Professional Photo Lab and Photo Printing Blog

Georgia McCabe has spent her 30 year career at the intersection of photography and digital technology.  As an author, speaker, trainer and social media and photography evangelist, her perspectives entitled  “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Friends…or Enemies” appears in print in a new book entitled The Relationship Age, by social media guru Mari Smith. Georgia is a frequent guest blogger for our professional photo lab.

As many of the photographers that we service at H&H color lab make all or a significant portion of their living servicing consumers, I decided to write a year end post highlighting what many believe will be some of the top consumer trends for 2011. As the old saying goes, predictions are difficult, especially about the future, but here goes!

Pricing Brouhahas Will Continue

With the advent of social networks and the tremendous number of connected mobile devices available throughout the world, companies and brands alike are fighting for exposure and market share by more frequently pushing out targeted offers and discounts. Photographers who are interested in repeat business should aggressively begin to target their customers as well.  These offers might include instant coupons or discounts that can be pushed out through growing photo intensive mobile communities as well as through your studio’s Facebook fan page and Twitter feed. This will drive more repeat business as well as introduce you to new customer prospects.

Person-to-Person Marketing

This is just the modern version of what we used to call “word-of-mouth.” Social networks and connected devices have a habit of amplifying what used to call the “squeaky wheel.” In today’s economy, more and more customers are becoming frugal and often more skeptical than they used to be. Many have discovered that it is possible to hook up with others who share their likes and dislikes…before purchasing. Most e-commerce sites offer the ability to write product reviews and while you often need to take such reviews with a “grain of salt,” they can be extremely helpful when making buying decisions. In the future consumers will continue to gravitate to their person networks of “experts” who serve as valuable sources of information for what to buy buy who they should buy it from. Obviously social networks like Facebook and Twitter are driving this transformation, since its extremely easy to not only broadcast information out via a Facebook update or a Twitter post, but often to as many as 500 friends or followers! This transformation gives a whole new meaning to what used to be a “water cooler conversation” amongst a few coworkers.

Expect More Visibility for Corporate Giving, Generosity and Random Acts of Kindness

Surprisingly, with all the talk in US political circles about “greed,” entitlements and taxes, most believe that the trend in emerging markets will continue to afford more visibility to corporate and business generosity. Yep, you heard that right, emerging generosity is a profound cultural change that revolves around not just what charity you support or what services you may donate, its how you can identify your brand and services with popular causes.  Most people do a variety of things in support of good causes, but a growing number of your customers are interested in patronizing “socially conscious” businesses. A good example of this are photographers who drag a lighting setup to a job fair and take free portraits of attendees. I know, you are supposed to do it because it makes you feel better, but even then its OK if it improves your business as well!

Bigger Population Clusters…Increased Urbanization

Today a full half of the world’s population–over 3 billion people–live in urban centers. This shift continues as every day close to 180,000 people move into cities, adding roughly 60,000,000 new urban dwellers each year.  City dwellers are well know to be more apt to try new things and reach out to find new providers and with creative new services. You can increase your reach by finding creative ways to cater urban residents by developing a creative proper approach for your products services. Major manufacturers are already well along on this transition with products like Smirnoff’s Absolute Cities or BMWs Mega City Vehicles. With the advent of Facebook Places taking hold, consider partnering with a local establishment and offer up a service or a product for people who check into their establishment.  You could offer a discount for your services, take pictures on site, or even have framed products that you could give away. There are a whole host of opportunities here that couple communications with urbanization.

The bottom line is that there are a lot of things that your business can do to increase consumer awareness and there are a different collection of things you can do to increase the perceived value and marketability of your products and services. The best answer is to do both and let the world know it

Every day I discover new methods to make Facebook Fanpages unique and more usable! Here are a couple of simple tips for customizing your profile image and for optimizing your personal information so that it is more search engine (SEO) friendly. I have also included a quick tip that will make your shared links look neat and clean! Georgia has spent her 30 year career at the intersection of photography and digital technology. As an author, speaker, trainer and social media and photography evangelist, her perspectives entitled “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Friends…or Enemies” will appear in print in the upcoming book entitled The Relationship Age, by social media guru Mari Smith. Georgia is a frequent guest blogger for our photo lab.

Georgia McCabe has spent her 30 year career at the intersection of photography and digital technology.  As an author, speaker, trainer and social media and photography evangelist, her perspectives entitled  “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Friends…or Enemies” will appear in print in the upcoming book entitled The Relationship Age, by social media guru Mari Smith. Georgia is a frequent guest blogger for H&H and has put together this list of ideas for enhancing marketing partnerships.

While photography can be a very solo pursuit, marketing your photography business doesn’t have to be. Check out these ten tips on how to effectively market your business using community partnerships!

1. Team up with a Café

Ask a café or restaurant owner to display your prints and they’ll get free decoration while you get sales.

2. Hair Salons

Talk with local salon owners about using your pictures as decorations for the salon. Once you have an established relationship, consider seeing if they would be interested in taking before and after shots of clients to feature in the salon.

3. Children’s Locations

Identify local companies that offer kid-friendly lessons; dance studios, karate studios and horseback riding stables are great places for you to take interactive photos that can be offered to the company for placement on their marketing materials or Facebook fan pages.

4. Nursery Schools

While elementary schools may have pre-established school photographer contracts that will be difficult to infiltrate, nursery schools usually do not. Offer to take class and/or individual nursery school pictures for a nominal fee. This is a great way to build your credibility amongst the school community while getting your name out to a key demographic

5. Job Fairs

More and more people are relying on traditional job fairs to help them find work. Speak with the job fair organizers in advance and offer to take professional headshots of the attendees. Consider doing this for free as it is a great way to expand your audience while garnering plenty of attention.

6. Pet Lovers

If you like photographing cats and dogs, try teaming up with a pet store, a doggy day care or a kennel. Again, they can host or sell prints while you get to market to a targeted audience.

7. Bridal Shops

The bridal community is always in need of photographers. Team up with local bridal shops and offer to place some of your bridal pictures in the store as decoration. If you have a well developed relationship with any bridal service provider in your area, discuss the possibility of offering joint packages where bridal and engagement photos are included with another bridal service.

8. Social Clubs

Social Clubs like the Rotary are always hosting events that need mementos. Get in contact with a local social club and ask if they need a photographer. Offer to share the proceeds of the sales with the organization.

9. Join a Band

Find a local group on the up, sign an exclusive agreement and make band photos and t-shirts to sell for a royalty on their site and at their gigs.

10. Facebook Places

Just launched, Facebook Places allows users to check-in to places they visit and tag friends. Consumers can find out about deals at nearby coffee shops, restaurants and retail stores, which they can redeem by checking in via Places.  Why not consider approaching a local establishment and offer up a framed print or a discount for your services.  Just another creative marketing approach using today’s technology.

Take advantage of the available connections in your community to help successfully market your photography business!

Georgia McCabe has spent her 30 year career at the intersection of photography and digital technology.  As an author, speaker, trainer and social media and photography evangelist, her perspectives entitled  “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Friends…or Enemies” will appear in print in the upcoming book entitled The Relationship Age, by social media guru Mari Smith. Georgia is a frequent guest blogger for H&H and has put together this list of ways to promote a photography blog.

Promoting any kind of blog, in any niche, takes planning, time and effort. Once you have got some traffic coming to your Photography blog it’s time to get serious and set out a specific schedule. The scattergun approach, hoping that something will stick is no longer an option for any business that is planning on being around for the long haul! We’ll have a look at 5 tactics here that you can implement without breaking the Bank!

(1) Offline Promotion

It’s surprising how many ways there are to promote a blog offline. Any printed material such as business cards, flyers and so on, can include your blog URL. If you have occasion to mail a customer then it’s essential that you use this opportunity to make your blog known to the recipient. An idea that is often overlooked in the headlong rush to get online visitors is the Postcard Campaign. This combined with a special offer on your main website which requires the visitor to visit your blog can be effective. Use the back of business cards to craft an innovative offer which is only available from your blog!

(2) Social Media

The obvious place to start would be Twitter and Facebook. One of the Photo sharing sites such as Flickr would be a good way to highlight your talents. I think your main objective as always, is to create valuable content, excellent tips and strategies so that once people have found your blog you should be able to get them to spread the word and come back again and again. This takes time, so a solid structure to your blog is a prerequisitet before you ramp up your promotion.

Each new post on your blog can be broadcast on Twitter with a link back to your blog. On your Facebook Fan page you will need a link to your Photography blog and a weekly post here should bring more visitors.

(3) Corporate Website

Assuming your Blog is not a stand alone entity and it is linked to your Business Site then the opportunities to promote your Photography Blog are almost endless. You should have a link to your Blog on your home page, with a little write up and depending on your Site navigation, on each web page. You never know on which page your visitor will land so making sure they are aware of your blog with blanket coverage should ensure plenty of new visitors. Your website statistics program will aid you in evaluating the success of individual posts.

(4)Article Marketing

Getting a range of articles written and published on one or two of the top flight Article Directories will give you sometimes a significant boost in blog Traffic. Your headlines need to be dramatic and address all the major problems facing Photographers. A link to your Photography blog in your Author Bio will send people flocking to your blog if you have really provided valuable content in the article. Highlighting your knowledge and expertise in a series of articles on a specific theme is an excellent way of driving traffic.  A series of ”How To” Articles is always a good bet. If one article starts to show significant traffic then you could focus a series on this particular topic. If you specialise in short but frequent Blog posts then you have a ready made source of fresh content that with not too much additional effort can be expanded to traditional article length. What you are doing here is leveraging your original work and broadcasting it ever wider. Your collection of articles and posts can be combined to create a really excellent E Book which can be offered as a sign up freebie from your Blog alone. You would promote this on your main site thus giving you more Blog traffic!

(5)Influential Industry Bloggers

Interviewing any influential expert in their given field is a great tactic to promote your own activity but should probably be scheduled for a future date when you have achieved a certain level of readership on your own blog. This Tactic is perhaps the most involved but should bring substantial rewards given time.

In your daily blogging routine you should link to popular photographic blogs and leave comments. This will come to the attention of  the blog owner and his or her readers and your own blog will gain some exposure.

A really great way of gaining blog exposure is to craft a post using a concept that an influential Blogger has published and putting your own stamp on the article. Not so much a rewrite but an expansion of an idea. Here is your chance to shine and to show your understanding of the subject. As a courtesy gesture you could give credit to the original author and even link to the original post that inspired you. This will be much appreciated and will again get you and your blog noticed .You cannot copyright an idea or a concept so this is an area of great opportunity for you and one that you can harvest on an ongoing basis.

Georgia McCabe has spent her 30 year career at the intersection of photography and digital technology.  As an author, speaker, trainer and social media and photography evangelist, her perspectives entitled  “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Friends…or Enemies” will appear in print in the upcoming book entitled The Relationship Age, by social media guru Mari Smith. Georgia is a frequent guest blogger for H&H and has put together this list of tips for us, explaining how to add new clients to your photography business.

Finding customers who place real value on your work is one of the most challenging aspects of today’s competitive market. In photography this is especially true, as the industry is changing greatly. Many consumers remain interested in the services of a photographic professional, but changes in technology have created a new group of aspiring “professionals” trying to establish themselves in the field. Here are some easy tips that will help you differentiate yourself when prospecting for new clients.

1. There are numerous dedicated channels on the internet that can position you and help spread the word about your menu of services.

Photographers.com is a great site; users can search by location, specialty, or professional organization and you can upload your portfolio as well as contact information and links to your web site.  Monthly membership charges are nominal and based on the number of profile features. Findaphotographer.us offers the same basic features. (more…)