First things first. I am anti-social. I do not like sharing details about me and I really do not care to hear about how your 3rd cousin twice removed had a bunion removed. However, I am realizing through reading and my wife's encouragement that the use of social media can be a great tool when implemented properly. Although I am not old, accepting change and new ideas becomes more difficult as I do get older. Another trait of mine is that I am very anal and believe that things should work the way I want them to work regardless of what the software engineer thinks I need.
The social networking sites are great for people who want to keep up with every person they ever knew and many they will never meet in person. I joined MySpace many years ago because Tammy needed another person in one of the games. I soon became addicted to a couple of the games myself and would go on quest to add complete strangers to my list of friends just to get to the next level. Then Tammy migrated to Facebook. Once again I followed her so that she could have another neighbor. When I decided to start my photography business three years ago, I never thought about using Facebook as a tool. Tammy set up a page for my business and has tried to get me to use it more. I have slowly and occasionally used the page as a way to let people know when I post new galleries to my website. I am now realizing that people may not go to my website unless there are new pictures. Great, more traffic, more people seeing what I have to offer. Tammy keeps trying to get me to put pictures on Facebook. That is something I will probably not do. When pictures are uploaded to Facebook, all exif information is stripped from the picture. What that means is all information is erased from the pictures background datafile, including applicable copyright information. Facebook also does not have any controls to keep people from downloading the images. I also want people to see the pictures displayed in the way I want them displayed. Facebook can be a wonderful tool to let people know that I do have a photography business and to direct people to my website. But also horrible when it comes to copyright protection.
Twitter is another example of social media that seems completely foreign to me. Why would anybody want to know what I am doing at any given point in time? I certainly do not want to know what other people are doing every moment of the day. After reading an article in Shutterbug, I decided to give tweeting a try. As I delve into it, I see ways that I can use Twitter to my advantage, although many parts of me are screaming WHY?. Much of my photography work involves being at a certain location at a certain time. If I need to cancel due to weather or other reasons, I can issue a tweet. I can also update my location if I decide to try a different location. Many of my regular customers try to ride through where I am to get new pictures. I see potential to use Twitter to possibly get some new business also. The possibility to draw new customers to my location for car or motorcycle pictures is very enticing. I will also be using Twitter when I post new galleries, or posting a new blog.
Blogging, another social media that I do not comprehend. I really do understand blogging more than Facebook or Twitter. I read other peoples blogs on a regular basis. The reason I read the blogs is to learn more about photography, locations I might want to photograph, or simply to get ideas about things I might want to try. I have always thought "Why would anyone want to read anything I write?". I realize now that I do have a lot of knowledge about photography that many people do not. I have picked up the knowledge over the last twenty five years of taking pictures, experimenting with my equipment, reading what other people have to say, and making mistakes along the way. Blogging is a way for me to share those experiences with others who may be just starting out or those like me who want to learn new things. Blogging is also a tool that can be used to let people and prospective clients to get to know me through more than my images. Great for business? I think so.
A great thing about Facebook, Twitter, and blogging is the ability to integrate all of them together. When I do something on one I can use the others to let people know that there is new content. More views on any of them equals more people knowing what I do and what I can provide and just knowing that I am there. If nobody knows about my business then how do I grow? The hardest part about using the available tools is overcoming my anti-social behavior. I am most comfortable behind the camera and taking pictures if the world we live in and being unnoticed as I do so. In order to have a successful business, I have to get noticed. Another struggle for me is the way I want use the tools. I often want to do things with the tools that the software engineers did not integrate into the package. This is a major source of frustration. I usually find alternate methods of achieving my goal. Taking pictures is the easy part of this business. Learning new ways of promoting the business and keeping up with the changing technologies is the real challenge. Facebook, Twitter, and blogging are all relatively new tools (for me anyway) that I must learn to use for my business to keep pace in the world of today.
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