Social Networking

What’s The Best Way To Promote Your Photography Business – With A Pinterest or Facebook Contest?

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What’s The Best Way To Promote Your Photography Business – With A Pinterest or Facebook Contest?

The only way to succeed with social media is to have a following. And the more time you spend building your following, the more results you will see.

And people love free stuff. They are completely attracted to coupons, deals of the day, and anything “fun” that will allow them to get a hold of a great product at a great price. Which is why many smart businesses have turned to social media contests.

Dig Deeper: How To Start Up A Pinterest Contest

Dig Deeper: The Guide To Growing Your Facebook Page With A Contest

However, the social media platforms and the rules to follow are always changing. What worked a few short months ago may be “illegal” by today’s terms. If a contest is in your future, it’s important to evaluate your options regularly and choose the right platform to grow – the right platform to attract quality prospects to your studio.

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Photographers – 8 Ways To Find Out What Other People Are Saying About You

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Okay, its time for a test. You have to answer one simple question.

What is being said about you in the online world?

Don’t know?

Now is the time to find out.

Instead of ignoring it and just doing business the way you’ve always done it, finding out what your reputation is like online can actually help you grow your business. It takes only a few bad comments, posts or blogs to ruin a reputation you’ve spent years growing.

Fortunately there are easy ways to go about this that won’t take all of your time … or your money. They aren’t tools you’ll find readily available or talked about. And there are many “copycat” companies that attempt to bring you in and scam you for both money and information. But when you find a reliable tool, its wise to keep it in your bookmarked area and refer to them again and again. Schedule using them to ensure you always know what’s happening around you.

1. Whos Talkin

Whos Talkin is a simple search tool that lets you know what social sites are saying about your name or brand. Simply type in your name or brand and it quickly begins to pull results. It doesn’t help you manage the results, but it will give you a quick look at what is being said about your key word anywhere on the web. This is good to use in addition to Google as it pulls only social results, so your results won’t be buried inside a lot of other results.

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5 Pinboards Every Portrait Photographer Should Have On Pinterest

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If you have a Pinterest account, chances are you’ve created a lot of boards for your photography. Babies, kids, families, engagement, weddings. The more active you are on Pinterest, the more boards you probably have.

Yet showcasing your images is only half of what makes Pinterest such a great place for photographers. The other half is about inspiring your prospects and clients to want to come to you for a session, and what to expect when they get there.

Using a Pinboard, you can convey any message you desire. A handful of pinboards isn’t enough. The more the better. And with more you can teach your clients along the way.

If you only have a handful of pinboards, take a look at these 5 ideas to get you going on creating some truly inspirational pinboards.

Inspiration

If you could do any photo shoot in the world, what would it be? What gives you inspiration? What do you wish you could get your clients to do? If you can find an example out there, use it to showcase what your ideas are. Your clients will never have a solid idea when they come into your studio – unless they see it first. Clients always come in with pictures ripped out of magazines or printed from a website, requesting they “look like this”. Create your own inspiration board and direct them in the direction you’ve always wanted to go.

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How You Can Grow Your Pinterest Following By Writing

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Pinterest – isn’t that all about images? How can you grow it with writing? In every presence you have online, its always about the copy. Words play an integral part of how well you do within the site, how much traction you gain through your followers, and how well you rank in the search engines. … Read more

How To Start Up A Pinterest Contest

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What’s the true purpose of running a contest on a social site? Attention of course. Yet the problem often lies in coming up with the details. How do you run it? What do you offer? Let me show you an example from a company Layla Grayce. They have a beautiful Pinterest account and are very … Read more

Easy Ways To Make Infographics For Your Social Sites

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If you’ve been to Pinterest, you know one of the most popular, most shared items on there are infographics. They are fun to look at, filled with useful or amazing content, and therefore are also fun to share.

Infographics can range from the simple to the complex, filled with basic information or elaborate graphics. The key is getting your message across quickly and with style. Check out one of the recent infographics that went viral on Pinterest.

While you can use Photoshop to do just about anything, there are many online tools that also give you an easy way to get your ideas out there.

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8 Things To Help You Grow Your Photography Business On Pinterest

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8 Things To Help You Grow Your Photography Business On Pinterest

Pinterest has hit another milestone – over 100 million visits per month with nearly 12 million  of them being unique visitors.

If you haven’t joined Pinterest yet, now is the time. Pinterest is used primarily by women, and because of the visual aspect of pin boards, they spend a lot of time on the site.

Currently you can use Pinterest by signing up through either your Facebook account or your Twitter account, giving you double the traction for half the work.  If you connect through Facebook, keep in mind that currently it connects with your personal profile, not your page. So if you want to keep it business related, sign up for a special Twitter account to connect it to.

Then let the pinning begin.

1. Pinterest will start you out with five pre-determined pin boards. You can delete these and create your own. Plan out your boards with your business in mind. So instead of “photography” be specific towards your niche market. Also break it down to give your potential customers ideas as they are searching through your boards: what to wear for a portrait, posing ideas, location ideas. Be specific and use them to direct people to what they like the most. However, don’t just fill it with stuff from your site –  be a resource as well. Its okay to post fresh ideas from other sites and resources online. Be an industry expert and share your talents and knowledge freely.

Dig Deeper: The Code For Blocking Pinterest … And 12 Reasons You Shouldn’t Use It

2. Google recognizes Pinterest profiles, so they can appear on the first pages of search results. Because of how Pinterest interacts with Google, be sure to create boards using your key terms so its recognizable and will deliver you results within the most popular key searches.

3. Currently you can rearrange your pinboards to have them showcased on your profile in any order you choose. Yet the pins within each pinboard are shown in order of when you pinned each item. If you have a closed board concept – meaning you are creating a board with a select number of pins and you know ahead of time what they will be – lay out the order first so they will appear in the order you desire.

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Is Your Pinterest Traffic Worthless?

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Is Your Pinterest Traffic Worthless?

If you look at any business media source today, the focus has moved off of Facebook and on to Pinterest. And for good reason. It’s the largest growing social media site yet.

But don’t let the large numbers fool you. The millions of people that are flocking to it are doing it for their own agenda, not yours. The audience (mainly women) love looking at all of the great ideas posted by other people and sharing them with their own followers. The numbers are there. But there is one thing that may not be there … valuable traffic.

If people are viewing your work just because they love the image, what is that doing for you?

Nothing.Is Your Pinterest Traffic Worthless

Unless you do something with it.

Are you seeing the residual of people talking about and sharing your images with their followers? Or are you getting actual traffic to your site, finding people clicking over to your pages and spending the time looking around at what you have to offer?

The only way to find out is to physically track your statistics and monitor what people are doing. You must follow the traffic, where they click to once they come into your site, and most importantly, do they convert once they get there?

Dig Deeper: How Google Analytics Can Help You Grow Your Business

The key to a successful web presence isn’t traffic … it conversion. If 100 visit your site and 100 convert, you will be successful. If you have one million people visit your site with zero conversions, you will fail.

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What Do Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter All Have In Common?

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The statistics are always out of this world.

  • Total unique visitors increased – 2702.2% since May 2011
  • Gender breakdown – 68.2% female, 31.8% male
  • Over 1.36 million visitors a day

Yep, that’s the latest statistics put out by Modea and comScore on the social networking site Pinterest.

If you are trying to grow your photography business, it’s THE place to be.

Dig Deeper: The Code For Blocking Pinterest … And 12 Reasons You Shouldn’t Use It

So by all means, jump over, start up your own Pin boards and Pin away.

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