How To Use Flickr To Promote Your Photography Business

[So you’re wondering how to use the many online tools to market your business. This week I’ve decided to start a new How To series that does exactly that. We’ll take a look at many of the different online social sites –things you can do for little to no cost – and show you different ways to put them into your marketing mix.]

Flickr is one of the hottest online social tools that allows you to share your photographs. Flickr was started back in the beginning of 2004 by two game designers who wanted an easy way to share photos that featured their gaming project, and quickly blossomed into something much more. Yahoo purchased Flickr for $35 million in 2005, and the rest as they say is history.

So if you are a photographer, chances are you have used Flickr in some manner. You may have an account. You may have uploaded a few images. You may be active. But in the land of “free”, how can you use Flickr to attract clients to your photography business?

The secret lies in thinking of Flickr as an extension of your business. Its not just a casual site where you can put up a few images of your clients, share it with them, and allow them to send their images all over to friends and family – before they’ve paid you for your services. Instead, you have to look at Flickr as another sales tool – without treating it like a sales tool. After all, the worst thing you can do is get to salesy on any social networking platform.

Start With Your Flickr Account
How is your Flickr account set up? Is it based on a cute nickname (i.e. photogirl123)? Or is it based on your company name?

When you think of Flickr as an extension of your business, it’s easy to see how you should set up your account. Title it by your business, personal or website name – which ever makes the most sense depending on the way you market your business. Once your name is established, build your profile and your groups to support your branding and your business.

What’s The Purpose Of Entering A Photo Contest?

Sometimes it seems like it takes more effort than it’s worth. Not only do you have to keep up with your regular business and client work, but then you have to add in creating specialty images to enter into photo contests too? Is it really worth it?

Yes.

A photo contest ultimately does three things for you.

1. It boosts your confidence. Nothing can put a smile on your face more than being recognized by your peers. When they recognize your photographic talent, you know you’ve accomplished quite a bit in your career.

2. It educates you. Taking photographs for clients is completely different than taking photographs for awards. You look at things differently, put new perspectives on your subject matter, and learn more about the true art of photography.

3. It proves your expertise. When you market your photography, your client judges you based on your images and your marketing materials. When you add “award winning” in, it changes the dynamics. Your client instantly knows you’ve been recognized outside of the typical business world, and others appreciate what you do as well.

Win a few awards, and your business can easily become more professional, more saleable – which means you can charge more for what you do.

If you enter a local contest, you can list “award winner”.

If you enter an international contest, you can list “international award winner”.

With just a couple of wins behind you, you could quickly improve your status by becoming an “International Award Winning Photographer”.

And you could win some pretty cool prizes along the way too.

Here’s a look at contests happening right now.

2nd Annual Great Outdoors Photo Contest 2011

Have a chance to show off what you can create in nature, and have a chance at winning a week long Polar Bear Adventure.

The Photo Contest

Browse through this blog to find a variety of contests and photography competitions from around the world. They have different categories – portrait, sport, travel, etc – so you should be able to find something corresponding to your interests.

31st Annual Spring Photography Contest

Winning photographs will be published in the November 2011 issue of Photographer’s Forum Magazine, and exhibited at Brooks Institute Gallery.

10 Ways To Help Break Photographer’s Block

As a writer, I understand writers block very well. When you sit down and start at the computer, wondering what your first sentence should be, nothing can be more frustrating. The same can happen with photography. What do you do when your facing a new portrait session, and you can’t think of a single thing new to do with your client? Let’s look at 10 ways to help you break photographer’s block.

1. Just shoot. Instead of sitting around waiting for an idea to hit you, spend the next 30 minutes shooting. Shoot at least 30 images in that 30 minutes, and look for things around you that can build into the photograph. image source Noel Zia Lee

2. Start surfing. Head over to Flickr and browse through other images. With millions of photographs online, you’re sure to find something that sparks your interest. Use that as your model for shooting.

10 of the Best YouTube Channels For Photographers

Do you enjoy heading over to YouTube for a break – choose a video and get inspired for the day? You’re not alone. With millions of hours watched every day, there really is something for everyone. I’ve been doing a lot of research on YouTube lately, and in the process found some wonderful channels that you have to check out as a photographer. Know of any more? Leave a comment below – I’d love to find other professional YouTube channels just for photographers.

AJ Wood
Everything Adobe – whether you are looking for tutorials on Lightroom, Photoshop, or even Dreamweaver, these videos will give you hours of ideas.

Bert Stephani
Bert has been adding videos for a number of years; start with his Confessions of a Photographer series for some quick tips on photographing.

Photographers, Still Having Trouble Posing Your Clients?

You meet your client in the middle of a beautiful park. There are several types of trees, amazing displays of flowers, a bridge over a stream … and hundreds of people taking advantage of the nice day.

You freeze on the spot. What are you going to do with your client? How are you going to avoid all of these people? And how are you going to give them a portrait experience they are willing to pay for? And possibly refer their friends to you as well?

It all comes down to knowing how to pose your client. When you know how to pose them, it doesn’t matter what the situation is. You’ll know how to jump in, find the right, look, and direct your clients into the perfect pose that they’ll love, and buy.
Learn more about Posing The Easy Way Here>>

10 Ways To Use Flickr To Market Your Photography Business

1. Go Pro. If you haven’t set up a pro account, just do it. At just $24.95 per year, its one of the most economical ways of creating your portfolio online. With a Pro account, you get unlimited photo uploads at up to 20 MB per photo, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, statistics and the ability to post to up to 60 group pools.

2. Convert to a vanity URL that matches your business. From your profile, you have the ability to edit the URL that will take people to your Flickr stream. While you may have started with something simple like “Joe’s Photo Stream”, remember this is always about your business.  Flickr.com/VirtualPhotographyStudio is a lot easier to share and sounds more professional than Flickr.com/JoesPics.

3. Thumbnails matter too. Every set or collection you create is represented by a thumbnail. Your thumbnail is the first introduction people have to your photography – make sure its engaging and has the inspiration to make someone want to click. Remember you also have the ability to select which image will be the cover of your set or collection. Don’t go with the first one loaded – be selective and choose the one that will showcase your work the best.

4. Tagging is important. For many photographers, tagging is an afterthought. But tagging is the one thing that can help you market better than your competition – if you know how to do it right. Start by tagging based on the image itself – location, description, content, people in the photos, etc. Then spend some time finding out what people are searching for, and tag using those terms as well. If you haven’t spent some time using the Flickr search function, spend some time searching yourself to learn the ins and outs of the system.

5. Join groups. Flickr is an amazing social site if you use it right. Just like Facebook, you can build your own profile, join groups, and share with friends on a regular basis. Make sure you’re logging into your Flickr account just as often as Facebook or Twitter. The more you share, the more you’ll gain.

Using Social Media Coupons To Bring In More Business

By now I’m sure you’ve heard all about Groupon – we did a post here back in December on using Groupon to bring in a ton of clients within one 24 hour period.

But it doesn’t have to be Groupon – there are many other social sites popping up, giving you an opportunity to showcase what you do and bring in new clients too.

Living Social
Living Social is connected to a variety of sites, including Facebook, and offers deals in a similar manner as Groupon. They have many major cities throughout the U.S., and a few in Europe as well.

Pricing Your Photography: How To Set Your Prices To Build A Six Figure Business.

Ever Save
Ever Save goes beyond local services, and offers a variety of products too. If the service isn’t local, head online, put in your code, and buy your deal at the discounted price. Their deals also stretch longer than a 24 period, meaning you don’t have to check in daily like Groupon or Living Social.

10 Things You Never Want To Do With Your Online Photography Portfolio

As a photographer, your most important marketing tool is your online photography portfolio. On your website or your blog, this is what’s going to showcase your work, and get you hired. Yet I see mistakes all the time. And I have a ton of questions like, “Why isn’t my site getting any traffic?” and “Why aren’t people contacting me online?” Here are 10 mistakes I see frequently – do you see yourself here?

1. Enter Page

Do you really need to divide up your site, and dedicate one whole page to making your visitors choose? If they type in your URL, they want to see your site. They want to start learning about you immediately, not have to decide if they want to visit your Flash site, Mobile site, Fast site, Slow site, Blog, Flickr portfolio, etc. Yes, you can weave things into your site, and have things on the side of your content that allows them to navigate elsewhere. But don’t make your first impression just a choice.

2. Photo Size
Have you ever gone to a photographer’s site, only to wait 30 seconds for it to load a huge file thousands of pixels in size? Boring. This is the web. You don’t need large files – the smaller the better for loading, and to protect you from clients downloading them to manipulate them. Stick to an image that is between 500-1000 pixels on the long edge, depending on how you are grouping them together.

3. Music
Um, no. Just don’t do it. There is no such thing as setting the mood or creating ambiance. If a visitor heads into your site at work on their lunch hour, you better believe they will back out quickly when the music starts. The web is visual, unless you find a video you choose to watch.

4. Photo Quantity
A portfolio is what you make of it. You can have a flash gallery that creates a slide presentation. Or you can choose to sort by category, client or niche, and showcase a great deal of your imagery. This isn’t a place to put every image from the shoot – showcase what made the shoot special. For a portrait setting, we may have put up 10 to 20 images. For a wedding, around 200 (we shot 2000-3000 images at every event PJ style). There is no such thing as too many photographs, IF you tell a story with what you have.

5. Fill It Up
Every photographer has to start somewhere. If you really want to get into weddings and you’ve only done one, by all means put it up. But don’t forget to quickly put up every other wedding you do as well. A potential client really wonders when they visit your wedding gallery, and only finds one bride.

6. Pay, Don’t Go Free
With all the options you have available to you today, there really is no reason to not have a classy, custom made web presence. Don’t opt for a Facebook or Flickr presence only. You have to control your portfolio, and give it your unique style.

7. Make It Easy
Create navigation that’s easy to follow. Don’t load it up with 30 choices; make it easy for me to decide where to go to next. Don’t label things with “cute” wordings. Go for the normal, and follow what the big stores do. People are used to commonality here, so don’t confuse them by trying to be different. Be different in your photography style, or the way you offer customer service. Don’t go for the cute on things you can’t control – like the way they move around your site.

8. Flash
If you’ve been on this site before, you know my feeling towards Flash sites. Don’t do it. It makes things difficult to control, difficult to navigate, and difficult for the search engines to find. I don’t mind the occasional Flash splashes to show off some of your work. But don’t put your entire portfolio into a Flash presentation. They will always have to start at the beginning, and can’t be specific about images they like. “I like the image at this URL, clicking the 3 category, the 15th image in” makes it a little hard to communicate.

9. Think Sales
I’ve been on photography sites where there is no contact information. Period. The idea of having a site is to make connections, and let anyone and everyone connect with you. Have a contact us form. Put your email on every page. Put your phone number right near your header. Put your address and a map to your studio. Put your Facebook, Twitter and Flickr connections on every page. Tell them how to connect with you.

10. Be Original
Don’t look through photographers sites to find one to mimic. Go to a different industry. Check out architecture, authors or sculptures. Look through Amazon, Oprah and Martha Stewart. Find things you like, and pull from a variety of sources. You don’t want a potential client to show up and say, “this site was just like X’s site”. You want them to say, “WOW”.

Want To Improve Your Flash Photography Skills?

“How do I use flash on outdoor portraits and still have my portraits look natural?”

“How do I light up the dance floor in a dark reception hall?”

“How do I use off camera flash?”

I receive questions like these almost daily. Flash is definitively one area that can make or break a photographer. Knowing how to use flash can improve your photography, and if your clients see the difference, they will be willing to pay for the difference.

There are two ways to learn about lighting.

1. You can buy several types of flash units, and keep trying. Experiment with the lighting in different situations, and see what you get. Keep experimenting until you get the results you are looking for, and can achieve the same results time and again.

2. Learn from a professional. A professional can give you a ton of advice in a short period of time, offering you tips and tricks along the way.

Are you ready to shortcut your learning curve, and improve your flash photography skills today?

I found a great resource this week that I think you’re going to love. Edward Verosky just released a new ebook called Flash Photography: How To Get Amazing light In Any Situation. I’ve had a chance to go through it, and the advice is right on target. He keeps it simple, and shows you exactly what to do in many situations using photographs, diagrams, and step by step advice.

What makes this a great resource is how he presents the material. He shares ideas by actually showing you photographs he’s taken within his own studio. He gives you a diagram to show you exactly how he set up the image (where he set the subject, how the flash units were set up around the subject, where the camera angle was, etc) and shares his camera and flash settings. By seeing both the diagram and the final image, along with the description of how the final result was achieved, its easy to set up your own subject in a similar manner.

Whether you keep this as an ebook on your computer, put it on your iPad for bringing with you, or print it off for a handy field guide, this is one resource you’re going to love having. If flash has ever raised a question in your mind, grab this up. For only $9.95 a copy, you can’t go wrong.

Buy Flash Photography: How To Get Amazing light In Any Situation Now>>

Photography Studio Layout

Thinking of starting a studio? How do you know what type of studio is best for you?

Take this simple quiz to determine if you are better suited for a commercial studio, in-home studio, or on location studio.

Then get studio layout plans suited perfectly for you.

Part I

1. I have capital set aside to invest in starting up and growing my business.

2. I prefer to separate my home life from my work life.

3. I want a variety of workspaces available for shooting and production.

4. I like having control over