24.02.2014

Social Media for Photographers

24.02.2014

Social Media for Photographers

In my last post, I discussed Iphoneography and how far it has come in the past 10 years. In this post, I will be talking about Social Media and why you should be doing it. I will go over how to post your photos and gain exposure with your content.

What is Social Media?

Social Media is a collection of online communication platforms that delivers community-based input to individuals and organizations. It’s the best tool to communicate and interact with people around the world and to potentially grow your business. More than 2.4 BILLION people use the internet each day to browse content, so figuring out how to reach them is the challenge.

(photo source: http://www.thecultureist.com/ )

Where to Post Your Photographs

Facebook – There are many places to post your photographs online and facebook is the most popular. With over 500 million users, your reach has the potential to be very high. Photographers can now create a “Fan Page” so people can “Like” their page instead of sending personal friend requests to follow their work. It also gives you the ability to have a storefront with all your contact information.

Google + – When first debuted in 2011, there was a fair amount of skepticism. But once photographers saw that the compression was lower than Facebook’s and the built-in editing tools, they quickly jumped on board.

Instagram – I love Instagram. It’s such a great way to interact and discover other artists. With its simple user interface and built in filters, it’s easy to create a professional gallery for your work.

500PX – Created by photographers, comes this beautiful platform to share your photos. 500PX is a place to gain exposure by sharing your best work and to connect with other photographers around the world. It also has a great social media sharing plugin so you can easily share your work to your connected networks.

Twitter – Twitter is great for photographers. By simplifying and limiting characters in a post, I find this service to be very easy and very clear.

These are just a few of the social networks I use. There are plenty but these have seemed to work best for me.

Tips to Gain Exposure

  1. Metadata, metadata, metadata! When exporting your photos I can’t urge you enough to fill out your metadata for your photos. Including titles, captions, tags, location, and copyright info will save you a lot of time when uploading to these social media sites. Most of these sites automatically look at the embeded metadata and fill in all the fields required for posting.
  2. #Hashtag ! Hashtagging is key if you want your photos to be discovered. Using popular and related tags on our photos will expose your photos to anyone who is browsing that tag. It’s also a great way to discover other artists if you are looking for inspiration.
  3. Interaction. Interacting with similar artists goes a long way. Join big groups and communities on social networks and start sharing your work. Make sure to “Like”, “Share”, and leave a nice comment on other artist’s work.
  4. Reach out. Send your best work to your favorite websites. Chances are, they will remember your photo for a post they are doing and give you proper credit.
  5. Watermark. There might be a lot of debate about this but watermarking anything you upload to the internet is a must in my eyes. Create a little logo, or just add your name in small text and slap it on the bottom of your photo. Your logo will become recognized in time. Make sure it’s not too distracting.

Social Media is very time consuming, but I think it’s required if you want to get your name out there. Please feel free to leave a comment or ask for any additional tips below.

Sean Parker

Sean Parker is a traveling photographer in Tucson, Arizona. He enjoys photographing the beautiful scenery this world has to offer. Aside from photography, Sean also specializes in motion controlled time-lapse cinematography.

Website: www.sean-parker.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/seanparkerphotography
Twitter: www.twitter.com/seanparkerphoto
Instagram: www.instagram.com/seanparkerphotography
500PX: www500px.com/seanparker
Google +: http://www.plus.google.com/+SeanParkerPhoto/posts

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