1. Relate to your clients

To be a really successful senior portrait photographer, you’ve got to be able to relate to your clients. If your clients don’t feel comfortable around you then their pictures won’t turn out well. Most of us can easily relate to adults, but may have trouble relating to high school students. “Kids theses days!”

I intentionally begin to build a relationship with my prospective clients at their initial contact. I primarily receive e-mail inquiries. I respond with enthusiasm at the prospect of working with them and interest in their desires and opinions, and I do so in language that is familiar to them. Here’s a sample of a reply e-mail I might send:

2. Ask questions

Sending a questionnaire to seniors allows me to gather essential information about the client for my records as well as ask them questions about their hobbies, interests and style.  The pre-session meeting is also very important. In the last year, 100% of clients who met for a pre-session meeting with me ended up booking their senior pictures with me.  Being upfront with your pricing is also critical because you’ll be wasting your time and theirs if you set up an in-person meeting just to find out that you’re outside of their budget.

3. Learn about your client

At the pre-session meeting, I do the same things. I ask the seniors more questions about themselves, their style and their interests.  I ask what their plans are for next year and some of their goals for the future. All of this helps them relax around me and helps me get to know them. I give them a folder with pricing information, my contract/liability release form, an FAQ page and a couple business cards. I take some small samples of products I offer, including my favorite product, the custom-designed session album.  I offer to buy them a coffee or treat while they look over my sample album.

4. Explain how your sessions work

Next, I explain what a typical session is like and ask if they have any questions for me.  I encourage them to consider bringing a friend or parent with them to the session. I suggest locations based on what I’ve learned about them and we look at our calendars and finalize the booking. I encourage them to call, text, or e-mail me if they think of any questions.

5. Social networking with high school seniors

After the pre-session, I “friend request” them on Facebook and “follow” them on Twitter and Instagram. Sometimes I tweet about how excited I am to work with them. Usually the students “retweet” my tweets (free advertising).  If you’re a high school senior photographer, you’ve got to get in the habit of using Twitter.

6. The photo shoot

During the session, I continue to make them feel as comfortable as possible with small talk. Since I already know their hobbies, I’ll ask more about them. For example, if a student is a soccer player, I’ll ask how her games are going, how their team is doing this year, if she plans to play in college, etc. I try to continue the conversation while shooting to help them be as relaxed and as natural as possible. I’ll suggest poses and make jokes and we usually laugh and have a good time.

7. After the session

After the session, I tell them how much I enjoyed working with them and that I can’t wait to show them their pictures. Within a few days I try to post a “teaser” on Facebook and Instagram to get them excited about their pictures. I text them to tell them that I’ve posted a teaser for them and that I hope they like it. They usually respond with enthusiasm and say they love it and that they can’t wait to see more.

8. In person ordering

When they come back for their viewing and ordering session about two weeks later, I set out snacks and drinks. I have music playing (music I know they like, because I know them pretty well now) and sample products set out.

(Let me pause for a second here and say that I know some people don’t have a studio or a home they can open up to their clients for viewing and ordering. But at the very least, I recommend doing in-person ordering at a coffee shop or even at the client’s home. In person ordering will multiply your sales tremendously – but we’ll talk more about that in another post.)

Once they’ve narrowed down their photos and decided on an order, I let them know that I will deliver the prints when they are ready. In the meantime, I try to do a blog post of their session using their favorite pictures and share it on social media sites so that they can show their friends (I say “try” because sometimes I get really behind on blogging).

9. Delivery

When the prints come in, I text or e-mail them to arrange a time for delivery. After delivery, I write a thank-you note and try to mail it within a couple of days along with some kind of gift card. Sometimes I try get a gift card that I know they will like based on their interests, but if I can’t think of anything Starbucks is my default.

10. Relate to your customers to stand out

Relating to clients and giving them a memorable experience is key in order to offer a premium service and to stand out above your competition. The most important thing to remember is that high school students are very social and most of them interact using social media and technology daily. In general, they prefer text messages and e-mails to phone calls.  Get to know each client and be willing to be flexible on how you interact and communicate based on their needs and preferences.

The above information is just an example of things that I do. I encourage you to come up with your own ideas on how to better relate to your clients. If you have any suggestions that I didn’t mention, feel free to talk about those in the comments section!

Up next: Specializing within the Senior Market

All images in this post were edited using MCP Enlighten Presets for Lightroom 4

About the Author: Ann Bennett is the owner of Ann Bennett Photography in Tulsa, OK. She specializes in high school senior pictures and lifestyle family photography. For more information about Ann, visit her website or Facebook page.

The post 10 Tips to Successful Senior Photography: Relating to High School Seniors appeared first on MCP Photography Blog.

Initially, the problem you’ll run into is that in order to reach them, you have to find them. This will be the most difficult part of breaking into the market, but once you’ve climbed this mountain, it gets much easier.  As long as you create quality images and a memorable experience, your clients will practically take care of marketing for you.

It’s important that you do not expect any income directly from these sessions. I would explain to the student that I was trying to break into the senior market and that I would like to offer them a completely free senior session because I’m trying to get my name out there. Be upfront and honest, they’ll respect that and most students will be more than happy to have free photos taken. All I expected from them was a signed model release so that I could use their pictures for marketing and permission to post and tag them in the photos on Facebook.

Up next: Successful Senior Photography: Relating to Seniors

All images in this post were edited with MCP Four Seasons Summer Solstice actions.

About the Author: Ann Bennett is the owner of Ann Bennett Photography in Tulsa, OK. She specializes in high school senior pictures and lifestyle family photography. For more information about Ann, visit her website www.annbennettphoto.com or Facebook page www.facebook.com/annbennettphotography.

 

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9 Ways to Generate Great Content For Your Studio on Facebook

In the last post I wrote for MCP Actions entitled “9 Reasons Your Studio Is FAILING at Facebook” I commented at the end that after ranting about what is boring on Facebook maybe my next post will be about what is interesting.  So here I am, back with the much-anticipated follow up.

How to do Facebook right:

Let’s focus on some of the things you can do to provide value for the people who like your page, because that’s what it’s all about.  If you provide value people will appreciate it.  They’ll make a point of coming back, they’ll enjoy interacting with you and they’ll even share your content which expands your reach and your word of mouth.  Some folks will even mine your content to share as content for their own following, whether it’s with their clients or just their friends.  So let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a Facebook end user instead of a Facebook advertiser and have some fun.  Give your brand the effect of anticipation and smiles when people see it pop up in their news feeds – a good feeling about you and your studio instead of “yawn – next” or worse yet “ugh – hide”.

Here are 9 ideas (in no particular order) along with some tips for how to consistently generate good content for your studio page on Facebook:

1. Consider using Instagram (or really just your smartphone) as inspiration.  Not every image you post has to be an exquisite shining example of your best work.  Sometimes it’s fun to turn the camera on you or something fun that happens spontaneously at the studio or on location and snap a quick pic with your smartphone that you can upload and post in real time or the next moment you get back in front of your computer.  We use Instagram almost exclusively for behind the scenes fun photos snapped with our smartphone as opposed to our finished images.  The fun behind the scenes stuff shows off the personality of your studio, your culture, your sense of humor, your uniqueness – it’s fun!  Once in a while I’ll post an Instagram and think to myself “this is too good to not let our Facebook fans in on it” and I’ll post the same image on Facebook with a different caption.  Here’s an example that got a decent reach of 249 with 30 likes and several comments:

2. Consider just some comments as updates – ones that are interesting with no links, photos, and even with no questions.  Uh oh – Doug just violated the rules.  The official social media 101 handbook says ask a question so people will be forced to answer and that equals skyrocketing engagement.  Okay well not quite but that’s the obvious tip that has been tossed around since social media experts started self styling themselves as experts.  I think the more practical version of this is to post something that people will find fun to participate with.  Hopefully if you’re a photographer of people then you have some personality – let it come through in your posts! Don’t only say what you think you’re supposed to say.  Use your judgement obviously and don’t be inappropriate, but interact with your peeps the way they’ve come to expect.  As of this writing it seems that the latest Facebook tweak gives a little more weight to text-only updates, whereas posts with attachments used to be given more of a push automatically through the Facebooksphere (I made that word up).

Here are three examples:

a) Topical comment (note – NOT politics) – a recent Powerball got so huge it was dominating the news and everyone was talking about it so I posted:

b) Funny photography “tip”

c) Just a short simple comment and for no good reason other than you feel like saying it.  I don’t usually do this as I’m NOT a fan of posting a bunch of inspirational quotes or memes (even worse) but I was really just feeling this at the moment and it is consistent with our message.

3. Scour blogs, online magazines, twitter and any online resources you trust where you can find something incredible to share.  Don’t put the entire burden on yourself to create new content from scratch every single day.  There are a lot of wonderful things going on on the Internet that your audience will enjoy.  Pay attention to your audience and become a resource of everything cool that’s going on on the web as it relates to your studio and your followers.  If wedding photography is your core business then find awesome wedding stories or photo ideas.  Show your expertise and become the best resource around.  Value, value, value!  Be valuable!

4. Provide great content on your blog and drive people there from Facebook.  Seems counter-intuitive to define good content on Facebook as the type that happens off of Facebook, but if the content you are linking to on other sites is your own and it’s good then it just elevates your profile as someone who has something to say.  Personally I still love the good ol’ post sneak peeks of clients and tag them. However we no longer post all the peeks on Facebook.  We post one sneak peek as a teaser to direct them to a few more at the blog where we tell a little story about the session putting the focus on our clients.  Note (stay with me here): sometimes when you just put a link on facebook to your blog post about a random topic it doesn’t get a lot of reach – that’s okay in my opinion.  The strategy is when we post sneak peeks we don’t do it in the form of a link, but rather a photo with a link to the corresponding blog post in a comment and these do get reach because we switch our Facebook identity to our personal self, go back to the photo and tag the client (with their permission of course).  This definitely drives traffic to the blog and often people will discover the other content there while they’re at the blog.  Got that?  This goes back to the point on my previous post about not having all of your eggs in one basket.  We’ve put a lot more focus on our blog in the last year or so as well as some of the other social media platforms.  I’ll expand on ideas for your blog in another post but for now as a tease consider a post about your city or community like our Dear Detroit, You Are Awesome. Love, Frameable Faces

5. Try a themed status you can repeat from time to time.  We do a “complete this sentence” series of who or what our followers would want to photograph if they could.  Come up with something you can return to – keep track of them on a little spreadsheet so you don’t repeat yourself.  Maybe a photo scavenger hunt in your community or bloopers/outtakes (hey I like that one – may have to start that myself…)

6. Highlight one of your partners or neighboring local businesses.  We are in a small boutique type of mall with mostly independent retailers so in the spirit of supporting the mall and our neighbors we highlight them from time to time, but you don’t have to be in a mall or even in a retail studio space to put the spotlight on your local partners in your community.  If one of them posts an event they are hosting as their status maybe share it as your status.

7. Go totally off topic simply because your gut tells you it would appeal to your peeps.  Be careful about doing this too much – you don’t want to completely dilute what your studio is about.  But I recently hit a home run with this one – I just knew our fellow 40 somethings would get a kick out of it:

8. Okay… yes….  fine….  “promote” yourself, your studio, a product or whatever you are still itching to promote.  Are you happy now?  I do this once in a great while – and I usually have a great battle in my head over it if I do.  In fact I actually paid to sponsor a post about photo restoration because we wouldn’t mind doing a little more of it.  But (and this is a big but) I did it around what I thought was a very compelling story – it was content I was proud of.  Here is the facebook post, the blog post, and as a special bonus (if you act now) here is a blog post I did about when to pay to promote a facebook status using this one as a case study…  So as you see it wasn’t a salesy post after all.  Okay – there was one other where I mentioned boudoir just this January 3rd reminding people that Valentine’s day was coming (I get a shiver admitting it).  But that was IT and I withheld dessert from myself that night as punishment.  Just don’t make it a habit and maybe just maybe it will have a bit of impact when you do since you aren’t bombarding folks with sales pitches.  The boudoir status had a reach of 405 with 23 engaged so it actually got some response.

9. Stay the course, be patient, and don’t get discouraged.  So this one is really just general advice but it’s important to your success on Facebook and social media in general.  It takes time to find your voice, identify your trusted and reliable resources, and build your following.  Trust me every now and then I post something that goes over like a lead balloon and no one comments on it or likes it.  It happens.  But I force myself to keep plugging and stay the course.  I think it’s really important to resist what seem to be shortcuts like over posting, running contests to get people to like your page who might not otherwise care about your page etc.  In the words of one of my favorite social media gurus Scott Stratten just be awesome and eventually you’ll enjoy some success.

Remember these are 9 out of 9000 and every studio is different!  Facebook is a blank canvas with tools for you to use – let your creativity fly and feel free to add to this list!

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9 Reasons Your Studio Is FAILING at Facebook

This opinion piece written by Doug Cohen of Frameable Faces Photography is a no-holds-barred-rant meant to motivate you to change the way you Facebook.

Much of my social media material comes from my own experiences running our campaigns.  I handle all of the social media community management, monitoring, and content creation for our studio.  I spend much (most) of my time doing this.  There is a lot of trial and error, I make my mistakes and I learn from them.  I also learn from a handful of “gurus” whom I’ve grown to trust over the last couple of years, and I also follow many studios on facebook who are clearly floundering.

I hear the frustration of many on some of the forums I’m on.  I feel the pain of those who are stuck and don’t have a good grasp of facebook.  On top of that facebook made a few changes which has many throwing in the towel.  Sure it can be frustrating, but the time has come to suck it up and I feel some tough love is in order.

Here are 9 reasons your studio is failing at Facebook.

1. You are over-posting because your content sucks, it isn’t reaching anyone since facebook changed their algorithms, and this is the only (really lazy) way you can come up with to overcompensate.  That may sound harsh but a lot of this is about effort.  Listen, you know when you are just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.  Don’t do that.  Put some thought into what you are putting out there for your peeps.  Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself whether you would find this interesting – look at what other brands are doing so you can get some inspiration.  Posting a ton of memes is probably not the answer – does that really represent your studio?  Does it really represent YOU?  If you flood the news feeds of your followers they will hide you and you likely won’t get them back.  That’s called a backfire…
2. You are still whining about how your numbers have gone down since the algorithms changed.  Kind of number 1b regarding the facebook changes.  Stop it.  Really.  Believe me when I tell you that good content still gets nice reach and engagement.  That hasn’t changed even with the new algorithm.  You just need to earn it now by being more creative, putting in more effort, and maybe even spending a couple dollars to promote a post here or there – more on that later.
3.  You are posting images of your clients without their permission and (at least in the 43 states that require it at last check) a signed model release.  I’m amazed at how many photographers blow off getting proper permission and then end up with upset (former) clients.  I know of some who are still doing it and getting in trouble as we speak, or their clients just get upset but don’t tell the photog and go out to sprinkle a little bad word of mouth to their friends.
4. You aren’t social.  Yes this is social media.  You have to take the social part to heart.  Be sure to like other pages that you have a connection with – find pages that are local to your community, pages belonging to your clients who have supported you, pages in your industry that you can learn from or partner with, pages which provide content that is relevant for your audience.  Like, comment, and share the stuff that you like and BE GENUINE about it.  If you don’t like it, don’t like it.
5. You are putting links about yourself in the comments you post on your clients’ statuses and finding other ways to ram your brand down their throats.  Don’t hijack other pages whether they belong to brands or people for self promotion.  I see people I know whose photographers have commented on a picture on their personal page to the effect of “This is so cute of your son!  By the way please like my page at XYZ Photography”.  Yuck. This tends to make you look pretty bad.  If you want to participate and be seen that’s great – but do it without an agenda.  They’ll already know it’s you especially if you are commenting as your studio.
6. You aren’t promoting properly.  I’m still tinkering with this formula myself so there isn’t a perfect answer that works for everyone.  In the meantime here is a great article by Jay Baer with a nice 4 step checklist to determine when you should pay to promote a post.  Spending $5 – $15 once in a while to promote a worthwhile post to make sure people see it may not be the worst decision.  Personally I have done this three times.
7. All your eggs are pretty much still in the facebook basket.  Focus on your website and/or your (self-hosted) BLOG.  You own those.  Tweet if it makes sense for you, maybe try Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn etc.  You don’t need to be everywhere but you can’t be in only one place.  You just can’t.  Being in only one place makes you a sitting duck when that place changes things up on you like facebook recently did.  Here are some tips on the other platforms from another guest post I wrote for MCP Actions in September 2012.  Keep in mind having all your eggs in the facebook basket may not directly explain why you’re failing ON facebook, although the fact that you did is likely why you’ve been panicking since the changes and abandoning your strategy which is probably leading to failure.
8. You are mixing your personal page with your business page too much.  This is another mistake many photogs are making at this very moment as a way to try to game the system.  In other words “well my reach went way down on my studio page so I’ll just post all my sneak peaks and specials (barf) on my personal page”.  Don’t do it!  People who like your page like it because they like your brand.  People who want to be your friend just want to be your friend.  They don’t suddenly want you selling to them.  Would you do that to your friends offline?  Then don’t do it online.  Your message will start to get lost.  I’m not saying you should never ever mention your studio on your personal page, but don’t overdo it.  P.S. – the reason I barfed after the word “specials” is because I think sales and specials for a photography studio devalue your work.  Just my opinion…
9. Your content is all about you.  This ties back into the first item on this list when I said your content sucks.  If your content is all about you, then yes your content sucks.  ”WE do this and that and such and such for our clients”, “WE can do this kind of session, WE can even do that kind of session!”, “Hurry in to take your holiday photos – our time slots are filling up fast”,  ”WE just got a whole bunch of orders in!”, “A FREE this or a HALF OFF that for the first three who comment”, “Check out our SALE!”, “Make sure you like and share our posts or facebook won’t put us in your news feed” – that one might be the worst of all of them.  What better way to put the focus on your clients than to make them jump through hoops to serve you – right?  Wrong.  Sorry to break it to you but these examples collectively represent boring garbage.  Do people really go to facebook to seek out commercials and be sold to?  If this is all, the majority of, half of, or in my opinion even a quarter of what you are sharing then you are BORING.    Okay so if that’s boring then what is interesting?  I think that’s going to be my next post….  Stay tuned.

Doug Cohen is a co-owner of Frameable Faces Photography with his wife Ally in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, MI.  Ally is the photographer and Doug handles the sales and marketing  You can also find Doug personally on twitter in addition to the studio at dougcohen10.  He writes for their blog and sings in a rock band called the Detroit Stimulus Package.

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If you are ready to learn how to improve your photography website, we are ready to teach you.  Read on to learn how you can bring your photography business to the next level and your website to life!

Get excited because these key points don’t require a degree in rocket science; just a little creativity and a little common sense.

Step 1. Branding – your business card on the web

Think of your photography website as your business card on the web. The first place potential clientele will go is to your website. Having a consistent brand across all of your media such as your website, your blog, your social media, and your business card is necessary. Consistent business literature portrays a high level of professionalism and provides “brand name recognition.” Large companies do it, so why not you? Ever visit a website and the business card and the website look totally different? Ever visit a website and the main site and blog have different logos and color schemes? Consistency is the key to success, and you know the saying – “first impressions count.” Your art is unique and so your website should be too. Note how MCP’s Website, Blog, and newsletter each have the same look and feel.

Here’s another example: Blusys Photography recently went through an “extreme branding makeover.” Blusys Photography stated in a recent blog article “…a company’s website is only one aspect of a client’s online experience with your business. Therefore, we needed to ensure our Facebook page and blog conveyed the same consistent brand as our website and printed materials. In less than a year, we’ve more than doubled our sales. We have a larger presence online, including a user-friendly website, a blog where we write weekly articles, and a Facebook account that lets us stay connected to our clients. Branding was one of the smartest things we’ve done for our business.”

Step 2. Managing your clients images – “Sell” via a professional photography website

There are several professional photography online platforms that enable photographers to create client galleries. In turn, clients can view and purchase their images online with a professional print lab, with post-processing offered by the platform itself. This is a definitely a great website strategy for any professional photographer. This is a great tool for post-sales and, more specifically, for friends and family however near or far, to purchase your clients’ prints easily (example – senior picture sales to family members – grandparents and other relatives).  One example is SmugMug, which offers several levels of service and features, as well as print services.

Step 3. Managing your Portfolio – KISS method

Your portfolio is a great way to showcase your best art to the world! This is what is going to attract future clientele to your business. You know the saying “KISS” – (Keep it Short and Simple)? That is, if you truly specialize in only a few types of photography, then only showcase those few types of photography in your portfolio. For example, Cathy of Seven Gables Photography specializes in Weddings and Portraits. She divided her portraits into a “Babies & Bellies,” “Families & Little Ones,” and “Seniors” – simple!! By breaking down her portfolio into these segments it makes it easy for clientele to view specific examples of Seven Gables Photography art as well as making it easy for Cathy to manage her portfolio. In another example, Carrie Beth specializes in newborns, babies and children – simple as that! If you have too many portfolio galleries, it could confuse your clientele – “what do I look at?” or “wow – there is just too much to look at!” Also, too many specialties in your portfolio leads to a portfolio management nightmare.

Step 4. Portfolio Slideshow Strategy – “Hey mom, look no flash”

It goes without saying that a lot of photographers use a slideshow to show off their portfolio. Once you determine your portfolio (see above), use a slideshow application that is mobile friendly (no flash). There are several slideshow applications out there that use non-flash technology. The two questions that come up often are:

1. “How many images should I put in my portfolio slideshow?”

Answer: The recommendation is enough to fill about 1 minute of time. Example, if your slideshow transition is 3-4 seconds, then 20 images should do the trick. Remember, you have a minute (or less) to sell your ‘style’ to prospective clientele.

2. “How do I get the slideshow images all the same size?”

Answer: A lot of slideshow applications will do a “crop-to-fit” method, while others will display a specific height and width. The recommendation here is simply to make all of the images the same size. Then there are no issues, (this is where your creativity comes in!). It is like reading a book. If the book is 8.5” by 11” and the publishers places a page in the book that is 5” by 7” it will simply throw off the flow of the book.

Step 5 . Your Biography – A little uniqueness about you

So what do you want to tell the world about you? More importantly, what do your present and future clients want to know about you? There are many different strategies here – how you got involved with photography, a little about you and your family, ten things you like, etc. Creativity counts, so in the age of Youtube and Vimeo the biographies that are a big success are the ones with a video biography. For example, Angela Nivens Rose has a short personal video on her bio page about how she got started as a professional photographer. The viewer gets to know a little bit about his/her photographer and also gets what feels like a face-to-face meeting. This allows your potential clients to immediately connect with you on a much deeper level.

Step 6. Social Media – just the right ingredients

With all the social media platforms available, where does one begin? What is a good strategy? How do I manage it all? Answer – just the right ingredients! First, understand your present and future clientele – do they “like”, “tweet”, “circle”, “connect”, “pin”, “blog read” or “all of the above”? Second, truly ask yourself “What social media platforms will you be able to manage as well as keep up with the most”? These are two critical ingredients. If you are not going to keep up your blog or Facebook fan page, then skip it. Having ten links to social media platforms on your site with only three of them you truly keep up to date does not help you at all. Focus on social media that you can successfully keep up-to-date and display those ‘badges’.

A question often asked is, “where do I put links to my social media platforms?” Recommendation – use the social media badges since they are recognized by so many. Badges that match your branding are a bonus! Placement on your web site – recommend the header or footer area consistency throughout the site.

What is the current trend? According to Hubspot, the social media platforms that drive the most business to consumer conversions are Facebook, your blog, Twitter and LinkedIn (read more about blogging later).

Step 7. Blogging – Sharing your stories

According to Hubspot, 46% of people read blogs more than once a day and companies with a blog have 55% more visitors than companies without a blog. Blogging is becoming a critical success factor in your business. Here are some recommended strategies for successful blogging:

• Your blog should match your web site and/or overall business branding seamlessly.

• Your blog should provide the ability for readers to ‘share’ your blog articles among the social media platforms. Think about the family members of the wedding who will read and share the special day with others. It is important that you share your blog articles on your own social media platforms as well.

• Work blogging into your overall client session. That is, after you complete your client session and execute any editing workflow, make sure blogging about the session is the next step. Make the article short and sweet by simply praising your client for effortlessness, or his cute laugh. Make sure to add a few of your favorite pictures from the shoot as well!

• True statement – “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and therefore, tell your blog story through pictures. A great tip here is a simple paragraph or two then provide some ‘teaser’ pictures (like a movie preview). At the end of the article, lead your reader to more pictures via a link to the clients’ gallery. If you agreed with your client to keep their client gallery private/confidential, then simply link to your portfolio so readers can view a showcase of your art.

• Add some pizazz to your blog article pictures by using templates and actions, such as the ones sold by MCP Actions. This also gives some consistency and professionalism to the display of the pictures in the article.

• Use meaningful categories. This helps with both search engines and keeping your blog organized and updated for your readers.

• “How often show I blog?” Our recommendation is at least once a week.

More blogging strategies and tips coming soon!

There are countless, tips, tricks, strategies, PDF’s, training courses, etc. regarding the topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In the spirit of “learning by doing”, one of the most successful tips/tricks is simply adding captions/descriptions and meaningful file names to the images in your blog/web site.

Example: A file name of DSC1100.jpeg has no meaning, but a file name of “Tony-and-Carmella-Michigan-Wedding-Photography-Clicking-through-Life-Photography-1100.jpg” gives that image the keywords that the search engines are looking for. In one experience dealing with football photography images, the search engine results prevailed that visits were coming to the site because the images contained BOTH the team names and cities in the file name, and the caption (words such as “Shelby-Lions”, “Romeo Bulldogs”, “Football”). Therefore, before uploading your images, think through consistent file names, tags and captions.

jR Customization provides unique SmugMug Customization and WordPress Theme Development for photographers throughout the world. Visit our website for examples and read our blog for numerous customer success stories. Use coupon code MCPJR for 10% off SmugMug and/or WordPress customizations.

Statistic Sources:
SOURCE: HUBSPOT, THE SCIENCE OF BLOGGING 2010
STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING, HUBSPOT, MARCH 2012

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Businesses, especially photography businesses, have found Facebook an excellent way to supplement their web presence over the last several years. Having a Facebook business page allows for customer engagement as well as providing exposure to potential future clients. It’s a great way to showcase your best photos while putting yourself in front of your ideal demographic – friends and relatives of already satisfied customers.

Or at least it was, back when people actually saw your posts.

Suddenly, in the last few months, having a huge fan base on Facebook is almost useless. The Facebook algorithm changed and impacted the number of people seeing your posts.  Rather than another endless rant, this post provides information and ideas on how you can move forward with social networking for your business.

A small page may reach the same number of users with each post as a very large one. The thousands of ‘likes’ that you’ve managed to garner over the years isn’t worth much if they can’t see your posts – and frequently they can’t.

I don’t know what Facebook is up to – catering to the user, manipulating businesses to purchase ‘sponsored stories’ to reach their fan base, or (probably) some of both – but I do know that your social media strategy needs to morph and change in order to keep up with the always changing algorithms of the Internet.

So what does this particular change mean for business owners in regards to Facebook?

• Interest Lists: Asking users to add you to an interest list (as shown here) doesn’t completely solve the problem, though it may help a bit.
• Compelling material: Give your readers something interesting. Your posts may just die unless you are offering some very compelling material.
• Interaction: Encouraging fans to interact with your page is marginally better. This will ensure that those users who are actually interested in your page see more of your posts. But it takes effort, and how many people get on Facebook to exert themselves? Additionally, even when people interact, many are not seeing posts from those companies automatically in their feeds anymore.

The bottom line is that you can no longer rely on Facebook  as the core of your social media strategy. So how should you, as a business owner, respond?

Here’s a modified social media plan for the post-Facebook cyber world. Tweak for your business and share your thoughts in the comments!

1. Plan your social media campaign around your own blog and website. 

Your blog is something that you have total control over. Shift your primary focus from Facebook to your blog. Use it for client sneak peeks, sale announcements, giveaways, and company news. Foster customer communications – post frequently and engage your audience in the comment section. Give your visitors a reason to stay and a reason to come back. Think about what your intended audience will find valuable – it’s not always the typical photography blog stuff. Several months ago I wrote a post on how to choose clothes for a family picture. It’s our most popular post to this day!

2. Utilize other social media outlets.

Are you on Twitter? Google+? Pinterest? Tumblr? Find out where your ideal clients are hanging out and make sure you’re there too. Rather than relying on a huge Facebook following, spread out your influence to other parts of the web. Think outside the box! Learn how different social media sites work and use them creatively to boost your exposure and engagement.

3. Change the way you use Facebook. 

All this doesn’t mean you should neglect your Facebook page. But instead of focusing solely on the numbers of your fan base, try to improve engagement with the ones you have. Instead of just trying to be seen by as many people as possible,  make yourself irresistibly valuable to those who do see you. Become a page that people WANT on their newsfeeds, and you’ll be more likely to show up there.

As you’re implementing these and your own ideas to revamp your social media strategy, ask yourself a few questions:

• What do I want my social media presence to accomplish?
• Where and how are my present and future clients using the Internet?
• What information and interactions will they find valuable?

The answers to these questions will help you develop a social media strategy that makes the most of the tools you have available online to engage current clients and attract prospective future ones.
Rebecca Weaver and her husband Roger run Presenting You Photography in Ephrata, PA, where she manages social media (among other things). When they aren’t doing photo-biz stuff, they’re usually hanging out with their three young children. You can visit their small but growing Facebook page here.

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There are so many WordPress plugins for photographers out there.  No matter what people say is the best, including this article; the key is to find the ones that work best for you.

Of course, all I can do is recommend and hope that you take the advice and roll with it.

In this article, you will read about the 5 most important WordPress plugins that every photographer should have active on their website.

1. Analytics

First up is analytics of your website.  As a business, it is important to understand where your visitors are coming from, if your visitors are converting to leads and how you are doing on search engines.  Google Analytics is not only free, but it is also one of the most popular website statistics tools on the Internet.  WordPress developer, Yoast, created the Google Analytics for WordPress in order to simplify the process of adding the tracking script to your website.  Not only that, though.  There are many features included, like outbound link tracking and the ability to not track when you’re logged in to your back-end.

2. Contact Form

Often times photographers go overboard with contact forms.  Ideally a main contact form should be extremely simple to improve conversion rate.  So with that said, it should contain the following:

• Name
• Email
• Phone
• Message

There are many methods of including a contact form on your WordPress website.  Wufoo, for example, is a web app that allows you to embed a form.  The downside to Wufoo is the branding it puts on your site unless you pay.

Contact Form 7 is a free WordPress plugin with many options.  However, if you want the best form plugin on the market, Gravity Forms is the clear winner.  With this premium plugin, you have the ability to generate questionnaires for your clients.  So in addition to a simple contact form, you have the ability to have a wedding client send you all the information about the event – easily.  If so desired, you can even use Gravity Forms as a booking mechanism for clients.

3. Galleries

Next up are galleries or portfolios.  Hopefully the WordPress theme you are using has gallery functionality built-in.  If it doesn’t, then I recommend checking out the WordPress gallery plugin, NextGEN Gallery.  With almost six million downloads; it is a trusted plugin for so many WordPress users.  Not only does NextGEN Gallery allow you to create galleries, but also its management system is very easy to use.

4. SEO

Search engine optimization is always a fun topic.  There are so many SEO plugins in the plugin directory.  The best, in my opinion, is WordPress SEO (also by Yoast) for a few reasons.  It’s well developed and integrates features like a sitemap, open graph, analysis. Another one to look at is Scribe SEO, which has amazing features but does cost money).

5. Sharing

For every photographer, it is important for pages and posts to be shared on social media.  The reason is not just for branding, but also for SEO.  Search engines are using social signals (or activity) in their rankings.  That is why having content shared on the three most popular social networks (Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus) is crucial.

My personal favorite social sharing plugin for photographers is Digg Digg.  This plugin lets you add the most popular social network to a floating bar (which disappears on small screens) and also a horizontal bar either above or below content.  When combined with WordPress SEO’s open graph feature, Pins, Likes, Tweets and +1s will share the right data automatically.

Summing It Up

In this article I shared some of the best plugins that you, as a photographer, can activate on your WordPress website.  Not only are they useful for you, as the photographer, but also for your potential clients and current clients.

• Analytics
• Contact Forms
• Galleries
• SEO
• Sharing

Now it’s your turn.  Please comment below with the plugin that you think is important for photographers to have on their websites.

-
Scott Wyden Kivowitz is a New Jersey Photographer and the Community & Blog Wrangler at Photocrati, developer of WordPress themes for photographers and the Photographers SEO Community, teaching other photographers on how to increase business with their website.

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In this article, I am going to discuss three different methods for coming up with content ideas for your photography blog.  You will read about tools and also something that every photographer should be doing already using engagement.

As the main blogger for a company who develops WordPress themes for photographers, it can be challenging at times to find new topics to write about.  However, when I discover a new method, I believe it is nice to share them with photographers.

So let’s get right to it, shall well?

1. Your Website’s Analytics

Hopefully you are using Google Analytics (or some other similar tool) to track your website traffic.  With tools like this, you can see what keywords visitors are coming into your site from.  For example, in the screenshot below I receive traffic from the keyword camera diopter and also zenfolio vs smugmug.  With this data, I then know that I can write more articles on those two keywords and increase my website traffic and conversions.

If you’re interested in a copy of the custom report you see in the screenshot, click here to add it in your Google Analytics account.

2. Google Suggestions

You know how when you visit Google and starting typing, your search query fills in the remaining text?  Google Instant is a great tool for discovering new content ideas.

Here is a great example:

Start typing tips for a bride in Google and see what comes up.  The last on that list is tips for a bride on her wedding day.  If you are a wedding photographer, then you need write articles with tips for a bride on her wedding day, from your point of view.  Educate your visitors and you will convert more to leads.

3. Engagement

This is one of my favorite ways of generating content ideas.  As a modern day photographer, you are most likely using social media.  For instance, you probably have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Pinterest account and maybe a Google Plus account.

Through these various social networks, you should be engaging in conversations with colleagues and potential customers. (That is the point, right?)  How often are you asked a question that you wind up answering right away?  Try something different.  Take that question and turn it into a blog article.  Not only with the person who asked the question enjoy that, but it also helps you get fresh content.

Summing It Up

There you have it, three different methods for coming up with content ideas.  I shared two tools from Google and engagement through social media.  Now I want to hear from you.  What are you doing to come up with new topic ideas for your website?  Please comment to share.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz is a New Jersey Photographer and the Community & Blog Wrangler at Photocrati teaching WordPress, business, marketing and SEO for Photographers.

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This is a social media guest post, by Doug Cohen of Frameable Faces, about his approach to social networking for he and his wife’s photography studio. Learn from their experiences. 

Providing a complete how-to on all of the social media platforms could easily be a 3,000 page book. So instead I’ll summarize our experience with some of the social networking tools to illustrate:

1. How they can be used to help expand your business.
2. The trial and error that goes into a social media marketing strategy.
3. How our strategy is a work in progress as is social media itself.

Early beginnings

We (my wife Ally really – I hadn’t joined her in the business yet) started with a website around 2004 and a blog in 2007, but for a while we didn’t really know what we were doing.  Interestingly, as much as other platforms appeared and evolved, many still say that your website and your blog are still your two most important sites because you own them – you don’t own your page on Facebook.  We’ve gone through one complete redesign of the website and we still update it semi-regularly.  As for our blog we also went through a major overhaul of that too (more on that in a bit).

Facebook arrives

March 10, 2010 was the day Frameable Faces joined Facebook as a page.  When facebook launched business profiles that was a game changer.  These have evolved quite a bit and the tools available to a page administrator are just fantastic, providing you with real time data about how many people you have reached with each post, how many are clicking on them, sharing them, demographics of the people who like your page – the list goes on and on.  Facebook is a great way to build a following and share content and interact with your fans.  It also allows you to promote your presence elsewhere like your blog, YouTube channel, Pinterest page or wherever else you are in cyberspace.  We now have 904 likes – not a huge number which is fine with us.  We’ve grown that number one by one mostly with clients, vendors and partners and we’d rather have 904 fans that connect with our studio than 3000 fans who liked our page to try to win something and don’t know us or don’t care about us.  As a side note we have a second facebook page just for our senior business with just under 200 likes.

Twitter

Twitter  (we are @frameablefaces) took us a little while to latch on to.  At first we just automated our facebook posts to post to twitter until we figured out what to do with it.  That was my decision and I still can’t believe I did that…  As a general rule of thumb you should never automate in my opinion.  Scheduling a tweet for later in the day to space out your content is okay but if you are going to bother with a platform then you need to actually be there.  No one wants to try to interact with a comment you made somewhere else which has been imported by a robot.  The best of twitter culture is in the conversations between people connecting with each other.  You can provide links to various items in your tweets, but just make sure you are actually there to interact, otherwise don’t bother.  Twitter has plenty of customization to help you get the most out of it like “lists”.  Think of them like the bookmarks in your web browser to manage the websites (or in this case tweets) you like to follow.  For example I have created lists for “social media focused” and “photography”.  I use Hootsuite to set them up in different tabs so I can follow each category in a manageable way, and our lists are public.  If you are interested in seeing who we follow for social media  or photography.  I also tweet as @dougcohen10 where I indulge my own social media, history, music, and football obsessions.

Back to the Blog and content marketing philosophy

We recently relaunched our blog and I was invited to write about it on a blog called The Collective entitled “The Return Of The Photography Studio Blog”.  We moved to a self-hosted model so we would own it and we committed to posting consistent and original content.  This content strategy extends to all our platforms – we do NOT waste time selling at people.  I still see this a lot and it’s boring and cheesy.  “Book a session now and get free this or free that!  Hurry – only 10 spots left!”  Gag.  We prefer to put the focus on our “frameables” (our people) by posting images of them from their sessions (with signed model releases of course), and content from around the web that helps them and brings value to their lives.  http://blog.frameablefaces.com

Other platforms

In a sentence or two we use the following platforms as follows:

YouTube – We have our own channel for slideshows, interviews, and behind the scenes videos.  You can customize your page and subscribe to other channels where you can learn from other studios around the country.

Pinterest – Fun way to share and discover items from around the web.  Represent your style and culture with various pin “boards” by category.  Once again not too much focus on ourselves here – even less so than the other platforms.  The culture of Pinterest is not to self promote your own work too much but rather to share interesting items you find around the web.

Google+ – We violate the rule of having a page that we don’t pay much attention to here…  We still don’t see a lot of people using Google+ despite the pundits talking it up.  We focus where our people are and we don’t see them here.  This could change and we don’t want to completely blow off Google because, well, it’s Google.  We also have Foursquare and Yelp pages but we don’t put much energy into them either at this time.

Instagram – We just started on Instagram.  Like a micro photo blog with fun image layers.  Not the ideal way to show off your finished images but we have used it to post fun pics we take with our smartphones of various happenings with our studio.  Things like poison ivy on a location shoot and pics of Ally photographing for example.  Photographing a scene from one of our high school senior sessions can create some fun buzz with their friends and the location map can highlight some of the locations we use around town.  Same as our twitter handle – @frameablefaces

LinkedIn – Good platform for business to business connections.  We network there for some of the commercial work we do and I use it personally for some of the social media consulting I do on the side.  LinkedIn is admittedly not our strongest platform yet but we are working on it.

So there it is in a nutshell.  What platforms have you found to be most effective for you?

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Are you a victim of information overload? Do you have trouble completing what you started?

My computer hates me, I’ve got Photoshop, Lightoom and about 50 browser windows open. I’ve started five projects in the last 10 minutes and haven’t finished any of them. I’m so overloaded with things to do, I’m getting nothing done…maybe I’ll just go play on Facebook.

Does this sound like you when you finally find the time to get your work done? As a new mom with many, many projects going on all at once (seriously you don’t even want to know) I’ve become very aware of just how precious my ‘free’ time is. It seems like there’s always spit up to wash out of something or bottles to clean so the last thing I want when I can finally sit down to work is to feel so overwhelmed I shut down.

So how do you get past the “I have to do everything right now” feeling? Personally there are a few things I do. First, I’m a list maker I sit down and write out everything I have floating around in my brain, even the random things that are someday items just to clear my head. I usually use a notepad and make little sections on the pad, one for blog ideas, one for design work I need to finish, whatever categories you need…it’s your list! By the time I’m done it’s usually a mess but at least then I’m not trying to keep a million things in the back of my mind to remember later.

Then I take my list and go through and circle a few (not more than 3 unless I know I have plenty of time or they’re easy tasks) things that I want to get done in the time I have allotted. Those are the things I start working on, doing my best to ignore everything else. If I’m working on a project and a thought creeps in then I’ll just add it to the list and continue with what I was working on, no jumping from thing to thing!

Another thing I do that some people may or may not find helpful is make sure I use an internet browser with tabs. If I’m researching something and I stumble across something interesting that I want to read I’ll save it for later by opening it in a new tab. then when I finish my task I’ll go through any opened tabs and bookmark them, being sure to organize them into folders and add tags or keywords so I can easily find them later.

I try to minimize other distractions by not opening social media sites or my email while I’m working either. If I’m writing a post and I want to share it on Facebook I’ll write and publish the post before I even log on to Facebook or Pinterest and then I’ll allow myself a certain amount of time on the site and then close out again. Sometimes I’ll even sit down and use Facebook’s new feature to schedule posts in advance, then I don’t have to think about it again and it’s one more thing off my list. For conquering email I try to implement the touch it once rule and also utilize a variety of tools to help me speed through it such as templates and Google labs. You can also set aside a specific period of time as ‘unsubscribe time’ where you go through and unsubscribe from all those e-mail lists you have no idea how you got on. Depending on how many lists you’re on that in itself could save you an hour a day!

So, in order to save yourself from suffering from information overload you can try one or all of the following:

• Make a list before you start.
• Do one thing at a time.
• Stay off social media and e-mail.
  • When you are on, limit your time and use tools like templates or scheduling posts.
  • Take advantage of your browsers tools like tabs and bookmarks.

And most importantly is something that everyone should remember regardless of how many things they have going on, take a little me time. Whether your idea of me time is heading out to the back yard to garden or heading off shopping it’s important to schedule things like that in. You’ll clear your head and come back ready to tackle your to do list.

When she’s not putting off the dishes to play with her adorable little boy you can find Jessica off taking photos for her business, Capture Life, or doing one of her other favorite things and sharing all she knows about life, business and photography on the Ambitious Photographer site.

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