of our Facebook Page? Yesterday we hit 5,000 fans, so it was a big day for us here. We’ve only been working on increasing our fans for the past month, and now that we’ve reached our goal of 5,000, its time for a new goal. 10,000 here we come.

When you make a conscious effort on using something to help build your business, you quickly see it sprout into life. You look for ways to use it better, help more clients, reach out to more customers, and in general provide more information.

That’s what we’ve found as we made a conscious effort to use Facebook as a part of our marketing. Because we focus on using it every day, we’re also on the lookout for ways to use it better.

Facebook reaches out far beyond the typical marketing tool because you can do so many things with it. Sure, you can tell and show people what you do. But you can ask questions, listen to what people are talking about, and come up with some phenomenal ideas. [Read more…]

Is It Social Networking, Or Is It Publicity?

Look up the word publicity and you’ll find:

Information that concerns a person, group, event, or product and that is disseminated through various media to attract public notice.

As a small business owner, you may not think of your business as newsworthy – could you really get an article front page of the New York Times? Yet there is so much more you can do to attract attention.

Publicity is about expanding your marketability beyond what you can do for yourself. It’s about getting others to talk about you, or to showcase what you are doing to a new audience. It doesn’t have to be millions of people, as would be the case with the New York Times. It could be a few thousand people with an influential blog in your community.

When people think “publicity”, they tend to think of traditional media sources: newspapers, television and radio. But with today’s wide array of tools, it can be so much more: [Read more…]

How To Use Facebook To Promote Your Photography Business

Let me ask you a question. Are you using Facebook for your business?

If you are like most people I speak with, you would answer like this:

“I have a profile and I have around 50 friends, mostly personal friends.”

or

“I’ve set up a page for my business, but I really don’t know what to do with it.”

Facebook only starts to work for your business if you commit to using it for business, and work to grow it. Correctly. Because of Facebook’s strong Terms and Policies, making sure you do things the right with is hugely important. The last thing you want is to build up a big following, and be shut down because you aren’t using it correctly.

facebooklogo

First, learn the difference between Facebook’s three tools: Profiles, Pages and Groups.

Facebook Profiles
When you first sign up with Facebook, you’ll start with a profile. Your profile is all about you; not your business, your product, or your service. Your profile is created by using your real first and last name. Then you fill your profile with your personal information. Add as much or as little as you like. But remember your profile is your window to the world. If someone is deciding on whether to do business with you, this helps break the ice and gives the opportunity to find something in common.
[Read more…]

How Much Does Social Impact Your Photography Business?

If you follow me on Twitter, you received this tweet from me today:
twitter

I found a must-read post today entitled: How To: Plan A DIY Wedding Using Social Media. Whether you photograph weddings or not, this will open your eyes to the way people are now using the Internet to do things within their daily lives.
how to plan a DIY wedding using social media

The writer of the post, Josh, is planning his wedding for next July. As a part of the process, he shared all the different tools he and his future bride are using for the planning process.

  • Sites to plan out the color scheme
  • Sites to plan invitations to wedding collateral
  • Blogs to document the entire process
  • Mobile technology to work with iPhones and BlackBerry’s to keep everyone up to date
  • Registry programs
  • Honeymoon planners

The list goes on.

When you take a look through his planning process – and yes he still has 9 months to go – its amazing the resources that are at his finger tips. And how well he can use them.

Think any other newly engaged couples are doing the same thing?

[Read more…]

Go Social with PictureSocial

So you’ve heard all about MySpace and Facebook – and LinkedIn, and Twitter and …

Maybe you’ve tried some of them. But are you staying active with them?

The idea behind joining a social network is to meet people that can ultimately help you achieve whatever it is you have in mind. Want clients for wedding photography? Join places like Facebook and get active with wedding groups.

Want to become a better photographer? How about joining PictureSocial?

picture social

[Read more…]

So You Have A Flickr Account; What Can You Do With It?

Maybe you’ve been adding your photos to Flickr for awhile now, and you’re wondering what else you can do. Check out these Flickr tools – and have fun adding them to your blog, website, or just using it to make your Flickr experience better.

Travelr A tool that allows you to display your Flickr photos geographically on a world map. Perfect for the destination photographer.

Flickr Slideshow Generator Choose your favorite photos, put them into the slideshow generator, and copy the HTML into your blog or on your website.

Big Huge Labs An amazing resource area giving you a ton of things to do with your photographs.

Bubblr Turn your photos into comic strips, and then publish them.

flickr and webimager Allows you to screen capture images and upload them easily to your flickr

PicMarkr Allows you to create a custom watermark and place it on your Flickr images

Want to know what’s the most popular camera on Flickr?

flickr camera popularity

Looks like by a fairly wide margin it’s the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi