Use Social Media to Grow Your Business, says Carrie Wildes wedding photographer + social media diva. Carrie demonstrated how she uses social media as a marketing tool attract clients and market herself:
- she blogs about the events and people she photographs to generate buzz
- she posts "thank you" emails she receives from clients and vendors
- she pays attention to keywords (keywords depend on your business, of cohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifurse)
- she created a Google business profile (it's free)
- experiment with all social media platforms: Word Press, Twitter, Facebook, Squarespace, etc.
- she uses a blogsite as her website
- she uses hyperlinks and tags to rank her SEO
- she also uses her blogsite as her working photography archive- keywording makes even more sense now :)
- she creates photo galleries on Facebook, tags the subjects in the photo and through a link she redirects those interested to read more about the event and the subjects on her website!
But she agrees, using social media as a marketing tool takes a lot of time. It is well worth it for her and she schedules blogging and Facebooking into her work.
If you plan to follow her path, you should learn to manage your workflow and your time. She religiously blogs and monitors her Google ranking- you should do the same because it is fun and FREE!
I also suggest you follow other photographers to learn how they use social media for branding and creating a buzz!
Thank you Carrie Wildes for sharing the information and spreading your love for photography at the Menaul Gallery. I am looking forward to attending your next workshop on social media on June 6th at the Menaul Gallery in Clearwater! Special thanks to Jerri and Scott Menaul for hosting these workshops.
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Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Social Media – How do I use SM? Part 4
How do I use SM?
I have worked with the Web Developers Network at USF to develop my website (the website is a work in progress). Thanks Luqmaan Dawoodje for your hard work!!!!! My focus was to create a website that looks different than the other ones, to showcase my work for employment purposes. After looking at competitive websites, I ended up using a user friendly layout because of the simple navigation and functionality. The content is easy to update in PageLime.
Bottom line, messages have to be relevant and consistent to engage and keep the audience for a long time. It means a lot to me that because of one tweet I had 20 views for my last photo album posted on Flickr in less than two minutes!
How do you measure success in social media?
I measure success in the number of followers and in the business I generate. I use Google Analytics and Klout to measure the effectiveness of my communication and the users’ influence.
I started using social media more than a year ago as a curious media student. I now have 236 followers on Twitter and 440 friends on Facebook. I did not intend to recruit an audience, I just wanted to learn to use social media. However, I realize that numbers don’t mean much, and success in social media is a long-term endeavor. In my case, using web analytics and monetizing my website are secondary because my goal is to showcase my work.
I have worked with the Web Developers Network at USF to develop my website (the website is a work in progress). Thanks Luqmaan Dawoodje for your hard work!!!!! My focus was to create a website that looks different than the other ones, to showcase my work for employment purposes. After looking at competitive websites, I ended up using a user friendly layout because of the simple navigation and functionality. The content is easy to update in PageLime.
Bottom line, messages have to be relevant and consistent to engage and keep the audience for a long time. It means a lot to me that because of one tweet I had 20 views for my last photo album posted on Flickr in less than two minutes!
How do you measure success in social media?
I measure success in the number of followers and in the business I generate. I use Google Analytics and Klout to measure the effectiveness of my communication and the users’ influence.
I started using social media more than a year ago as a curious media student. I now have 236 followers on Twitter and 440 friends on Facebook. I did not intend to recruit an audience, I just wanted to learn to use social media. However, I realize that numbers don’t mean much, and success in social media is a long-term endeavor. In my case, using web analytics and monetizing my website are secondary because my goal is to showcase my work.
Social Media – 3 Free Tools to Grow Your Business- Part 1
As I promised last week, here are my comments about Alan Brusky's presentation about social media. Alan is the Founder and Creative Director of Fireleaf Design and an excellent speaker on social media and more. Please follow him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and on Flickr because you can learn more from this dude who is also a brilliant photographer!
The power of social media is unreal. Today social media is part of communication and institutions need to integrate new communication tools into their marketing and recruitment strategy along with online media (web presence through promotional videos/news stories on the institution’s website) and traditional media (including newspapers, TV and radio, direct mailing). The goal is to network, interact, collaborate, and attract a global audience, including a technologically sophisticated audience who uses social media. I noticed most institutions, including USF employ social media tools for marketing and recruitment. USF is also present on iTunesU with a lot of free educational podcasts, including the podcast I created, Multimedia Tips , a podcast pn technology and media, USF students and professors, and local photogs who use technology and media effectively in communication.
Unlike the one way communication in traditional media, social media means interactive communication through multiple channels. The key is to keep interacting, collaborating and networking with other people. Social media if fast and cheap, and it pays off if messages are clear, consistent, and engaging.
This is the basic model some companies are implementing to generate most of their business through social media. Successful businesses are strobist.com that relies on online advertising and Creativelive. This last one is an online education platform that relies heavily on social media to spread the word about their courses in photography, video and web design. The best photographers and videographers offer workshops and courses online. Workshops are free if the audience watches them online live because the organizers realized the power of tweets. A local example is Rafael Concepcion (RC) from the Kelby Media Group who sold his last book in a couple of days on Amazon thanks to the retweets on Twitter. RC uses his audience on Twitter (he has about 6,300 followers) to branch out to his other businesses (books and workshops). In addition, Columbia Journalism School has built on social media and has created social media courses and workshops. The dean of student affairs at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, Sree Sreenivasan’s free panels on new media on BlogTalkRadio circulate the name of this institution to a global audience and impact student recruitment.
The power of social media is unreal. Today social media is part of communication and institutions need to integrate new communication tools into their marketing and recruitment strategy along with online media (web presence through promotional videos/news stories on the institution’s website) and traditional media (including newspapers, TV and radio, direct mailing). The goal is to network, interact, collaborate, and attract a global audience, including a technologically sophisticated audience who uses social media. I noticed most institutions, including USF employ social media tools for marketing and recruitment. USF is also present on iTunesU with a lot of free educational podcasts, including the podcast I created, Multimedia Tips , a podcast pn technology and media, USF students and professors, and local photogs who use technology and media effectively in communication.
Unlike the one way communication in traditional media, social media means interactive communication through multiple channels. The key is to keep interacting, collaborating and networking with other people. Social media if fast and cheap, and it pays off if messages are clear, consistent, and engaging.
This is the basic model some companies are implementing to generate most of their business through social media. Successful businesses are strobist.com that relies on online advertising and Creativelive. This last one is an online education platform that relies heavily on social media to spread the word about their courses in photography, video and web design. The best photographers and videographers offer workshops and courses online. Workshops are free if the audience watches them online live because the organizers realized the power of tweets. A local example is Rafael Concepcion (RC) from the Kelby Media Group who sold his last book in a couple of days on Amazon thanks to the retweets on Twitter. RC uses his audience on Twitter (he has about 6,300 followers) to branch out to his other businesses (books and workshops). In addition, Columbia Journalism School has built on social media and has created social media courses and workshops. The dean of student affairs at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, Sree Sreenivasan’s free panels on new media on BlogTalkRadio circulate the name of this institution to a global audience and impact student recruitment.
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