Photographer are you Liked or Loved

Monetizing a Like on Facebook is more important to a freelance photographer trying to make a living than how many likes you can get.

We need to understand a Like on Facebook is someone walking by a newsstand and noticing a headline. Someone may even pick up that publication and glance through it for a moment, but unless they purchase the magazine the photographer will not benefit.

You need to know what this acronym stands for as a business person. ROI is short for Return On Investment.

This means that all the money and time you put into that story will be recovered so that you can pay your bills and continue to do this as a profession.

As you can see Story and ROI applies to a profitable business but likes will not alone make you money.

Lately more of my friends are facing layoffs from working on staffs as photographers, writers and designers. While we can point to many reasons these organizations are having to downside, I think it is very wise for those losing their jobs to evaluate if their work they performed had an impact on ROI.

It is very difficult to connect communications to a ROI, but shouldn't we as creatives be concerned if after all we have done on a story that the company is still loosing money? Shouldn't we be more concerned that the content we are producing no one is buying?

Whose the Audience?

I believe way too many communications experts are more interested in if their colleagues like their work than if the client and their audience like their work.

I think we need to be very much aware of what the audience wants to consume and at the same time be forward thinking about things we think they need to know about. Have we put too much emphasis on what we think is important over what they think is important?

Are you producing work for industry awards or for the customer?

Personal Project

Now this may seem extremely narcissistic and counter to all my comments above, but we need to spend time producing work from our heart as well. Find something you are passionate about and take your time and really do your very best work to tell the story.

Show the world what you can do when you have no restrictions. You will need to fund this yourself, but when you are done you will finally have something to show people about what is possible. You will show people your style and abilities.

Once you have done this personal project then analyze it to see how this approach can be a great ROI for an audience and client. I think it is easier to figure out the audience first and then find a client that is interested in that audience that could use your approach.

When picking your personal project be sure and think through the hypotheticals. If I produced what I think might work then who is the audience that would WANT this and what client can USE this to justify their ROI?

Liked or Loved?

When people buy what you produced you are LIKED and LOVED