As I promised last week, here are more comments about Alan Brusky's presentation. 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!
How do I use SM? I am using social media as a student, freelance multimedia journalist, and educator to join professional groups, network, get involved with local organizations and projects, and more. I do believe that all platforms of social media have a different purpose and audience. For instance, I am using Twitter to do research (using keywords) and find experts in a field. I tweet about my work and I also interact with other professionals. I post my own content (and make it more specific by including hastags and links, I ask my audience to retweet it and give me feedback on my content), I try to follow people who interact with my tweets, retweet other people’s content if I find the information is relevant in my field, post polls, and organize contests. I promote professionals, workshops, and businesses so that I can get mentioned in their tweets too. I also focus on branding, I promote my freelance business by posting my work on Facebook and on Flickr. But I do not pay for advertising and I do not post “buy one, get one free” deals.I like Twitter because it is instantaneous and I can reach a lot of people fast.
I am using LinkedIn for networking purposes and I am using Facebook to post my pictures and interact with friends and clients. Since most of my work is media, Facebook is an ideal platform for visual content. My purpose is to get people go to my website, look at my work and then spread the word and recommend me as a journalist or photographer to their audience.
I do believe content is king both in traditional and social media. Multimedia is the essential tool to attract an audience. Telling compelling stories using the cross channel media approach keeps the audience growing and coming back.
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Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
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.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Simple Flash Photography
I noticed that I got caught up on lighting gear lately- beauty dish, softbox, umbrella, etc. Lighting is fun but how about going back to the bare minimum? Yes, the bare flash. I forgot that a bare flash mimics the sunlight so I went out yesterday and shot some pictures of Nicoleta in St. Petersburg.
I dragged out all of my gear from the car, 6 flashes, lighstands, reflectors.... and then I suddenly decided to use one bare flash for the whole night.
Here are some pictures that demonstrate that sometimes going back to ONE bare flash can become a fun experiment. Since I am using an SB600 on a lightstand, I need no triggers for the flash.
Here is a great and SIMPLE tutorial by Chuck Arlund on how to use one basic flash to improve your photography (read the comments posted too).
To read more about Nikon's CLS system, click here.
I put the flash on a flash stand instead of the flash gun (monopod) and placed it in different angles to create different lighting effects. Unlike Chuck Arlund, I used no reflector, just one flash (1/200th is my syncspeed). I also used one lens- Nikon 50mm, 1.8- this lens is sharp!
To see Nicoleta's other shots, click here.
Some of the shots (Nicoleta wearing a white shirt) were taken with the 3 lighting set up (one beauty dish to the right or left of the camera, one flash to the right of the subject and the other flash was on the left side of the subject).
Friday, January 29, 2010
On the Photography Business
When is Cheap to Cheap and Expensive to Expensive?
Recent posts about undercutting the business flared up all over the internet. Scott Bourne photographer's post is here.
In a nutshell, know your market as a photographer and as a buyer. I have no problem that some "photographers" take photos for free or cheap because if the buyer/client takes a look at their portfolios and recent works. Then the buyers may realize that they get what they pay for. Most photographers work VERY hard for their shots and post production work. Not counting their investment in the equipment, workshops and years of experience. I think they should be paid better because of their expertise. But I guess the market is big enough for those who want/and can afford to do work for free/cheap and photographers who make a living from photography. To read more about the “Ferrari Salesman” or a “Kia Salesman” market go here.
So When is Cheap to Cheap and Expensive to Expensive? I guess at the end the client gets what he/she paid for.
Recent posts about undercutting the business flared up all over the internet. Scott Bourne photographer's post is here.
In a nutshell, know your market as a photographer and as a buyer. I have no problem that some "photographers" take photos for free or cheap because if the buyer/client takes a look at their portfolios and recent works. Then the buyers may realize that they get what they pay for. Most photographers work VERY hard for their shots and post production work. Not counting their investment in the equipment, workshops and years of experience. I think they should be paid better because of their expertise. But I guess the market is big enough for those who want/and can afford to do work for free/cheap and photographers who make a living from photography. To read more about the “Ferrari Salesman” or a “Kia Salesman” market go here.
So When is Cheap to Cheap and Expensive to Expensive? I guess at the end the client gets what he/she paid for.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Common Mistakes in Photography
Every photographer makes mistakes. But we all get to see their best pictures. That's also something to remind ourselves about. I will keep adding to the list so check back soon.
1. Crooked Horizon
This is the worst mistake I make. Crooked horizon can be easily corrected using the measure tool in Photoshop. These are the BEFORE pictures (these are HDRs but I will talk about them in another post).
And here are the AFTER images. The images were corrected in Photoshop using the ruler tool. This tool is in the dropbox containing the eyedropper tool, I dragged a straight line across the picture and then I selected the image rotation tool from the image menu. The image rotation tool has an "arbitrary" option. If you select this option Photoshop will use the line you put on the picture as a straight horizon. Then click enter and voila, you have a straight horizon. You are ready now to crop the image and save it.
1. Crooked Horizon
This is the worst mistake I make. Crooked horizon can be easily corrected using the measure tool in Photoshop. These are the BEFORE pictures (these are HDRs but I will talk about them in another post).
And here are the AFTER images. The images were corrected in Photoshop using the ruler tool. This tool is in the dropbox containing the eyedropper tool, I dragged a straight line across the picture and then I selected the image rotation tool from the image menu. The image rotation tool has an "arbitrary" option. If you select this option Photoshop will use the line you put on the picture as a straight horizon. Then click enter and voila, you have a straight horizon. You are ready now to crop the image and save it.
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