Think of Social Media as another publication

If you grew up in the industry shooting and writing for printed newspaper, magazine or even for a website you need to see Social Media as another publication.

Too many editors, journalists and photojournalists are too consumed by the story and not enough about the audience. In most of the traditional places for news media to contribute the way it worked was somewhat of a mystery for the content providers.

Your content was the carrot and advertisers used your content to then get their commerce items in front of this audience. The system was so old that people would go to school and study how to do a part of this process, but for the most part most of the content creators didn’t understand how all this was being paid for.

Great content is useless if audiences don’t know that it exists. Today the audience is actually easier to reach than ever before. You don’t need publishers and large conglomerates to help you to reach them.

Today when you post onto a social media outlet like Instagram you are showing your portfolio. You have gone not to one photo editor but around them to their audience and asking them to respond.

Instead of leaving your business card you leave them a link to your channel. They can then decide to follow you or not. If they don’t then your content isn’t relevant to them. You either move on until you find the audience interested in your content or modify your content to appeal to the audience.

Now even though you are posting say on Instagram or Twitter you are not really in front of your audience until you start using #hastags. #Sports will put you in front of the Twitter #Sports or on Instagram as well. Think of Instagram as more like your cable company and the #hastags as a channel.

Twitter even shows you on your page the trending #hastags

I used to work for a Missionary Agency that had it’s own magazine and used state papers as well for distributing their stories for years. However, their audience stopped looking at their content. Those audiences were for the most part local churches.

My church's Facebook page

Today those local churches have their own Facebook groups, Twitter accounts as well as Instragram accounts. Now if you know their #hashtags you can in essence produce content and drop it right into their publication.

Take a moment and first Google an organization using hashtag like #firstBaptistHendersonville to see if you can uncover their audience. I found that they are using an acronym #fbchnc. Now if I want them to see my content I tweet a sentence with their hastag and then be sure there is a link to where I put the content. Wa-la now I have just published on their pages.

If you have Facebook just search for those organizations and audiences you are interested in joining. See if they will let you join their group. If they let you join then you can post your content in the group. Again, just like a publication as a way to reach that audience. Now as long as your content is useful they will continue to allow you to be apart of their group. If your content isn’t well received they will block you and remove you from their group.

Now if you are creating all that great content like the great journalist or photojournalist that you think you are then you are on the way to becoming a household name.

Now after a while you may not need to go and publish as often on these social media outlets because you have so many “followers” of your own and people are referring people to your content.

You can easily get advertisers at this point.

If you choose to create video content and post on Youtube for example their top content creators earn millions. Check out the article on Forbes about the top earners in 2015 here http://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2015/10/14/the-worlds-highest-paid-youtube-stars-2015/#2715e4857a0b16cdcf7f542c

For those of you who don’t want to do all this and just want to create content, then you need to hook up with someone who is doing this and get them to let you help them create more content. By the way doing this insures you will make a lot less money than if you did it yourself.

Sometimes your competition has an advantage over you

There are some people that are just easy on the eyes and due to this no matter what I do many potential clients will never see me as compared to some of my competition. No amount of plastic surgery will make me Brad Pitt or Adam Levine.

Back in 1993 John Gray wrote a very popular book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. A great quote from the book is “Men are motivated when they feel needed while women are motivated when they feel cherished.”  

Sometimes you are just not the right person just based on your gender. Yes there are people who break this rule for anything you can mention. The point is if someone is looking for a woman because of their comfort level for this particular job and I tried to get the job, well I would have a difficult road ahead to get them to see me as capable of doing the job.

I could go on and on giving many different examples of thing that are just out of your control. What is better use of our time is what can you do that you can control?

How you look

If we all listened to our doctors and took care of ourselves then we would all look healthy. Maybe we need to lose some weight or even gain a few pounds.

Everyone can also control their grooming. The hair style [if you have hair] you choose can make a huge difference in your appearance.

Your wardrobe can speak volumes about you. The one thing I think you need to be aware of if you are in business for yourself especially are you are rarely not being observed. Business attire is worn in many industries and you need to be seen as fitting into those situations if you are managing your appearance.

Just be aware of the unofficial uniform of the industry that you are trying to work with on a regular basis. 

Photographer Dave Black has a casual youthful style about him when he is working.

Social Media footprint

Couple of my friends in photography have really done an excellent job of maximizing their social media channels. Two I think of right away are Esther Havens who has more the 10,800 Twitter followers and 4,774 Facebook friends.

The reason she has so many people following her is Esther has many things going for her, but at the core of all those qualities is she is interesting and people like knowing what she is up to and like being entertained by Esther.

Zack Arias is an Atlanta based photographer who has over 88,500+ Twitter followers.

Zack has another set of qualities that has people following him. One thing that keeps people listening to Zack is he is authentic.

Back in 2009 Zack did a guest blog post on Scott Kelby's blog which I think reveals much of why he is so sought out. People can relate to him and he is pretty transparent as you can see in this post.

Both Zack and Esther are competing against many other great photographers in their disciplines.

One thing is for sure that many clients will reach more people by hiring Esther or Zack if they just tweet about their photo shoot, than if they hire another great shooter who doesn't see the importance of Twitter or Facebook.

Besides the Social Media just get yourself out and connecting with people through networking events and being apart of your community.

Personality

Frankly one of the biggest turn offs with some photographers is their attitude. At the same time that is what is so attractive with another photographer. They are just excited about life and make everyone enjoy their day by just being around them.

Fake it till you make it.  This is a common catchphrase that means if you do this it will produce success and in the process give you the confidence to do even more.

Self fulfilling prophecy is simply what you think is what you will become. If you think you are a failure then you will become one. If you think you are successful then you become successful.

Take Control

1. Take care of your body and health
2. Practice the best of grooming and hygiene
3. Wardrobe—Be very intentional in your clothes you wear
4. Maximize your network—know where your audience lives and works. Use social media or attend networking events 
5. Smile—maintain a positive can do attitude

Facebook now with more stories than ever

Frontera de Cristo shared a link.

November 11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z4QNgR9t7Qo

Check out this 1:30 minute video by Stanley Leary, a professional videographer who participated in our border to border delegation. Thanks Stanley!

Joshua Ediger

www.youtube.com

This video is about Joshua Ediger's comments about Just Coffee

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  Jocabed Gallegos Wow!! I have enjoy this clip! thanks Stanley.

  Like · Reply · November 12 at 11:26am
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  Jozef De Groot That was quick!! Great clip!!

  Like · Reply · November 11 at 6:58pm

I love it when my clients are posting packages I have done for them on their Facebook page like Frontera de Cristo did with one of the videos I did for them

What is just as exciting is seeing the responses. Five people went ahead and shared this on their Facebook pages as well. Within a few hours the video was seen by more than 300 people.  Maybe more if more than one person watched it for each click.

Stories are what people are spreading on their social media.

In Russia is everything possible

zasmejsa.com

In Russia is everything possible

• My feed on Facebook is full of stories everyday. Many are multimedia. I am seeing more storytelling than I have ever seen before in my lifetime.

Some of the stories will have you crying.

If you own a business and you are not creating story content for your Facebook then you are missing an incredible opportunity. 

You won't believe that everything in this video is a still photograph

sploid.gizmodo.com

Here's the closest thing we have to magic. Make Productions turned still photos from the World Wildlife into a short movie that looks more like a documentary about nature. Using parallax shots, they were able 

I am encouraged to see that people really do love good storytelling. People want to be entertained and educated. 

This Awesome Ad, Set to the Beastie Boys, Is How to Get Girls to Become Engineers

slate.com

This is a stupendously awesome commercial from a toy company called GoldieBlox, which has developed a set of interactive books and games to “disrupt the pink aisle and inspire the future generation of female engineers.” The CEO, Debbie Sterling, studied engineering at Stanford, where she was dismaye...

• Here is one that is quite interesting on body image.

2 People Described The Same Person To A Forensic Artist And This Is What Happened

upworthy.com

How he did this will surprise you.

Some of my friends like Alex Garcia are always posting the best stories they are finding like this one here on the recent Tornadoes.

Surviving residents of the Washington IL tornado talk share their experiences. http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-131118-downstate-tornado-victims-stay-positive-video,0,2702436.embeddedvideo

Maybe this is why so many of us are going to Facebook in addition to catching up with friends. Our friends are sharing great content.

Man with awesome dance moves will amaze you (VIDEO)

edisproduction.de

Man with awesome dance moves will amaze you.

I am loving all this, how about you? My friend Kathleen Murray shared this series of photos of dancers in real life situations.  Very cool.

Dancers Doing Real Life Stuff

incrediblethings.com

Photographer Jordan Matter brings us this photoseries called Dancers Among Us. It features ballet dancers posing in real life situations like showering, catching the subway, shopping, working, and ...

Give me a call if you need some help telling stories for you to post on Facebook, Google+, or Instagram. Remember for them to be shared the content has to be entertaining. The best way to do this is hire a professional.

How are you sharing your personal photos?

On Facebook people are tagging their friends and this not only helps those looking at the photos know who everyone is, but when they are tagged they get an email alert letting them know they have a photo of them being shared.

How do you share you personal photos?

We have had a major shift in how we share photos with each other. The changes we have made have improved the experience for our family. Has it done it for you?


Business needs to pay attention

Today people are chronicling their family history in more effective ways than we ever did in the past. A tag links a person, page, or place to something you post, like a status update, photo, or an app activity. For example, you can tag a photo to say who’s in the photo or post a status update and say who you’re with. Tagging people, pages and places in your posts lets others know more about who you’re with, what’s on your mind and where you are.

Tagging a person in a photo is now one of the most powerful ways to make photos more valuable than we have been able to do up to now.

How to tag on flicker
How to tag on FaceBook

Kodak has even introduced cameras that let you do this in the camera. Here is a link to the story on it.

FaceBook Galleries

One good thing about using something like Facebook to share your photos is it forces you to organize them when you upload the photos.  You create folders and with minimal effort you can Geo-Tag photos to let you remember and other know where you were when you took a photo.

If you are using your camera phone to take photos, they will not only capture the image, but they often will help you with Geo-Tagging of a photo. They use the GPS built into the camera to embed this into the photograph.  This is great when you are traveling, but something you may want to turn off when you are taking insurance photos of your jewelry and other items in your home.

Business use: your company can create a business page and share images of your customers and celebrate them. This is a great way for you to build brand loyalty and help serve your Raving Fans.

Downside of Social Media for sharing

There can be a downside to using social media as the way to share your photos. If you use the default settings, then your photos are all downsized and no longer the size you need to make prints or use them later in photo books.  If this is your on-line storage be sure and upload the high resolution photo so you will have it later if you need a print.

Not everyone wants to be tagged in your photos. This can cause some concern and maybe even strain some of your personal friendships. It isn't always about weather the photo is appropriate or not, it is often due to some folks don't like even the best photo of themselves being shared.


On-line storage

If you want to share photos but have more control over who sees the photo and make it easier for them to share, download and/or make prints then you need to look into something like PhotoShelter and Flickr.  On my PhotoShelter account people can even order things like Coffee Cups, T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Key Chains and many other things that have the photos on them.

I can upload the photo only once at high resolution and then choose how a person gets to see and use the photos. I can make it where they can only see the photos and not anything else. I can let them download a low-resolutions photo only. I can choose different resolutions sizes they can download. I can let them order prints. When I set up what prints they can order I can limit this to small prints or only gallery style prints.

If you really want your friends to enjoy your photos in more ways than just on their computer screen, then I recommend using one of these on-line solutions for your photos.

Business use: this is a great way for you to not just store your images for your business, but a great way to share them throughout your business. You can give rights to download high resolution images to your agencies, graphic designers and more. The great thing with this is your support can live anywhere in the world and as long as they have an internet connection they can download the images.

Prints

This is still a great way to share your photos. Giving prints to people after you have photographed them at some gathering is a great way to help them know you care for them.

I know many of my friends love sending thank you cards with a set of prints included in the mailing.

Business use: this is one of the most intimate things we do in our society--sharing photos. Your closest friends are the ones who send you prints and thank you for attending their events.  Businesses help create a family atmosphere by doing this with their customers.

Photo books

One of my favorite ways to share photos is with coffee table books. Prices range from $11 up for a custom one time book.

The good thing with these books is no longer are they just something to order online for the coffee table.  You can now share these as eBooks.  Click here to see how to convert a book to one you can see on your iPad and even sell as an eBook.

You can order my eBook that is my portfolio if you like.  Check it out here.

Go from personal to business

I recommend everyone to start exploring some of these options for sharing your photos with your friends. The more you do this the more you will start to see how you can use these tools to help your business. Start with your friends and get the kinks all worked out and then try some of this with your business.

Photos are one of the best possible ways to connect emotionally with others. Are you connecting?