Facebook is arguably the most famous of the
big social networking sites. A few years ago, Facebook created business pages
that you could keep separate from your personal profile – although a business
page as such, it still allows you to communicate with people on a more personal
level though. Another advantage these have over a personal profile is that the
number of likes are not limited, where as you are limited to the number of
friends that you can have with a regular personal profile. Out of all of the social
networking sites, I find Facebook the most user friendly and it’s certainly the
easiest way to send out updates and announcements. Although Flickr allows you
to connect to a large community of photographers, this doesn’t really boost
your business as most of them already do what you are looking to do. This is
where Facebook enables you to really reach out to the audience who would be
interested in using your services or buying your prints – assuming they like
your work that is. The key to Facebook business pages is to tag people in
photographs once you have uploaded them, as this gets the photos seen by people
who you may not know, as when you tag someone in a photo it shows up on their
wall. So, if they have 400 friends then those 400 friends will see your images
too. This makes the potential for gaining business or interest in your work a
big possibility.
Facebook
is working its way up to an upcoming face lift
Top
Facebook tips
·
Make sure your settings include all of your
information to ensure that you can be found more easily in Google searches.
·
Your Facebook business page is like a shop
window, so be selective about what you say on it.
·
It’s vital to ‘Like’ other Facebook pages that
any of your potential clients like too. Try to comment on posts and engage in
conversations because it’s a great way to get yourself noticed.
Blogging
Blogging is a great way of keeping your
website current as the content of your blog can be updated daily, whereas you
might not want to adjust your website all the time. These days, almost everyone
is blogging about their daily personal and professional lives. The main purpose
of blogging is to generate interest back to your main website and, ultimately,
in your work. It also makes you seem more accessible and gives any potential
customers fresh additional information that they may not get from your main
website. You can be a lot more current and inject much more of your personality
into a blog as it is more like a conversation. Perhaps one of the main
advantages of having a blog is that it makes Google take notice of your site,
particularly if your main page content only holds information about you such as
your images, biography and prices. The fact that it is not updated regularly
means that it eventually begins to slip down the Google ranking. Google loves a
good blog, as it likes the fact that the content updated on a regular basis.
So, for this reason, a regularly updated blog that links to your main site is
much more likely to show up in a web search than a website full of images that
isn’t updated very often.
Blogging
is a great way of keeping your website current as the content of your blog can
be updated daily, whereas you might not want to adjust your website all the
time
Blogging
tips
- Discussing hot topics like the latest
techniques or pieces of technology will increase your chances of showing
up in Google searches.
- Blog about the subjects that you are
passionate about as this passion will come through in your writing and
will help you to build a genuine following, rather than just friends and
family.
- Always point your followers to your main
website or portfolio.
Twitter
Twitter is a one of the most simplistic
ways of social networking. Once registered, you can post short messages or
‘Twitter’ as they are known that use up to 140 characters or less, (including
punctuation and spaces), which can then be read by your followers. In order to
receive posts from fellow Twitter users you must in turn ‘Follow’ them. They
key to using Twitter successfully is to engage in a community to which you
belong – for instance a wedding photographer may follow other wedding
photographers, wedding magazines, florists and wedding venues. If you share
advice, information and news you are much more likely to gain followers who are
genuinely interested in what you do. This is a much better tactic than
following lots of people and hoping that they follow you back.
Twitter
is a one of the most simplistic ways of social networking
Top
Twitter tips
·
Don’t spam your followers
·
Don’t feel an obligation to follow someone who
follows you as this can prove time-consuming.
·
Consider any suggestions or feedback seriously.
·
Always reply to comments addressed personally to
you, it could be time well spent.
