Social Media Marketing for Photographers // Photography + Community

I’m a big fan of WordPress as a blogging platform, and I highly recommend the Thesis theme for anyone wanting to get up and running with a search-engine-friendly, powerful system that can be customized and extended.

When choosing a theme, there are three general options:

• Use a free theme
• Hire a designer/developer to build a theme from scratch
• Purchase a premium theme

Free themes have the downside of being of variable quality, and support is often lacking when something goes wrong. Hiring a designer to build a completely custom theme is a good idea, but it can get quite spendy if you find someone who does a thorough job. Thesis is a premium theme but it’s quite affordable (a single blog license is less than $90), and features a ton of powerful options that aren’t found in the vast range of free themes.

Why Thesis

Here are what I feel are the key benefits to thesis and how they can help a photographer:

• SEO is Built-in: Thesis was designed with search engine optimization in mind. Having these features built into the theme mean that extra plugins aren’t needed to help you boost your ranking in Google.
• Many design options can be set via an easy admin panel: Choose one column or up to three. Set the column sizes. Decide if you want to feature a rotating photo gallery. Choose which pages to display in a navigation menu (or add links that aren’t even part of your site). All of these options are set graphically without writing any code.
• Excellent support: There’s a VERY active user community. I recently dropped in on the customization forum and found more than 40 different design/customization topics… and that was just in the past hour. The official Thesis support staff respond to inquiries in a timely manner, offering tips, suggestions, or bugfixes as needed.
• Active development: Thesis is under active development, with new releases a few times a year offering enhanced features. As an example, Thesis 1.6 will be the next version and it will include a bunch of new options for menus and navigations.

Overall, for someone who isn’t a PHP developer, Thesis provides a great value, paying for itself many times over in the amount of time saved over either learning to write code or hiring someone to do the same. Check out Thesis and kick your WordPress website up a notch.

This post features affiliate links.

Tagged as:
blogging,
themes,
thesis,
wordpress,
wordpress themes

Image management in WordPress changes with version 2.9 (due to be released in the next few days). Basic photo manipulation tools have been added as part of the core WordPress functionality. You can now crop, resize, flip, and rotate images from within WordPress (without any plugins).

Here’s a tour of the new image manipulation features of WordPress 2.9… note that this will best be viewed fullscreen (or at a larger size than the embedded widget):

While you won’t stop using Photoshop or Lightroom with these features, for those times when a quick/dirty image is needed in a blog post, I expect the new features will make things a lot easier for bloggers.

Tagged as:
blogging,
screencasts,
wordpress,
wordpress 2.9

WordPress 3.0 is the newest release of my favorite blogging software. The new release includes an all-new easy-to-use menu system, more options for theme customization, a lighter admin interface with more contextual help, and more. You can download it directly or upgrade your existing install.

I’m sure I’ll write more in depth about specific elements of the new features, but in the meantime you can take a quick video tour of WordPress 3.0 (hit the icon in the lower right to embiggen the video):

Are you diving into WordPress 3? Are you going to wait a bit before upgrading your sites?

Tagged as:
blogging,
thelonius,
videos,
wordpress,
wordpress 3.0

As a photographer, one question that I get asked frequently is which DSLR is a good choice for a beginner who wants to buy a camera. Although there’s not a single correct answer, here are some things to keep in mind.

Brand

I recommend either Canon on Nikon. Those two companies have something like 90% of the market share. While Sony, Olympus, and Pentax make good cameras, for someone who is likely to have a lot of questions, those questions will be easier to answer with a Canon or Nikon system. Either Canon or Nikon will produce great images… so which should you choose? I suggest that folks consider two factors. If you have existing SLR lenses, check and see if they’re compatible with Nikon or Canon’s systems. If they are, that’s a strong reason to stick with your brand. Another thing to consider is if your friends primarily use a given brand, it will be easier to get questions answered or possibly borrow lenses.

Price

Getting serious with photography with a DSLR is going to cost a significant amount of money. That said, I don’t advocate for a beginner to immediately drop a few thousand dollars on top-of-the-line gear. Before spending TOO much money, I recommend a more affordable system until one decides just how serious they’re going to be about their photography.

An important consideration is that when it comes to image quality, the lenses (casually referred to as “glass”) are as important, if not more important, than the camera body. Keep this in mind when budgeting for equipment. Don’t go buy a $2,000 body and then put on a $200 lens. My recommendation is to get one of relatively inexpensive “lower end” DSLRs to learn with, and get some decent lenses with the plan that the lenses will outlast the camera when (and if) you eventually upgrade to a fancier body in the future.

Key Features: Which Numbers Matter

This is going to contradict what a lot of retailers would like you to think, but megapixels are irrelevant. All of the DSLRs on the market have more than enough megapixels to create good-sized prints or enlargements, so unless you’re going bigger 16×20, don’t worry about the number of megapixels. All of the DSLRs will work in an automatic mode as well as allowing manual adjustments of things such as shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, and even ISO.

As you move up in price with DSLRs, you’ll gain better low light sensitivity, a faster frame rate (number of photos per second), more external buttons and knobs, and the option to record video.

For a beginner, the entry-level cameras will really teach you everything you need to know, and you won’t gain anything significant by moving up a level.

Where to Buy?

You’ll find the best deals online, but beware of too-good-to-be-true deals… there are a lot of shady folks that sell “gray market” imported cameras for what seem to be dirt cheap prices until you realize they’ll upsell you on all sorts of unnecessary accessories.

If you’re going to buy online, I recommend Amazon or B&H Photo.

If you’d like to get your hands on a camera and purchase from a retail establishment, talk with local photographers and find the best brick-and-mortar store in your area. I live near Portland, Oregon and really like Pro Photo Supply. A photography store with knowledgeable sales staff will give you a much better experience than a nationwide big box retailer.

Conclusions: What Should You Buy?

If you’re going to go Canon, my recommendation would be the Canon Digital Rebel XSi (Amazon, B&H). For Nikon shooters, take a look at the Nikon D3000 (Amazon, B&H). Either one of those options will give you a decent camera body with an 18-55mm starter lens for less than $600.

Get a camera and start taking photos. Either of the ones I recommended will take great photos, and despite what some equipment brand-zealots might tell you, the quality of photographs will depend far more on the technical and artistic talent of the photographer than the particular model of camera being used.

The links above represent my affiliation with vendors that I use and recommend. Purchasing via these links will result in me getting a (small) commission supports this site. Thanks!

These other posts might be of interest to you:

1. Great Camera & Photography Deals for Father’s Day
2. Pro Photographers Won’t Use In-Camera HDR

Tagged as:
amazon,
b&h photo,
cameras,
canon,
d3000,
digital rebel,
nikon,
photography,
rebel xsi,
xsi

If you’re new here, you can keep up with my latest photography information at Picture Pundit – subscribe to my newsletter for a FREE Report: A Guide to Twitter for Photographers.

While listening to a recent podcast, Jack Hollingsworth (@photojack) made the comment that “finished is better than perfect.” I’m not sure if he invented that line, but I like it. It’s a theory that definitely applies in many situations… such as a photographer dipping their toe into the waters of a new social service or venture.

For Jack, it was about blogging. For me, I’m currently in the midst of a new web presence for my photography business (including my general website/information, my blog, and my galleries for image sales and client proof review). Is it better to wait until the whole thing is perfect and then reveal it to the public, or does it make sense to bring each upgraded component online as they’re available?

I’m going with the latter. Yes, I’ll make sure that there aren’t broken links or anything that seems overly disjointed, but it’s better to get something out there faster than to be absent from a space entirely (or be represented by a site/service that doesn’t do justice to your services).

Are you avoiding something because you’re waiting for perfect? Holding off on a Facebook fan page since you aren’t sure how to get it quite right? Absent from Twitter since you don’t know who you’ll tweet with? Ignoring your blog for lack of the perfect post topic?

Do you need some specific suggestions on how to get going? Want someone to look at your current situation and give you some concrete things to build or steps to take?

I can help.

Photo by SantaRosa OLD SKOOL, used under Creative Commons licensing

These other posts might be of interest to you:

1. Schedule Your Tweets? Should You? How To?
2. How Many Times do you Tweet Links to Blog Posts?

Tagged as:
photographers,
social media

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be covering a bit about statistics… the results of measuring traffic to a blog or website. Before we get into specifics of what the numbers mean (or even what software should be used to measure them), let’s start at the beginning and define a goal.

Generally having more visitors to one’s blog or website is good, but beyond that it’s hard to dive into statistics without knowing the purpose of the site. Are you using your website primarily to gain new clients? If so, you’ll want to make sure that folks can view your work, find your contact information, and take the next step to obtaining your services.

Are you using your site primarily as a showcase of your work? In that case, driving folks to the contact page might not be as important, but rather you’ll be concerned with whether or not visitors are reaching all areas of your site and spending a decent length of time before browsing away.

Are you using your site to post articles that will provide information for folks about a particular subject? You’ll probably end up being concerned about how well your site is doing with long term search engine traffic for those topics.

Think a bit about the main purpose of your site… what’s your goal?. Later this week we’ll continue our look at stats and analytics by comparing a few popular software packages.

Photo by DRB62, used under Creative Commons licensing

Tagged as:
analytics,
stats,
traffic,
webstats

It’s time for another installment of our series on web statistics and what they can mean to a photographer. We talked about about web statistics goals, looked at web statistics software, and asked what hits, bounce rates, and unique visitors mean. Today we’re going to look at referrers, exit pages, and outbound links.

Referrers

Referrers (sometimes misspelled referers, to match a misspelling in the actual web specification) are the web pages that are driving traffic to your website. When a visitor arrives on your site because they clicked a link on another site, the URL of that other site is recorded by your stats software as the referrer. If someone does a Google search and clicks on your site in the results, you’ll see google.com in your referrers list. If they clicked a link on your Flickr profile to get to your site, you’ll see flickr.com as the referrer.

Referrers are important for a couple of reasons. First, when you see a referrer you don’t recognize, it probably means that someone linked to your site, and it’s worth checking out the page. The other use for referrers is to know (over a time period) where most of your traffic is coming from. If you’re spending a lot of time on a particular forum in order to drive traffic to your site but find that it has only sent you three hits in a month, you might rethink that strategy.

Exit Pages

Exit pages are the opposite of entrance (landing) pages. Exit pages indicate where a visitor was on your site immediately before they left. It can be interesting to know where people are leaving your site from. Sometimes you might want to look at the top exit pages and figure out why they’re driving people away.

Outbound Links

If your analytics program can track specific outbound links, not only will you know which page they were on, but you’ll be able to know precisely which link they’re clicking.

Wrapping it Up

With the various web statistics blog posts thus far, we’ve talked about quite a few metrics and what they mean. Next week, we’ll talk about one more specific statistic (search terms) and then start bringing it all together to increase traffic, leads, and readership.

Photo by AMagill, used under Creative Commons licensing

Tagged as:
analytics,
exit pages,
outbound links,
referrers,
webstats

We previously talked about understanding goals before worrying about web statistics. Let’s talk about another bit of infrastructure before we dive into numbers next week. If you’re going to record statistics for your website or blog, you’ll need some sort of software. All web servers record basic information about who is visiting your site such as their IP address and web browser, but to track more interesting information you’ll need some sort of advanced stats software. There are quite a few players in the market but today we’ll look at a few of the most popular.

Google Analytics is the most popular free statistics package. You’ll install a bit of javascript into your website (there are plugins for popular systems such as WordPress), and Google will start tracking all sorts of information about who is visiting your site, which pages they’re visiting, how they got there, and how long they’re hanging around. The upside to Google Analytics is that it’s free and offers a lot of information, the downside is that it can require some customization to find the useful information on their dashboard and it can’t be extended.

Woopra is a relatively new player in the game, offering real-time web tracking and analysis. Woopra offers a very rich visual experience to see your web traffic by using a desktop client that runs on your computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux). There’s also a more basic view available on the Woopra website. Like Google Analytics, Woopra is free, and is tightly integrated with WordPress. Woopra looks great, but my observations have been that they’re still working out some bugs in their relatively new product.

My statistics program of choice for this site and my Portland event photography site is Mint. Unlike Google Analytics and Woopra, Mint is commercial software that costs $30 per site. Mint is focused on offering stats with a “what’s happening recently” focus, and slicing and dicing your visitor data in any number of ways. The best part about Mint is that it has an active developer community in which anyone can write new modules (called “Pepper”) which add new functionality to the system. The core Mint software tracks the basics, but the various Pepper can track things like bounce rate, trends over time, and offer graphical displays instead of Mint’s default table-based data presentation. The only downsides to Mint are that it’s not as widely integrated with other systems as Google Analytics, and that it’s not free (although if you’re serious about your website or blog, a one-time $30 fee is hardly a big expense).

Our next look at stats will start by looking at some of the basic numbers that should matter to a photographer who is publishing on the web.

Photo by kevinzhengli, used under Creative Commons licensing

Tagged as:
google analytics,
haveamint,
mint,
stats,
webstats,
woopra

While at BlogWorld last month I chatted with Eugene Lee from TubeMogul. As a TubeMogul guy, he knows all about online video and offered up a tip for photographers who put video online:

Thanks for the tip, Eugene!

Tagged as:
metadata,
seo,
tubemogul,
video

If you’re new here, you can keep up with my latest photography information at Picture Pundit – subscribe to my newsletter for a FREE Report: A Guide to Twitter for Photographers.

When someone needs to hire a photographer, how do they find one? Regardless of whether it’s for a wedding, corporate material, senior pictures, sporting event, or editorial need, they probably follow this path:

1. A photographer they have previously hired.
2. A referral from a trusted source.
3. Someone they personally know who is a photographer.
4. Someone they don’t know personally, but is known as being proficient as a photographer.
5. A cold call based on the photography results of a search (search engine, etc).
6. A cold call to a random search result.

Five years ago, your position on that list was dictated by your past clientele and your physical activities – what events and groups you’d travel to, and where you’d devote dedicated time to build your network a few people at a time.

Fast-forward to our current environment. Social media such as Twitter and Facebook can help you end up in the number two spot on that list. A few days ago at Beer and Blog, I had a conversation with a real estate professional, talking with her about using Twitter to build relationships. By following local folks on Twitter, learning a bit about them (and sharing a bit about yourself), you’ll develop some personal connections. If you’re also sharing some of your photography experiences, those people will get to know you as someone that produces great pictures.

This is the value in the casual conversations on Twitter and Facebook. While sharing about your family, your hobbies, or your feelings won’t directly sell any photography services, you’ll be laying the foundation to build relationships. When your contacts start thinking about photography, instead of picking a name based on a Google search, they’ll come to you. When others mention needing a photographer, your contacts will refer those people to you.

And then, after you’ve won the business due to the social media referral, you’ll end up at the top spot on that list. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Photo by Horia Varlan, used under Creative Commons licensing

These other posts might be of interest to you:

1. Build Relationships Before the Sale
2. How Much Time Should a Photographer Spend on Social Media?
3. Social Media Tips Roundup for Photographers

Tagged as:
facebook,
influence,
relationships,
social media,
trust,
Twitter