In these days of social media, photographers have a whole new way to showcase their talents. Now, you can use Facebook, Wordpress and professional profile sites like LinkedIn and Pinterest to share your photos with the public in ways that weren’t possible before. It provides a unique opportunity in order to reach out to various segments of the community in easily managed platforms.
Facebook allows you to
connect with people and load up your sites with images that can catch someone’s
eye as they scroll through their news feeds. Blogs such as Blogger and Wordpress provide the opportunity to
share photos and share larger blocks of textual information that can often be
overlooked on Facebook. A profile such as LinkedIn can give you a professional
edge allowing you to advertise your resume and give links out to your other
social media connections. Each type of social media reaches different segments
of the population and allows you to hone in your time and effort to reach the
greatest amount of people that might use your services.
However, just having
social media sites isn’t enough. No matter how creative, unique and spectacular
your photos might be, if no one sees them then how are you going to get anyone's attention? So, you can post as many photos as you like, keep your blog
updated on a weekly basis with interesting shots or insightful information, but
if no one is looking then you are wasting your time. To be successful in the
social media world, you have to make sure you are visible on search engines
such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. The best way to make yourself searchable is by
having key words that can bring your sites to the forefront and give all those
viewing eyes a reason to come see what you have to offer. If you are a
photographer that does weddings, you need to be sure to have plenty of content
on your sites that come up when anyone searches for "wedding photographers". The
more key words you have connected to your site the better traffic you can
generate.
While being on the
searches are important, it is also important to make sure that you have updated content on a regular basis to keep people coming back. It is necessary to show
off your work, but just posting tons of random shots without some specific direction won’t get you anywhere. Twitter is perfect for this since you can Tweet then re-Tweet new Blog and Portfolio updates.
Be sure to include something more than just
pages of photos such as photography tips, perhaps host contests to
encourage others to join in with their own shots and above all provide creative
and unique photos that only you can bring to the populace to bring in the
customers. It is all well and good to get someone to come to your Facebook page
or blog once, but by keeping content fresh and updated and having ways for the
public to interact with your site can keep them coming back for more. The more
often they come to your site the better the chance that you will receive
business from them.
