Social Media Networking for Photographers
Unless you’ve been away on an extended expedition to another galaxy, you should be aware of the recent and rapid rise of social media networking – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, MySpace and so on.
Everyone agrees that social media is the latest and greatest way to connect with our niche markets – following the adage “go where your customers are.” In contrast to traditional marketing methods, social networking is a method of directly engaging our market by contributing to the flow of conversation and sharing their lives.
For example, consider trying to market yourself at a cocktail party. How could you go about that? You might cruise the room, handing out brochures to everyone you see. Perhaps you could hang a huge banner on the wall, advertising your services. Or, you could engage your target market in real-time by listening to the conversations and joining in with those that catch your interest or provide the best opportunity to make productive connections. In a social scenario, it’s pretty obvious which of these strategies would be the most effective.
Interruptive marketing methods (I call them that because they interrupt our lives, such as banners, direct mail, TV and radio advertising) are considered less effective in today’s social world, especially in catching the attention of today’s younger clients. I, for one, am becoming less and less tolerant of the amount of TV advertising we have to sit through – to the extent that sometimes it feels like nothing more than commercials held together by fragments of program. It’s not hard to see that some forms of advertising have become an irritation to many people and could actually have a negative impact on our brand or message.
I don’t believe interruptive marketing is dead, far from it; for example, direct mail can still play a role in our marketing campaign, but it should be honed to be more sharply targeted – which means knowing our target market even better than before.
Getting to know our target market better is where social media networking really comes into its own – especially for a visual medium such as photography. Apparently, Facebook is the largest photo sharing web site and, as photographers, we can make direct use of that fact to showcase some of our best work.
But what do we need to watch out for? What pitfalls are there to be avoided? Like many things in life, social media networking has good points and not-so-good ones. Also, like most forms of social interaction, there is a certain amount of etiquette to be considered.
Here are some of things I’ve come across that we need to be aware of:
Socialize
It may seem obvious, but social media networking is about socializing. It’s not about blatant marketing and unsolicited advertising. In the same way that we can’t walk into our favorite Starbucks and immediately start handing out business cards to everyone we see, so we need to take things naturally and slowly in the electronic social world. Take the time to get to know people, join in conversations, answer people’s questions and provide advice here and there.
Too Many Posts = Spam
In some social media networking circles, too many posts can be considered as spam. I’ve seen Facebook block a perfectly good organization simply because they were over-enthusiastic with their posting and messaging. How much is too much can vary from site to site. Just take it easy and take care to learn the rules.
You’ve Got A Friend In Me…
Or do you? One of the first things most people do when they join Twitter is to find as many followers as they can possibly get simply because they think that’s what your’e supposed to do. The same can apply to Facebook, as people race to have as many “friends” as they can accumulate. While it’s nice to have friends, too many can be detrimental. I would rather have a smaller number of good quality connections that I can engage than thousands of faceless people who I will never be able to interact with properly, except through their endless posts promising to tell me how to get more followers.
You’re It…
Facebook has a great way of allowing us to tag people we know in photographs and notes. This is one of the most powerful means of spreading word about our business. Once someone is tagged in a photograph or note, all their friends are able to see that in their news feed, which may then encourage them to view your page and become a fan or friend.
Be Professional
If you’re using social media networking as a means to network for your business then I think it’s important to remain as professional as possible in all your posts and messages. This may sound as though I’m stating the obvious, however I’ve seen so many examples of other photographers using profanity, derogatory language or becoming too political. One of Facebook’s downsides (for me at least) is the preponderance of pointless applications that pop up everywhere. Fortunately, there are ways to ignore them, but what kind of professional message do applications like “mafia wars” and the like portray about your image? There’s nothing wrong with displaying some of your own personality (in fact that’s a positive thing), but I do think of it like this: everything that I post on Facebook or Twitter either enhances or dilutes my brand.
Complete The Puzzle
By this I mean make sure that as many of your social media networking profiles and pages are linked together to complete a bigger picture of you. Many sites allow you to create a badge or even a mini-feed and place it in blogs or on other sites. Take advantage of that to leverage the power of social media networking even more. You can link your blog to Facebook & Twitter, have links to your blog from LinkedIn, Plaxo, MySpace etc. You get the idea – link them all up. Also, take advantage of the ability of some sites to read blog feeds and display them in your profile.
Copyright
If you are posting photographs on social media sites (and I recommend you do) then it’s a good idea to include a good-sized copyright notice, logo or your studio name on the images. This not only helps to prevent misuse it also helps your studio and brand recognition. Again, it seems obvious, but so many photographers neglect this point.
Conclusion
Social media networking may still be a relative youngster, but there is little doubt that it will continue to grow as a major force in the world of marketing. It will be interesting to see how it develops over time and what new ways will be developed for people to interact and share their lives. One thing is certain – people are already becoming immune to traditional advertising. They now look more and more to the experiences of their peers, through reviews and/or blogs, as well as to the social innovations of businesses in order to drive them to buy and engage in new products or services.
As always, I welcome any and all comments for discussion. Thanks for reading.
By the way, you can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/merrickphoto or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Oakland-TN/Merrick-Photography/42024223644
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