If your goal is to gain a reputation as a great photographer, then
market yourself! Pursue every avenue you can. Success does not come from
just taking great photos. It's really about marketing yourself,
believing in yourself, and spreading good news. If you do that part of
the job well, your goals will be achievable. Try to push your personal
agenda forward a little each day.
1. Write - Writing tops my list of important ways to
market yourself. You might say that photographing is the most important
part. Well, I don't consider that the marketing part, that is the
product. So write, write, write... I've heard all the objections...I'm
not a good speller (use spell check), I don't have the time...(just jot
down things, tape record ideas, do it a little at a time, do it while
the memory is fresh).. I generally have a strong urge to write within a
few days of an event or very soon after an idea for an article comes to
me. It can just be a draft, but that's all that is needed to start. Post
your completed writings on your website... OR, use a service like www.typepad.com
. And blog, blog, blog.. These things all make you more Internet
attractive.
Your writing can certainly turn into worthwhile articles, especially
when supplemented by your images! www.writersmarket.com
is a searchable database of thousands of publications that look for
articles. Articles with photographs are more attractive to an editor.
It takes time to write and record your efforts. And, it is crucial that
it is typo-free and grammatically correct! I recently purchased and
downloaded a self-published book on-line. It is full of typos and really
turned me off. Put your very best foot forward when you market yourself.
If you aren't sure, ask a friend to read and critique your work.
Purchase a grammar guide.
If you want to grow your reputation, you must be organized and
disciplined. It's not all about playing with your camera.
2. Create slideshows - Do you
photograph events for pleasure, competition or family? Create a
slideshow and send a few to the organizers. School event? Send to the
Principal of the school.. Town event?...send to the town offices..
Always include branding slides and proper credits. Label them nicely and
send along with a professional looking letter. Again, creating shows
takes time. You want them to be perfect. There are many programs out
there, but ProShow Gold seems to be the most popular.
3. Provide a place to view and purchase your images on line.
www.printroom.com or www.backprint.com
are just two of the services I found. This is a service where you
can post event pictures and set the pricing to what you want to receive.
The service takes the orders from the customer, prints and ships the
orders to the customer, collects the money, takes their cut and sends
the rest to you. All you do is provide quality images. The trick here is
to get the audience to see these images. Find an event that does not
offer this service yet and present it to the coordinator. Remember, they
have nothing to lose and everything to gain by advertising your service
to their event participants. You are offering quality images of their
participation. The organizers should be very happy to advertise this in
their newsletters and on their website.
www.flickr.com is a very
popular place to post images and connect with other people. I use www.imageevent.com/
which is similar in some respects. I post all my regular images there. I
choose not to upload images that are large enough to copy and I chose
not to allow ordering of prints. The reason is I want to make profit on
selling photos. So, to me, image event is an advertising vehicle and a
family show area. I provide pointers to my website which backdoors into
the event gallery where images can be purchased, and I can make a
profit. Use avenues on the
Internet to increase your exposure.
| 4. Become known in your town. Did you get an
outstanding picture of a town event or something in the town?
Print it, mat it, frame it, and present it to the town. Or,
offer the image to an organization that is thanking the town.
For example, two of my images of the Greenway Challenge, an
athletic event that started in the town of Grafton, were
offered to the GC committee. They matted and framed them and
presented them to the Board of Selectman. Not only did my
images get some exposure, I attended the public meeting, took
a shot of them being presented. This was used by the GC
committee as a press release. |
Double exposure - Presented to the town and
Press Release to the newspapers!
|
Let it be known that you enjoy photographing local events. You will
soon be asked to become involved. My most recent request was to
photograph a holiday event at a local nursing home. Since
I actively use Step #2, I created a show and presented it to the
Nursing Home. My newest request is to photograph a child's church choir.
5. Local Access Cable channel - produce those town event shows
and get the guidelines of your town, send those shows to them. I've
contacted Millbury and have received their guidelines. They are waiting
for me to send them shows. I have one on a WWII Vets Dinner held at a
local high school, and two of athletic events that town residents were
likely part of.
6. Own a professional looking website - If your goals are similar
to mine, you must have a website. If you enjoy computers, learn how and
do it yourself. Or just start with an easy web page which you can do
with your email hosting service. Do your homework, research other sites
and decide what you want your site to reflect about you. Be sure it is
organized and easy to use. If you don't want to get involved with this,
find someone who can set it up for you. It can be simple, but make sure
it is attractive, organized and quick loading.
7. Make yourself 'bot'
friendly - Every time you publish something on the Internet you
provide food for Search Engines. Followers of this technology fondly
call the little programs that go out from Google and others, 'bots' and
'spiders'. They 'crawl' over the Internet continuously and bring back
new content to the parent search engine. This is how sites are ranked in
the natural, organic way. 'Bots' love certain things. They love content
that is changed and refreshed often. They love reciprocal linking which
means you put links on your site and sites link back to you, or you have
links within your own site from page to page. On this page alone, you'll
see quite a few links to other places. 'Bots' do not like to be tricked
with things like fake links, hidden trick keywords, etc. I won't get
into that level of 'geek' here, but suffice it to say putting your
images in different places, having a content rich website and using
reciprocal linking are going to make you easier to find on the web. For
example, Go to www.Google.com
and type in 'Rockdale flood' or 'Baby Shayne Arrives'. Or type in
'Michelle Fontaine'. You'll see what I mean. Use the Internet to push
your marketing exposure forward!
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. All these things inspire me and put
pressure on me to do what this is all about! Taking pictures!!! Because,
bottom line, that is the meat behind all of these ideas.
Good luck and see you near the next tripod hole! |
