This is the second part of a three-part mini-series on the subject of online marketing for the professional photographer, with 9 internet marketing tips to help the photographer’s web site perform better through improved SEO.
Part 1 outlined these first 3 tips:
- Golden Rule #1 – Avoid Flash-Based Websites
- Less Photographs And More Marketing Copy
- Focusing On The Long Tail Of Search Engine Optimization
Internet marketing for the photographer can be a huge challenge for many
In this post, we’ll look at three more areas where you can focus the efforts of your SEO strategy…
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internet marketing, online marketing, photography business, photography marketing, SEO, social media
When was the last time you used the actual phone book as your first stop to find a business or local service? Probably a while ago, I’m sure. In the new age of internet marketing, Google has now replaced the telephone book as the first place to go for information on where to do business.
Marketing concepts such as “search engine optimization (SEO)“, “online marketing“, “internet marketing“, and “social media marketing” can overwhelm the unsuspecting professional photographer who is trying to build their photography business, but help is at hand!
With the right approach, appropriate technology, and ethical SEO services, professional photographers can overcome many of the challenges associated with marketing their photography business online, and they can achieve the results they’re looking for.
Internet marketing, SEO and online marketing are growing more complex every day
It just takes a little work, and an organized SEO plan.
This is part 1 of three short articles to give you 9 easy tips to help you get started…
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internet marketing, online marketing, photography business, photography marketing, SEO, social media
As I was preparing to sit down and write for the blog this morning, I noticed that there are a lot of articles on here about using Facebook and blogs for social media marketing, but one thing I haven’t really talked about very much is the LinkedIn social network.
This is obviously a big oversight, which needs to be corrected, especially as I make quite heavy use of LinkedIn myself!
This is the first in a planned series of posts about LinkedIn, and I thought it would be appropriate to start out by looking at some of the myths (and excuses) that prevent some photographers from using LinkedIn as a leading part of their marketing strategy.
I’m also working on a lengthy PDF book, just for Zenologue Insiders, on how to get the best from your LinkedIn experience, with more in-depth treatment and some lesser-known tips and tricks, so stay tuned for that.
Why Is LinkedIn Not As Popular As Facebook?
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LinkedIn, photography business, photography marketing, social media
Not so long ago the word “engaged” either meant there was something special for us to celebrate, or the telephone we were trying to reach was busy. Now, it also means something else entirely, certainly in social media circles.
But What Does Engagement Mean?
It seems like we need a new buzzword every week these days, and this one has been the star of the show for quite some time now – banded about to indicate that the person using it knows all about social media. Of course, some of those people (such as Brian Solis, and his appropriately-titled book “Engage!”) really do know what they’re talking about, but what about the rest of us? What does “engagement” really mean? Is it real, or just another buzzword?
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social engagement, social media, social media marketing
Twitter is probably the least understood of the major social media channels, with many people signing up, playing with it for a while, and then abandoning their accounts because they don’t “get it” or they don’t see any real potential in marketing their business.
While it’s true (for most professional photographers) that our clients are generally not big Twitter users at the moment, their numbers are steadily growing, so it’s likely that more of them will be tweeting along with the rest of us eventually.
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Photography Website SEO
manage flitter, social media, twitter, twitter strategy
My thought experiment for today is, “What does it mean as a human being to be in business, and where does the human factor fit in with our marketing?” This is an interesting question that stirs up some of the mud at the bottom of our deep-seated preconceptions about business and our place in the world…
“Welcome To The Machine”
Apart from being a great song from the 1975 album, “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd (playing now as I write this, actually), this simple statement embodies the collective notion of “The Corporation” as an entity devoid of what many have historically considered to be the weaker elements of emotion, empathy, compassion, integrity and humility.
This idea of the corporation as a machine was born out of the industrial revolution and the great factories it spawned, each operated by masses of expendable people. The human element was mostly eliminated or repressed at every level, from the machines on the factory floor on up to the financially driven masterminds sitting on the board…
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Personal Zen
authenticity, business and marketing, motivation, social media
LinkedIn is one of the “Big Three” social networking sites, alongside Facebook and Twitter, and aims itself squarely at the business and professional world. For photographers whose target market includes those with a higher than average income, LinkedIn is a great place to be.
The most recent statistic I saw suggested that the average income of users on LinkedIn is $109,000 per year, making it a great network to be a part of.
Not Just For Job Seekers
If you’re under the impression that LinkedIn is just a place for people seeking jobs, then you need to think again. LinkedIn is actually a great potential source of referrals and leads, as long as we know how to create the best impression. The place we need to start with is our profile, and to make sure we set it up in the most appropriate way.
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LinkedIn, photography business, social media
Yesterday, I posted the first part of this article on marketing (Photography Marketing Is Not Dead Yet), with the premise that many photographers are apparently still stuck in the old mode of thinking when it comes to the subject of marketing; the old methods are far less effective now than they used to be, and it’s time for a change…
Welcome To The [Social] Machine
The dawn of the social web is here; actually, it’s been here a while now and it’s already mid-morning, but there’s still time to hop on board before lunchtime.
The long and the short of it is that consumers no longer want to be marketed to – they’re fed up with being assaulted at every turn with commercials, advertisements, pop-ups and junk mail. I’m sure, as consumers ourselves, we can totally understand this position. Instead, our customers want to become part of the marketing and, through the socialization of the web, they’re able to do just that by trusted peer-to-peer recommendations.
Times have changed rapidly over the last few years – interruptive marketing methods are no longer effective, and we have to make the switch to permission-based, collaborative methods that revolve around the nucleus of the social sphere in which we now operate.
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facebook, LinkedIn, marketing strategy, photography marketing, social media, twitter
Do you know what your clients and prospects are saying about you? How about your competitors? Are you aware of how your brand is perceived outside your studio walls?
Your photography business is a brand, whether or not you’ve consciously decided to brand yourself. In fact, as photographers, most of us are our own brand. Branding as we used to know it used to be something that larger corporations would engage in, and was mostly fuelled by advertising – TV, radio, newspapers, magazines etc. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Calvin Klein, Levi and the rest were all major players in their respective industries, with their branding determined mostly by their powerful advertising.
Not any more.
The onslaught of social media has changed all that forever. Interruptive advertising (radio, TV, newspapers and magazines) has declined sharply in both reach and effectiveness, replaced instead by a more permission-based form of marketing through social media and peer-to-peer recommendation. It has become harder for companies to market to us directly, but easier for people to adopt the role of brand evangelists.
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Sales & Marketing
branding, facebook, google alerts, photography marketing, social media, social oomph
SEO For Photographers – The Value Of Inbound Links
Most of you reading this who have a photography web site understand the importance of inbound links when it comes to SEO, and having your own site rank higher in the search engines. The more links we have pointing to us, the better (generally speaking).
I’m sure you also realize that some links are better than others and we’re always looking for “quality links”; that is, links from well-ranked, trusted and respectable sites that are relevant to our own business.
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Do you send out a monthly email newsletter for your photography business? If so, kudos to you, this is another great way to “touch” your clients and prospects each month to keep your photography studio and your brand on their radar.
Perhaps the idea raises thoughts of, “I’d love to, but that’s all I need – more administrative work to keep me away from taking photographs!”
But then again, we need people in front of our cameras, right? In order to get those people where we want them to be, we need to market our services and get their attention. Not only that, we need to keep their attention once we’ve earned it.
If you aren’t sending out a newsletter, there are plenty of reasons why you should. Before I committed to sending one out myself, like many others, I was expecting Facebook, Twitter and my blog to do all the work that a newsletter should do. After all, it’s no big task to write a short blog entry to announce special portrait sessions. Adding a status update to Facebook is easier still and as for Twitter, well anyone can write 140 characters in their sleep, right? Plus, those things are a lot more fun than writing a newsletter – that sounds too much like being a journalist.
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Sales & Marketing
email newsletter, facebook, marketing, newsletter, photography business, social media, twitter
Personally, I have a hard time fully adopting the word “Likers”, preferring instead the original and more pedestrian term “Fans”. Facebook fans, that is.
Photographers are working hard to capture as many fans as they can, perhaps feeling that having more fans (no matter who or where they are) must be a good thing. The same thing plays out on Twitter, too, where the volume of followers is [mistakenly] perceived as more important than the quality.
Anyway, I digress already, the topic of acquiring fans can be the subject of a whole other post…
The question of the moment is “How do we keep the fans we have? Especially the ones we actually want… How do we keep them happy so they won’t leave?”
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