Anyone running a business in the modern technology world, should definitely explore the world of social networking. It’s important because it can help you gain more exposure for your business than paper marketing advertisements used to. For photographers, these are some great websites you can use to interact and learn with other people, while gaining more exposure for your work.
Flickr
Flickr is a great site for the person with a camera phone, to the ultimate professional photographer. Flickr has thousands of extraordinary – and ordinary images you can look at, browse and post. Not only can you comment and like photos, there are forums and hundreds of groups that you can use for contributing and using as a resource for learning.
There are plenty of apps out there made for uploading images from a computer, iPhone, iPad, Droid and iPhoto. Through Flickr.com, you can print images, sort, organize, share and edit. There’s also a lot of great plugins you can find to fit different website platforms. Although Flickr might only let you post 200 images with a free account, for about $25/yr, your posting is limitless!
Although twitter is designed for reading and posting solely updates, it can be helpful for photographers and many other businesses. The followers that you gain by posting what you’re up to are likely to read or come across many of your updates. By posting links to images – perhaps images that you’re currently working on or those that you take with a camera phone – you expose your followers to more of your work. At the end of the day, it is still another social networking site that you’ve gotta keep up on, but the end result is the same: exposure for your business!
Facebook is a great social networking site, but like Twitter, is not only for photography. Right now its the biggest social network site out there with over 600 million users. Although they might not all be in your target market there is a huge potential to reach people and some unique features that Facebook has.
One of the best tools that Facebook has is the ability to ‘tag’ photos which can help them be seen by many people and let your content start to go viral. A great way to use Facebook is to upload a few images from a shoot and tag your clients in the photo. This will be shown on their Facebook wall for all of their family and friends to view. If you have a client who is into Facebook that can get your work seen by hundreds if not thousands of people. It’s a great way to have your work be seen and get your branding in front of people to start building that referral business.
Also check out this article on how to make a custom Facebook welcome page:
Facebook Marketing for Photographers
Model Mayhem
Like websites such as MySpace and Facebook, you can create a profile with images, have the ability to comment, message, tag and post on other profiles. Model Mayhem allows photographers, models, makeup artists, fashion designers and more the ability to network, and set up photo sessions.
Because many of the profiles on Model Mayhem might be considered offensive, there is still a strong level of caution and discretion that should be used when setting up a photo shoot. Model Mayhem is great because it is widely used. Chances are, you’ll be able to find a decent handful of serious models, or those aspiring to be successful models. There isn’t a lot of money to be made using Model Mayhem, for most everyone are looking to trade, but there is definitely something to be said about portfolio images!
The great thing about social networking sites aside from the obvious networking aspect, is that since they’re growing, there are hundreds of ways to access and update them. You can also find several applications that can update Facebook and Twitter at the same time! It is a must for anyone that has a website, sells online, or uses the internet for any part of their business, to join social networking sites and interact with people and potential clients!
Whats your favorite social network to use for your photography? Leave us a Facebook comment below.
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