190 – socialphototalk.com

Perhaps you didn’t listen to me last month when I reviewed Trust Agents and recommended that you read it. It’s okay, I won’t take it (too) personally. I really think that anyone using social media should read it, so I’m offering up a chance to win a copy.

Here’s how to enter, along with a few quick rules:

Everyone who is subscribed to the Social Photo Talk e-newsletter gets one entry into the contest. If you’re already subscribed, you’re already entered. If you’re not yet subscribed, sign up now.
Everyone who leaves a comment on this blog post gets an entry into the contest. Be sure to leave your actual name and email address since that’s how I’ll contact you if you win!
Everyone who is a fan of Social Photo Talk on Facebook gets an entry into the contest. If you’re already a fan, you’re already entered.
Yes, this means that if you subscribe to the newsletter, are a fan on Facebook, and leave a comment, you get three entries in the contest. Anyone can have up to three entries. I’ll take all of the entries, put ‘em in a big list, use a random number generator, and randomly choose the winner.
The winner will receive a brand new copy of Trust Agents sent directly to their location. I’ll cover the shipping costs, but you need to provide a shipping address that can be serviced by Amazon.com.
A winner will be chosen this coming Sunday (December 20th) and announced one week from today (next Monday the 21st).

Easy, right? Leave a comment, subscribe to our newsletter, and/or become a fan on Facebook and you might win a copy of Trust Agents.

Photo by Affiliate, used under Creative Commons licensing

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Trust Agents: A Must-Read Book for Photographers Doing Business

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When you first heard about Twitter, you probably wondered why the heck anyone would care about the answer to “What are you doing right now?” If you’ve used Twitter and developed some relationships, you probably realized that the connections go way beyond folks sharing what they’re having for lunch.

I want to hear your Twitter story in a couple sentences, of what you thought it would be like when you joined and then what you’ve found Twitter to actually be once you’ve used it for a while. I’ll select a couple commenters at random; one will win a Luma Loop camera strap (size medium – $60 value) and the other will get one year of Flickr Pro ($25 value). Winners will be announced next Monday (June 7th), so leave a comment soon!

Please share… what’s been your Twitter experience when compared with your expectations?

Photo by kl-Ga, used under Creative Commons licensing

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Tagged as:
contests,
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luma loop,
Twitter

One of the posts I wrote the first month of Social Photo Talk’s existence was about what I thought was the right way to handle contests on Twitter. /contests-on-twitter/

I’d like to rescind that earlier opinion. I was wrong. Contests have no place on Twitter. They’re really damn spammy and it makes your followers look bad.

When you require folks to tweet about your contest as a method to enter said contest., you’re asking them to spam their friends and followers with an advertisement for your business or service. Would you ask them to send an email to everyone in their email address book? Would you require them to call every person in their phone listing and tell them about your contest? No… you wouldn’t, because that would instantly be seen as overly pushy.

Your followers have opted into hearing your message. Their followers have not. Asking your followers to spam their followers is, well, spammy. Don’t do it. Don’t be that guy.

Photo by freezelight, used under Creative Commons licensing

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Tagged as:
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spam,
Twitter

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Episode 6 of the Social Photo Podcast is ready. Hosts Aaron Hockley and Lyza Danger Gardner talk about photo sharing with family, WordPress 2.9, a contest, and a couple fun new sites for photographers’ amusement. This episode is around 10 minutes.

Links to Things We Talk About

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We’re now on iTunes – if you use iTunes, you can subscribe using this link: Subscribe on iTunes

You can also find the podcast as an attachment to the main Social Photo Talk RSS Feed. You should see a player at the bottom of this post if you want to listen directly, or you can grab the Episode 6 mp3 file directly.

Feedback

We’d love to have your feedback – technical, content, or otherwise. Leave a comment here or send mail to [email protected] – thanks!

Photo by Antigone78, used under Creative Commons licensing

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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.

As part of the Social Photo Talk Facebook group, yesterday evening a random group member was selected to win three months of Flickr Pro. The winner is Nick Church (aka @schnik) – congratulations! I’ll be contacting you with the code for your free Flickr Pro.

Also, if you’ve been wondering about signing up for the Social Photo Talk newsletter, now would be a great time. I’ve got one queued up and ready to be sent out tomorrow with some great content… enter your email address in the form on the upper left corner of our website, or go directly to the quick signup form.

Photo by Gret@Lorenz, used under Creative Commons licensing

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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.

One year ago, I launched Social Photo Talk. Since then, thousands of readers have viewed hundreds of articles. I’d like to say thank you for your participation and for sharing Social Photo Talk with your friends and colleagues. It’s been great to interact with you online as well as those of you’ve I met in person at various events.

Last week, I asked for feedback on your Twitter expectations. I’m pleased to announce that Mike and Kathleen McDade have been randomly chosen from the commenters on that post to win prizes. I’ll be in contact with them privately to work out delivery arrangements.

As I look towards the second year of this site, I foresee much of the same as well as broadening into some new topics. In addition to the topics of social media and new media marketing, I plan to occasionally talk about other photography subjects that don’t fall into the “taking of the picture” category. We may spend a bit more time looking at post-processing and the business of photography.

Again, thanks.

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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.

From December 25th through January 5th, I’m running a series called the Twelve Days of Tips-Mas, offering quick and easy tips for social media use by photographers.

On the eleventh day of Tips-Mas, this blogger said to thee: give something away. As a photographer, give something away every now and then to those who are connected with you via your blog, Facebook, or Twitter. Perhaps it’s a contest and someone will win a free photoshoot. Maybe you want to extend a discount coupon to all of your Facebook fans. People love free things, and you’ll end up getting some word of mouth publicity by giving away something that’s valuable to your fans.

Photo by tiffanywashko, used under Creative Commons licensing

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Contests are a popular use of social media. I’ve blogged about my thoughts on contests on Twitter, run a couple contests here on Social Photo Talk, and used Twitter and Facebook to drive traffic to my contests. Yesterday it came to my attention that Facebook has recently updated their Promotions Guidelines, which set the rules by which Facebook members can conduct promotions and contests using the service. I learned a lot – if you’re going to use Facebook in any way for a contest or promotion, read on.

Head over to check out the Facebook Promotions Guidelines; I’m not a lawyer; what follows is my personal interpretation and opinion.

“You may not administer any promotion through Facebook, except… with our prior written approval.” Yes, that’s right. Facebook requires that any promotion on Facebook be approved by Facebook, in writing.
Users may only enter promotions on Facebook in two places: “On the canvas Page of an application on the Facebook Platform” and “On an application box in a tab on a Facebook Page.” Contest entries that use Facebook status updates or any sort of wall posting are forbidden.
All promotions need to include language that the promotion is not endorsed by Facebook. I’ll leave it as an exercise for a lawyer to figure out how they can both require Facebook approval and then require a statement that they’re not endorsing the promotion.
“You do not need our prior written approval if you are publicizing a promotion that is administered completely off of Facebook.” If you’re not actually running the contest on Facebook, it would seem that you don’t need approval, but…
Contests can’t include entry by “taking any action on Facebook, for example, updating a status, posting on a profile or Page, or uploading a photo. You may, however, condition entry to the promotion upon becoming a fan of a Page.” The only thing allowed, it seems, is asking for fandom.
They wrap things up with a disclaimer with loopholes as wide as Texas: “We may modify these Promotion Guidelines at any time without notice to you. You will subject to the most current version of these Promotion Guidelines then in effect.”

Read the entire set of guidelines and choose to proceed at your own risk. Like many things with Facebook, it’s worth weighing if the benefit of the reach of their platform outweighs the risks of their overly-restrictive terms of service.

Were you previously aware of these rules? Will this change how you conduct business on Facebook?

Photo by Gauldo, used under Creative Commons licensing

Tagged as:
contests,
facebook,
promotions,
terms of service

Many companies have used Twitter as a medium for contests, which is fine. Some of those contests take the form of a “Retweet to win” contest, where folks become eligible by “retweeting” (reposting) a contest message to their followers. The theory is that those people then retweet, and it spreads in a viral nature. It sounds great in theory, until your Twitter friends list is filled with contest advertisements that you didn’t ask to see and your friends aren’t thinking about before posting.

When you’re participating in social media, it’s not about you. Stop, pause, and digest that: it’s not about you. This isn’t some crazy invention of mine; it’s what the leaders in online community management have been saying for quite a while. People like Dawn Foster and Tara Hunt. Tara likes to say to “turn the bullhorn around” and listen.

Let’s consider a couple different retweeting scenarios:

In the first scenario, you have a contest, and tweet out a link to your promotional piece. You ask people to retweet to win, and that’s what happens. Think about their followers… did they subscribe to receive promotional material from third parties (in this case, you)?
The other scenario is that you write great content (on Twitter, your blog, etc), tweet about it (without asking folks for a retweet), and see what happens. In general, good content will generate natural retweets. In this case, it’s your followers that are making the choice to retweet based on their own reasons and pass along your content to their followers.

In the first scenario, it’s all about you spreading your word. In the second scenario, it’s about your followers choosing to spread your word for you. Would you rather have non-coerced word of mouth?

Photo by heyitsRachel, used under Creative Commons licensing

Tagged as:
contests,
retweeting,
Twitter

Having a contest? Want to spread the word easily to a lot of people that are already networked with like-minded individuals? Twitter is a great format for spreading the words about contests and driving visitors to your site to enter. Although Twitter is a great tool when used in a respectful way, occasionally it’s used in ways that can actually drive folks away or sour them to your brand. As an example, a while back I talked about my annoyance with contests that urge folks to retweet to win.

I was pleased this week to see that photographer Scott Bourne has laid out his contest rules, and they include very reasonable entry instructions for Twitter. He encourages folks to tweet about the contest one time, and makes it clear that participants should not retweet multiple times (there’s no benefit to retweeting). I’ve given Scott some grief in the past over how he’s handled contests on Twitter, but I want to point to his current Twitter contests as a great example of how to do it right. It’s a great model that will allow your followers to spread the word about your contest but won’t be seen as an over-the-top or spamlike promotion.

Photo by alykat, used under Creative Commons licensing

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Social Media Marketing for Photographers // Photography + Community

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