Professional Photo Lab and Photo Printing Blog

Mobile Marketing For Photographers…A New Social Media Phenomena

Guest post from Georgia McCabe.

Today there are more than 1.8 billion internet users on the planet, including close to 1 billion Facebook users alone, and besides, there are over 5 billion cell phone users, most moving towards mobile internet connectivity. Amazing…right? Imagine what tapping the social media world can do for your photography business…how far you could go and the tremendous number of potential new customers you could reach? Mobile Marketing can make it all possible.  You could reach at least 3 times the audience as you would normally have running your photography business “the old fashioned way”! In today’s world it’s all about the internet and cell phones. Mobile Marketing makes it all possible.

Many of you are probably wondering “What in the world is Mobile Marketing for Photographers?” Well, let me just start out by saying that mobile marketing for you, a photographer, is a way to include exclusive offers, promotional deals, and have instant contact with your current consumers as well as reaching a larger group of potential clients.

Mobile Marketing can be used in a number of ways for photographers of all genres and styles; from Weddings, Senior portraits, to Sports Photography. It’s an instant way to connect with your consumer, either with photos you have taken or just a quick text message, email, or IM. You can even use two way chatting (back and forth messaging) about what their likes and dislikes of your images.

Using Mobile Marketing allows you to quickly and easily import and export mobile phone numbers from your current database. This affords a unique advantage to your consumer; to be able to see a photo you have chosen to send them directly, let them set it as their screensaver/ background image or send it via email, IM or text to family or friends. This gives them the opportunity to share how great they think your business is…telling everyone in their personal network where they got their amazing shots done. Everyone will want  that unique advantage of being able to see and share their photos instantly.

You will soon find that by using Mobile marketing you are not only giving your consumer a quick preview of what you are offering, but also allowing them to help build a growing client base for you by engaging them in a variety of unique ways, whether it’s contests, discounts, etc. I have shown a couple examples of what some studios have done.

You can create an easy sign up page so that new clients can enter their contact information and quickly come to you directly. You can even schedule messages for automatic future delivery time at selected times to keep your customers engaged.

Mobile Marketing also offers some additional photographically tuned features, like Mobile Voting, where you run a contest and have people text in to vote for their favorite portrait or image. It allows you access to appointment reminders, not just for you, the photographer, but also for your customer as well. This way there will be less of a chance for forgotten or late appointments. It’s an easy and unique way to send out automated appointment or session reminders via simple text messages.

During WPPI this week, I saw two of the H&H Color Lab speakers making significant use of these technologies.  Kirk Voclain used it to promote an offer to people who want to join his Pro4Um site.  In addition, once people signed up for his forum, he used it to communicate directly with them during the WPPI show itself.

H&H Color Lab is also using mobile to help photographers streamline other parts of their business, including the iPhone and Android apps you can use to check the status of orders in the photo lab.

Scott and Adina Hayne are also using it to great advantage. Here is a quick video from their WPPI-U presentation, showing how they rely on Mobile Marketing in their photography business:

Kirk, Scott and Adina are all using an application called itextphoto.  As a result of their success, I signed up for a membership myself and am planning on giving it a try.  It’s pretty simple since all you have to do to get started is text your studio name to 69302…and you are on your way to a whole new way of promoting your photography!

Mobile Marketing…it’s going to become the next biggest “thing” in studio marketing as we know it. Check out itextphoto.com for more information, or call them directly 1.800.605.5131

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 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.

Today we’d like to offer a guest blog post, written by Teri Ritter, of Teri Ritter Photography.  Teri has been in business for 10 years in San Diego, CA and Dexter, MI, specializing in families, seniors, and babies.  Teri is also a Marketing Consultant and enjoys sharing marketing ideas and plans which boost the bottom line for professional photographers everywhere.  Today, Teri talks to us about finding inspiration.

Everybody is very busy this time of year and burnout is running rampant. For the next couple of months it is pedal to the metal.  However, I challenge you to take the time to find some inspiration to make this a brighter time of year.  Not so nerve wracking, but more fulfilling for you and your business.

1. Start an inspiration notebook TODAY.  

You have old notebooks sitting around.  Just put a label on it and christen it My Inspiration Notebook.   Now, when you look through a magazine and see an image that touches you or inspires you, tear it out and throw it into your inspiration notebook.   Do the same with quotes, cool marketing pieces, and anything that you see, touch or feel that inspires you.  It all goes into the notebook.  Periodically (at least once a month) sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and peruse your inspiration notebook.  Challenge yourself to incorporate methods, products, sets, and lighting into your world. (more…)

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 our photo lab and has put together this video tutorial for us, explaining how to search Facebook and Twitter.