Six. Getting Social
“Getting social” can be one of the most daunting tasks for any professional. The truth is, we live in a digital world that’s always on. Clients are out there, online, and from the comfort of their own home they’re searching for a photographer. When they stumble across your site, what will they see? Have you tied your branding and marketing plan together to ensure they have a killer experience? This is their first impression of your business and you don’t even get to say hi.
We all need to understand the power of the Internet. It extends far beyond your website. Today’s client is web savvy. They’ve grown up with a mouse in their hands. Rarely will a client pick up the phone to contact your business; the Internet will be their first stop, where they look to their peers for guidance and advice. They’ll research your business late at night, gathering all the information they need to make a decision. What will they see?
In this chapter, we’ll explore your options in the digital realm and put a strategy together for you to get up and running quickly and efficiently.
The Importance of the Web
It’s all too easy to write off your website as just another “thing” to worry about. However, the truth is, I think it’s the main “thing” to worry about. It all comes down to understanding consumer behavior. Today’s consumers are completely different from their parents, and they behave completely differently, too. I think there’s also a trend of anonymity that’s begun, and which I believe we’ll continue to see. People love to hide behind their email accounts and their monitors. It allows them to ask questions and do research never before imagined. This can be a good thing and a bad thing for any business. What will they find when they look up your business?
For our studio, in many cases the Web represents our first exposure to a client. They could be there looking at their friends’ and family’s pictures, or they could be searching for their wedding photographer. Whatever their reasons for stopping by, I want to ensure they’re seeing our best.
This is where I see the biggest breakdown among my fellow photographers. I stop by your website and I see a hodgepodge of technology and information. Your website is much more than just a place where your potential new client can get information about your business. It’s a place where they’re judging your business. They’re making decisions about your brand. When it comes to your web presence, don’t underestimate the power of the brand. Sure, we all know a guy who does websites. But does this “guy” know anything about branding, usability, or search engine optimization (SEO)?
Today’s consumer is bombarded with information from the biggest companies in the world. Those companies spend billions of dollars on branding and marketing to ensure their websites match their overall brand and experience. So, as a photographer, what allows your brand to match up against the big players? Remember and think about your competition. Anyone can be a photographer. And anyone can slap a website together. All it takes is a few pictures and a website template for $9.99, and you’re up and running.
We have to do everything in our power to stand out from the crowd. For years, I’ve been preaching about finding ways to do this. Well, a great website that successfully communicates your brand and shows your best work is a must-have for your business. It doesn’t have to be overly flashy, but it definitely has to be easy to use, and it must stand out from the crowd.
Let’s take a look at the keys to a powerful website.
Performance
One of the worst things that can happen when a new client comes to your site is that it takes forever to load! Patience is at its all-time low. People want instant access to information. Google even highlights how long it took for your search to come back...in milliseconds!
Make sure you spend a few extra dollars each month and host your website on a server that gets your main page up as quickly as possible. And speaking of the main page, keep it simple. The more information you place on your main page, the longer it will take to render for the end user. I’ve seen people just go to another site altogether because they got frustrated trying to navigate the site or waiting for it to load.
A data-heavy site means you’re instantly adding information for the end user to download, which of course takes longer. However, I’ve found that consumers do have a little extra patience for great images to load. After all, that’s why they came to your site. In the spirit of performance, you might want to visit your strategy for posting images.
How you size your images is directly related to performance and experience—not to mention the quality of your images. We use an export script from our photo-editing software. We size the images at 940 pixels on the long edge at 72dpi. That creates a decent-sized image that’s great for our website and our other social media uses. Now, you might be thinking, why so big? Of course, we can go smaller, but then we start to encroach on the user experience. We’re photographers, after all. And I want clients to be able to see my imagery at a decent size, not tiny thumbnails. Think about it; I don’t want to sell small prints. I want to sell large romantic images for their home. How can I do that if everything I show them is tiny? Go as big as performance will allow! But find that sweet spot; you don’t want to be uploading the largest files your camera can create.
Think Mobile
You might be interested to know the percentage of mobile users hitting your site. Do you know? Have you ever checked? Do you know where to look? Well, if you have a website, you definitely need to take a look at Google Analytics for your site. It’s free and it’s something you can embed into your site to track all sorts of data.
What you’ll find is that an ever-increasing number of users are hitting your site from mobile devices. That being the case, you have to ensure that your site can easily be viewed from these devices. Devices like iPhones and iPads are just a few of today’s mobile device platforms. This is a trend that will continue to grow; we can’t ignore it. (My 63-year-old mom has an iPhone!)
Test your site from a mobile device to get a sense of what your clients are going through to get to the information they’re looking for. Now—though I don’t do this—I’ve seen companies create a site specifically for mobile devices. Not a bad idea. Of course, there’s going to be an additional cost to creating and maintaining a separate site, but if a majority of your clients are visiting your site from a mobile device, this might be worth the investment.
Finally, you might want to consider updating your site to support HTML5. We can’t get into specifics here, but just know that if you’re using Flash to display your images, then iPads and iPhones can’t show that work. This could have devastating consequences when your potential clients come to your site. You want everyone to be able to view your portfolio.
Branding
I’m increasingly surprised by the number of people who don’t quite understand that your website is your brand. In the consulting we provide to photographers, your website is one of the first places I stop by to do a little recon.
When I get there, how long does it take your site to load? Is there a consistent theme across your site and blog? Usually the answer is no. I can’t stress this enough. Remember, your potential clients are being hammered with multimillion-dollar marketing and advertising campaigns every day. These campaigns are intricately tied to the look and feel of the site and the brand.
This is paramount to your success as a small business. You want your clients to feel as though they are in good hands, dealing with an established business—not a weekend warrior. That creates a huge strategic advantage for your business. Visit our site (www.salcincotta.com) and I’m sure you’ll agree that it matches our brand and gives the client a solid experience.
One Click to Your Portfolio
Now that I’m on your site, how easy is it for me to find the information I’m looking for? Namely, your portfolio. Remember, you’re a photographer, and your potential clients are there to see your imagery. They’re usually looking for a photographer when they stop by. Are you the one for them? They’ll be looking to your imagery to determine the answer to that question.
So why make it difficult for them to get to the answer? On our site, you can get to our portfolio with one click! That’s huge! You have to make it easy for your potential clients to find what they’re looking for. Anything less just gets in the way.
Your portfolio is what will get your potential clients to the next step of emailing or calling you. So, if they can’t easily get to that portfolio, there’s little to no chance they’ll reach out to you.
Recently, I was working with a studio that’s about four years old. And they were growing more and more frustrated at the lack of new business coming in from their website. So, I took a look at it. I was horrified! It took me no fewer than five clicks to get to their portfolio. And when I got there, I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at. This is not the experience you want your clients to have. It’s not an Easter egg hunt.
Spend a little time exploring your own site and think like a user. If that’s too hard, try having a pizza party and let your friends just bang away at the site and see how long it’s taking them to navigate around and find your portfolio. Ask for honest feedback. Let them know the purpose of this exercise is to make your website better and you’re not looking for fluff; you want the truth! Was it hard to find my portfolio? Did it take too long to load? Were the images interesting and representative of a high-end brand? Based on what they saw on the website, would that lead them to reach out for more info? Put your own list of questions together. I promise you, it will be well worth it.
SEO
Search engine optimization. Ah, yes, let the geeks out! I kid. I kid. But not really. Let’s dig in.
Sure, SEO has been relegated to the HTML nerds and seems like this elusive black magic for your website, but I assure you, it is getting easier and easier. This little three-letter acronym, if properly executed, can bring new business to your store front with little to no work.
Six months prior to this writing, we were on page 10 of Google’s search results for “St Louis wedding photographer.” Today, we are on page 1! That’s a huge game changer for us. We get 8–10 wedding requests per week, just from our SEO efforts. And the great thing is, it’s not that tough to do.
I’ll tackle SEO in detail later in this chapter. For the time being, just know that it’s very important. And if you aren’t actively doing anything for SEO, then your site is more than likely nowhere near the first page of Google results, and that’s a problem.
Relevant and Timely Information
What are you placing on your site? When was the last time you updated it? This can be brutal for your business. Think about it. You go to a site looking for information on their products and you see the site hasn’t been updated in the last five months. Also, when you get there, the information you’re looking for isn’t there.
I’m betting that when people come to my website they’re looking for great imagery! After all, I’m a photographer. I’m not a food critic or a fashion designer. I understand this huge need to let clients see the personal side of us, but I gotta be honest here: no one cares! My clients aren’t looking for a new best friend who eats Melba toast on the beach with their pet rock. They’re looking for a great photographer. And I’m going to do everything in my power to showcase that to them. We shoot over 50 weddings per year. We must be doing something right on our website.
We try to update the site weekly. Within days of a wedding, we’ll post images from that wedding as a teaser. Sure, some of this is intended for the bride and groom, but a lot of it is designed to attract potential new clients. When potential clients come to our site they see lots and lots of—you guessed it—pictures. This demonstrates two important things for the client: first, that we create great images; and second, that we’re a busy studio that’s in demand. Frequently updating your site with current pictures is a must.
Don’t believe me? Use yourself and your friends as a test group. What’s the next major purchase you’re looking to make? Go to that company’s website. What is the #1 thing you’re looking for? What the owner did for breakfast? Some cute little quip about the meaning of life? No! You’re looking for information about their product or service.
No Pricing
Do not—I repeat, do not—place pricing information on your website. You’re not selling a car or a purse. You’re selling something more than that. Remember, you’re selling an experience. And a price list on your website is no experience. In fact, it encourages the wrong behavior from consumers.
Putting your pricing online immediately establishes your product or service as a commodity item. A commodity item is one where there’s no discernible difference between you and the competition. If that statement is true, close this book right now; you’re wasting your time. I’m teaching you how to build a luxury high-impact brand, one that consumers will lust for and pay top dollar for.
That said, I’m okay with placing your starting point online. Something along the lines of “Packages starting at $1,999” is a perfect way to ensure you’re prequalifying clients before they email or call you. If someone reaches out to you after they’ve seen your starting price, they should be ready to go. The ultimate goal for you (and of your website) should be to get to the meeting with the client. This is where you’ll shine, showcasing your products and services and what makes your studio so unique—all the things that can’t be communicated in a bulleted price list on your website.
Impact Imagery
Another huge mistake I see photographers make is putting lame images in their portfolio. I hear things like, “But I like that one, it was fun,” or “I don’t have anything else to show.” Just stop making excuses.
On our website, we showcase only the best images out of our studio. I show only images that I call “impact images.” These are images that move our clients. Images that represent our brand. Images that represent the type of clients we’re looking to work with.
I should not see schizophrenia when I get to your site. Within the first five images I should be moved by your work. Considering the average person spends less than two minutes on a website, you don’t have a lot of time to wow them. Make every image count!
Why show pictures of shoes and jewelry? Are you a product photographer? Do you find your clients booking you because of the amazing shoe pictures you took at the wedding? I don’t. Sure, I capture those images, but I don’t see a need to place them in my portfolio. Instead, I show consistency in my images and my editing style. This ensures that I attract the right kind of clients. Love or hate my work, one thing is certain: When you go to my site, you’ll see a consistent look and feel in my body of work. I’ll never get a client who is looking for traditional photography. It’s all but impossible.
Find your best images that represent your style and the type of client you’re looking for, and get those in your portfolio online. Everything else...hit the Delete key!
SEO
Ah yes, back to search engine optimization. You thought you might have escaped all that gobbledygook. Unfortunately, we all have to get our little geek on here. However, I assure you, no programming is involved. And though entire books are dedicated to SEO, my only goal here is to give you a high-level understanding of why SEO is important to you and your business.
Search engine optimization. SEO. What does it mean in English? Basically, it’s all the tasks involved in ensuring that your site is correctly set up and optimized for search engines to properly catalog your site. See, companies like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! send out these little search bots to your site and they “crawl” your site and its navigational structure looking for keywords—terms that best describe your content—to properly rank your site.
Let’s take a look at the things you can do to get started thinking properly about your site and SEO.
It’s All about the Text
Being in the imagery business, we sometimes forget that we need to add some copy, or text, to our site to describe what’s on it. In fact, if we just add pictures, while our clients might love our visually appealing site, the search engines will hate it. When our site first went live, we were focused on the imagery; the problem with that was, we couldn’t be found via any search engine.
Fast-forward six months later. We were extremely diligent about adding supporting text to our posts, and we’re now showing up on the first page of Google results when someone is looking for a “st louis wedding photographer”—and that’s our goal.
Try to steer clear of visual-only sites or templates. They look great but you need a way to add descriptive text to your site. You have to add lots of text to your site in order for it to rank highly. It’s the age-old debate: design vs. function. Try to find balance, but in this case, my money is on function since I now get many inquiries from Google searches alone.
Keywords
Now that you’re adding all this descriptive text to your site, it has to be tied to your keywords. Keywords are those major descriptors on your posts that are defined using H1 header tags (big and bold). These keywords tell your guests and the search engines what’s on your page. And depending on the frequency of your keywords, this will indicate how relevant the content is as it relates to those keywords.
For example, since I want to be found for any searches of “st louis wedding photographer,” I have to ensure that these words are prevalent throughout my posts. Spend some time thinking about how your clients will find your business. What will they search for so that they’ll find you? If you don’t know, ask them. Use the keywords that they give you and start building content that uses them. This strategy will give you the best chance of ranking.
Name Your Images
Believe it or not, how you name your images can have an impact as well. When you name your image “jones_123.jpg” or “dx1234.jpg,” it’s meaningless to the search engines, and you’ve lost an opportunity to be found online. Instead, add your keywords to those images.
For example, something like “stlouis_wedding_photographer_jones_123.jpg” is much better. It’s little things like this that can make a big difference in your search engine ranking. I use a software program that automates the process for me when I’m exporting my images for my site. So, once you create your export process, this file-naming process is completely automated.
Inbound Links
The search engines have something called “trust rank.” Now, you won’t be able to find out a whole lot about this. It’s like a best kept secret, but those who know SEO also know and understand what trust rank means to your site.
Here’s how I want you to think about this. Let’s say you’re looking for a doctor. How do you find one? Typically, you’ll ask your friends or family for a referral rather than looking in the yellow pages. You’d trust someone referred to you by a friend or family member before you’d trust someone you know nothing about by letting your fingers do the walking.
Well, the search engines work the same way. By accumulating some inbound links from sites that are already well ranked, in a sense they’re vouching for you. They’re referring you. Look for people in your respective niche that might be good candidates to do some link sharing. For example, if you’re a wedding photographer, then connect with florists or dress shops. If you’re a children’s photographer, try connecting with toy stores or clothing stores. It can be as simple as them adding a preferred vendor page to their site and a link to your site. But make sure the link uses your keywords. For example, for me, the link would read “st louis wedding photographer” and clicking that link would take the user to our site.
Such links will immediately add credibility to your site and help you jump up in the rankings.
Easy-to-Use Tool
Now, remember I told you that you don’t need to be a programmer to figure this all out? Well, I wasn’t lying. There’s a tool I use that I embed into my WordPress website. It’s called Yoast. Check out Yoast.com. It’s a free plug-in that gives me advice on tweaks I can make to my page so that it ranks higher.
Social Media
We’ve spent a significant amount of time discussing the benefits of getting your website in order. Well, today—more than ever before—our social media presence is as important as our websites.
And make no mistake. Today the major players are Facebook and Twitter, but there’s no doubt the landscape will look much different in the next three years. With companies like Google and others trying to capture market share, one thing is for sure: Our clients are to be found in these social media areas.
Our job is to try to anticipate the trends and how they can impact our business by allowing us to stay connected with our client base.
That being said, today, we focus our efforts on three social media areas.
Facebook is by far the most powerful tool in our social media arsenal. This is where your clients are. This is where their families are. This is where their friends are. And best of all, by using this platform, you’re able to showcase your images for everyone to see. You can push imagery out to your current and potential clients instead of waiting for them to come to you.
So let’s explore some ways to best use Facebook.
Do Not Use Your Personal Page
Using your personal page is a recipe for disaster. Keep your personal and professional lives separate. I don’t want prospective clients coming to my personal page and seeing where I was on vacation or what I did last night with my friends in Vegas. It’s just unprofessional. Now, I’m not saying we don’t become friends with clients over time, but the bottom line is that I don’t post to my business page any personal information, religious or political views, or anything that doesn’t support my brand.
At the end of the day, Facebook is free. Create a business page and post all your images and business-related information there so the people who need and subscribe to this information can have easy access to it.
Separate Pages for Each Line of Business
Let’s take it a step further. My wedding clients don’t care about my senior portraits, and my senior clients don’t care about my weddings. Sure, if they go to my website they can see it all, but from a social media perspective, I want to keep them separate—not only from a branding perspective, but from an ease-of-use perspective.
When it’s wedding season, my Facebook page is loaded with recent images and weddings. I don’t want my senior clients to have to dig through all that information to find what they’re looking for, and vice versa. So I keep separate pages for each business, which gives me the ability to customize the banner on the page, as well as offer targeted specials to each group.
Post with Frequency
The worst thing you can do is be idle. Keep active on your site—and not with garbage posts about your favorite color or news stories. Post relevant information about your business. I don’t care if you have to get out there and shoot for free. Build your portfolio—do something! Find some side projects to work on.
When I go to a website or blog and see static content, this, to me, is the first sign that I’m looking at a part-time photographer or one who is on the brink of going out of business. This isn’t the message you want to send to your clients. Ensure that you’re staying active with posts at least once per week, if not more often.
Now, I know a lot of you’ll be asking “Well, how often should I post?” I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter. Sure, there has been study after study highlighting when the perfect time of day is to post and what days are better than others.
Here’s my philosophy: If you’re reading this book and building your business, then you don’t have time to worry about when the perfect alignment of the moon is to post your content. You know when I post? When I have time! That could be at 2 a.m.. Focus on the things that matter. For me, spending the effort to post frequently is more important than worrying about posting at exactly the “right time.”
Do Not Friend Request Your Clients
Oh boy, this should be common sense, but all too often it’s not. Do not be that creep asking to be everyone’s friend. If your clients want to be your friend, that’s up to you. I have my personal opinion on that—and my wife has her own. I don’t post anything on my personal page that’s going to offend anyone, so I’ll friend just about anyone.
My wife, on the other hand, will not friend you unless she has had a drink with you. Hard to argue with that logic.
However, nothing is worse than sending your clients a friend request. They’re hiring you as a professional to work for them. They aren’t hiring you as a personal friend. Let them make the call and reach out to you. Trust me, it’s better that way.
Honestly, I find Twitter to be best used from a professional perspective. My clients aren’t big Twitter users, and the truth is that it’s not the best platform to showcase your images.
This is where you might find me tweeting more personal information since that is what it’s geared toward. Most of my followers on Twitter are other professional photographers. Very few are actual clients.
Obviously, there are many people who have become Internet superstars using Twitter as a platform. I encourage you to think about how you’ll use Twitter to promote your business.
For our studio, there are only so many hours in the day. Twitter provides the least amount of returns to our business, so I tend not to spend too much time there.
Plug-ins are available that will allow your Facebook posts to automatically publish to your Twitter account. This is probably the best of both worlds; it puts the same message out and reduces the amount of work for you.
Blog
I love my blog! It’s totally integrated into our site and perfectly set up for SEO, which, as it happens, are two things that Facebook can’t do for you. It can’t provide you with any SEO for your site, nor can it be customized to match your site. And though I love my blog, there are certain things my blog can’t do that Facebook can. The biggest advantage of Facebook over my blog is, as discussed earlier, the push versus pull concept.
The only way people will see what you posted on your blog is if they come to your site every day, which is something no one will do. But on Facebook, information is pushed out to people in their newsfeed. So, they automatically see your posts.
As I’ve already mentioned, there’s no way to truly customize or brand your Facebook site to integrate into your website. Ultimately, there are pros and cons to each, and that’s why you should do them both.
With that being said, let’s explore how to get the most out of your blog.
Post with Frequency
This is the same as my Facebook advice. You have to institute the same policies on your blog. In fact, the same content that you’re posting to your Facebook site should be posted to your blog. Don’t make it complicated. We post the same images to both platforms; however, as you’ll see in a moment, we expand on those posts for the blog by adding text, highlighting the event, and using SEO keywords.
Drive Traffic Back to Your Site When You Can
Try this: Take the link from your blog post and enter it into your status on your Facebook page. You’ll see it automatically pulls your blog information into Facebook—a very powerful feature if used correctly. See, when people click on your Facebook post, it will take them right back to your website.
This is important for keeping people on your site and controlling the experience. You want all potential clients to see not only the images they want to see, but to be able to get more information about working with you and learn about other services you offer.
Keep It Professional
I know, I sound like a broken record. Unfortunately, I’ve seen blogs turn unprofessional over and over again. Think like a business, not like an artist. As a business, give clients what they’re looking for—information about your business. And in our case, it’s pictures, pictures, and more pictures.
Talk about the event and what made it special. That’s a great way to showcase your personal touch, your caring side for the clients and the moments in their lives.
But when things slow down, it’s better to be working on your portfolio or your “image of the month” or “favorite images of the year” rather than talking about your life. It’s not a diary. It’s a business tool.
Keep It Visual
The more images, the better! After all, that’s why potential clients are there. Show them what they came for. There are all sorts of programs available that make it easy for you to export and create images with your logo on them that are properly sized. As I mentioned earlier, we export at 940 pixels on the long edge and 72dpi. It’s perfect for the Web and lets everyone see the images at a decent size on their screen, phones, and tablets.
Think SEO
Don’t just post the images. This won’t help you rank higher. This is a perfect opportunity for you to write something about your clients. Not only does it add your personal touch to the event, but it creates a huge opportunity for you to rank higher as well.
If you’re a wedding photographer, how about this for an idea? When you get a new client, before you post to the blog, give the couple a questionnaire to fill out about how they met, what they love about each other, and similar questions. Encourage them to tell their story, whatever it is. Then use that as the basis for the post. This creates a great editorial for your site and one that potential new clients will enjoy reading along with looking at those great supporting images.
I hope this chapter has been helpful for you. A lot of the things highlighted here can easily be introduced into your business in relatively no time at all, and with little to no expense. As far as I’m concerned, those are the best kinds of changes to make. Get out there, make these changes, and you’ll notice an uptick in your inquiries and bookings!
Next Steps
This is an overwhelming chapter, I know. If you’ve been resistant to engaging in social media, your head is probably spinning right now. First, take a deep breath. Relax. Tell yourself it’s going to be okay. If you’re a seasoned pro, hopefully I’ve given you one or two new things to think about.
Develop a 30-day plan on how you’re going to put a consistent social media strategy in place. There are a lot of potential changes that will have to be made to your business and strategy if you’re going to be successful. I can tell you, though, that if you put the energy into this plan, it will be worth the effort.
When we post something to our social media sites, we get a lot of client response and interaction. This has happened through years of effort and by training our clients to engage with us through online channels. You can do it, too.
