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Last spring I visited Ft. Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge in north central Nebraska. It is home to a group of American Buffalo that roam about the large expanse of land. This is a spring calf who stopped to watch me as I photographed him. Curious, but under the watchful eye of his father.
Technical Details:
Canon 50D, 300 f/4l + 1.4tc, f/7.1, 1/1600 sec.
Ft. Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, Nebraska
Journey of Light was featured as the website of the week on the Omaha Morning Blend show! Be sure to check out the video. I must mention, for full disclosure, the producer is my sister-in-law.
An American Buffalo that decided to meander (thankfully) toward me. He lost interest quickly and turned away.
Technical Details:
Canon 50D, 300 f/4l, f/6.3, 1/160 sec.
Badlands National Park, South Dakota
While I am all for all types of marketing, the advent of social media has brought about many an issue, not the least of which are privacy concerns and copyright infringement issues. Facebook, while becoming ubiquitous over the last 6 years is also referenced daily in news stories regarding these issues and more. For those that haven’t read my post, ”The Evil Ones Who Lurk in the Dark Destroying the Bytes“, I recommend taking a glance at it to better understand my background with digital theft and privacy. This experience has led me to carefully study each new technology and fad as it emerges and to formulate the best strategy in navigating the rocky paths that lead to success while avoiding falling into the plethora of digital issues. Today I officially launch my Facebook presence. I know I’m a little behind the mass populous of this, but below are some of the issues that kept me from creating my page sooner and how I structured my information accordingly:
Facebook’s Terms Implied an Ownership of All Uploaded Material
Obviously, for a photographer, why would I give all my material to Facebook? Not my cup of tea. They have since “clarified” this piece. To handle this issue, I keep all my photos posted small in file size and with a copyright, similar to my website.
Facebook Doesn’t Care About Photographic Privacy (Specifically Minors)
It has been reported that Facebook has been caught utilizing uploaded photographs of minors for advertising purposes. In the state of California it’s a big no-no to use an image of a minor without parental permission. As a parent, I can understand why. Facebook implies that when you upload a photograph you are by it’s EULA giving consent and it’s up to the parent to control the content. No so easy when it could be a relative or friend uploading a photograph which they took, not the parent. Regardless, it continues to show the issues with privacy in regards to photography that plague the online service.
So why are photographers jumping onto the Facebook train by the droves? Exposure, exposure, exposure (pun intended). It’s easy and it’s fast. It’s full effectiveness, however, varies from person to person and for several remains to be seen. Guy Tal, photographer of the American Southwest, mentions in his post, “Social Networking Checkpoint: So Far- No Better Mousetrap” that traditional marketing seems to work the most effectively for him. Indeed, while social networking has definitely produced some results, I find good old traditional snail mail, phone, and direct email works the best for finding new business.
In the world of maintainingrelationships, however, I think is social networking’s greatest ability. In the past, relationships were maintained through occasional phone, mailers, or newsletter contact. If a past client is busy, phone calls maybe too intrusive. Mailers may go right into the trash – money wasted. Newsletters (especially email), probably the best form of recurring marketing prior to social networking (and may still be, mind you) could reach someone on a consistent basis with somewhat valuable information.
Social networking is like an ongoing newsletter, however, with greater occurrences. It’s the “I’m still here!” that isn’t annoying and if it gets annoying, the client can pick and choose what to read. In social networking many experts tell us that a good blog is the cornerstone. All the best information, ideas, and text needs to be blogged in order to gain readers. It’s the “newsletter” of the early 21st century. With every article, search engines gain a little better understanding of the purpose of your site (hopefully, if your blogging the right stuff), maintaining the older relationships and maybe bringing in some new. All the other networking items need build off this implementation.
Based upon that assumption, my blog being my information desk, I levied Twitterto simply retweet my blog posts automatically. While I am not fully immersing myself into Twitter, those who choose that method of delivery are more than welcome to receive the information in that manner and for those who wish to share the information with that vehicle, I have now made it easier.
My Facebook implementation is fairly similar. Within the past month I setup a personal profile on Facebook (I didn’t have one before) in order to have the ability to create my page. I went into my security settings and eliminated as much public presence from my personal profile as possible. From there, I created my fully public page. I added a gallery of fall photos – not too many, but enough to give visitors an idea of what I do (with a copyright attached and at a smaller size). After that, I setup links driving traffic back to my main website and sent my page to some friends I had on Facebook to “fan” me. From there I chose to setup the same strategy as Twitter, I looked for a program to automatically place my blog postings on my “wall”. I didn’t want the full post, just an excerpt and a small (really small) photo to accompany. After some research, I settled on RSS Graffiti and implemented it. Now my posts are sent to Facebook automatically an hour after they reach my blog (Hey, my main blog readers are my main audience and should get first read!).
That’s it. I’m automatically adding content to Facebook so that those who wish to follow me there can! In the future I may offer some Facebook-only offers, but I wanted to primarily give my Facebook fans the information they want without leaving their cozy profiles. So “Fan me” if that’s your thing, otherwise, continue to get my information through my blog/Twitter/email! The list only keeps growing!
In another role, I’ve had the opportunity to attend some good traditional marketing seminars. I think the biggest thing I took away from all the plans, ideas, strategies, etc. is one simple tenant:
Did they qualify what to spend that time on? No. Did they say if it was traditional vs. social vs. online? No. 10 minutes. The rest is up to you.
It’s simple and surprisingly effective. When I made the decision to really begin marketing my photography, I decided to follow this advice. At the time, I had a webpage. Not a lot of content changing there, but it was a start. I started my blog. As I forced myself into 10 minutes, my blog posts increased and so did my traffic.
Good, but it could be better.
I traded links with other photographers. I emailed people that I thought might benefit from my photography. I sent letters (yes, snail mail!) to publishers. I got a twitter account. I guest blogged. All these things increased my page views.
On days that I follow this simple rule I notice a steady increase in interest/hits/sales/etc. The hardest part for me is deciding how to use my 10 minutes. There is so many different avenues one can take to market and the landscape is only growing. I’m careful about how and with whom my name and brand is attached.
So what is next for me? Facebook. Before now, I resisted setting a page mainly due to time. My 10 minutes on some days added up to hours of work and I wanted to maintain a level of quality on what I was doing. Additionally, I didn’t want the time I spent on marketing to overtake my photography goals, but sometimes the marketing goals must come first to finance one’s photography goals.
Tomorrow I plan on discussing my Facebook implementation.
Technical Details:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/5 @ 300 mm, 1/500
DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, Nebraska Side