Week 16

My viewpoint of social media has changed in that I can now see that there may be an opportunity to create a business from it. I have always used social media for fun and to interact with friends but I now see it as more of an opportunity to have a second job as a photographer and to potentially sell prints of my work. I have learned how many tools are out there that I had no idea about and the amount of help there is to increase your social media audience if you want to take the time and effort to do so. There is so much more that goes into a post than most people realize. It comes down to what times of day are the best, what days of the week are the best; there is a science to it in order to receive the best interaction possible. 

I feel the tools that were given to us during this class has opened my eyes to an entire new world of how to use social media properly. I have always had my doubts, seeing that social media is such an integral part of everyone's lives now I never really felt I could be someone who would get noticed. After really reviewing the tools and other social media platforms to look into I can see that I can be noticed if I work hard at it and know it will take some time. These businesses created on social media take a lot of research and a lot of effort, it is extremely rare for someone to blow up over night. 

It is so important to be as active as possible with your social media accounts or you end up getting lost in the algorithm. This is the one thing I cannot stand about how social media, especially Instagram has changed. Your post can be completely lost and many people miss out on the opportunity to see it, I have learned you have to be super active to keep your posts on the timeline. It is important to be prepared with a variety of photos so I can continue to post daily or twice a day to stay interactive. 

I have found a lot of products, people, and inspiration by using social media over the years. I have found that I absolutely love interior design since following quite a few pages that I initially followed for their photography. I feel that photographing for real estate could be a cool opportunity to explore and tie in two of my favorite concepts and create beautiful advertising. I love following other photographers and people who share similar interests to me to see how they shoot their photos and what angles they use etc. It has helped me grow and shown me how to take better pictures which I love. 

I have learned that social media is a huge part of business, not just for a photographer, but for any brand out there. It has become the most innovative way to reach out to people on such a broad spectrum. I feel that social media is going to continue to be what we use for business, products, and networking overall. In order to stay relevant and to keep your business in the loop you have to have social media and you have to be able to put a lot of effort to get the best results. 

Week 15

For the type of business I have created, I feel that Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn are the best social media platforms overall for my photography business. Instagram is great because it is posting photos and it is a great way to reach out to so many people. I am able to use hash tags as well to get a wider audience and hopefully more followers in the process. I can also look up hash tags similar to mine and connect with other people who are in the industry. There are a lot of ways to ask to be featured on someone else's Instagram page that may have a huge following already. Facebook is great to interact with my local community, and those who are interested in landscape photography in the area. I feel Facebook is pretty word to mouth, so someone in the city I live in could tell others about me and to check out my page and see what they think of my work. It is also a great way to advertise an art/photography show in the community and to be able to reach out to small businesses to feature my photos and create an event of some sort. LinkedIn is a great tool for networking, it can allow me to interact with other people around me to possibly scout models for a shoot, talk to others about photography equipment, or meet with other prospecting photographers and learn from each other. I feel it is a great way to possibly get hired work if someone is looking for a photographer. I am able to showcase what I have done and give out a portfolio to potential people looking for someone.

Instagram is definitely my favorite social media platform to work with. I love being able to edit my photos and watch the interaction I receive after I post something. I typically get positive feedback about my work and it motivates me to go out and take more photos. I also love seeing what other people are doing on the app and I love to get inspired through people I follow as well. I think Instagram is the best for a photographer trying to showcase their work and it really is so fun to work with especially being able to create a visual mood board and watch your photos flow together.

My business should be spending a lot of time on social media because it is a photography page. I should be posting more often than I am to really get serious about it. I feel that you have to be active on your pages in order to stay relevant and to stay on people's algorithms. 

Week 14

There are many features a business can use to keep track of how their social media is running. It is important to choose the features that are going to work best for your company, because every company is going to be run differently. I believe in trying out a few different methods to see which ones will stick and which ones may not work out as well. After looking into Google Analytics I found four features that I would try to experiment with for my photography business to see if they will attribute to my success.

Real Time Reporting: I chose real time reporting because I feel this would be a great tool to have to see the interaction on my social media pages at any time in real time. I am someone who likes to figure out what times of the day/days of the week my audience is engaging with my content. This way, I am able to really experiment and see if the times I am choosing to post are correct, or if I am finding out there are other times that are better to engage with my audience. I like that this feature is able to be checked at any time and you can come up with your own predictions on how to proceed further. 

Audience Reports: This feature is great for finding out how active your audience actually is with your content, and it can be done based on individuals and not just a wide audience. It is important to keep in contact/network with those who are following your business and are showing interest. This is a great tool to really see what people are the most interactive and who I can possibly reach out to that is not so interactive but can reach out to them in other ways. It is a great way to grow your business further, and appreciate your audience for the ones that are involved the most.

Audience Demographics: I love this feature, I believe it is important to know who your audience is and what their interests are. This could help my business by showing me what my audience has more interest in photography wise and what I can bring to the table if they are interested in a certain landscape, travel destination, etc. I believe my target market would be a wide range of ages and also all genders so this would be an interesting tactic to see who is showing interest in my work!

Week 13 Part A

Advertising on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media outlets has always fascinated me. It is almost as if they know exactly what I am looking for, or something I have talked about. I find the ads on Instagram especially to be spot on to the things I am interested in purchasing. I notice they are always pushing products that will give you a direct link to their Instagram page. Once you "save" or click on their Instagram profile it seems more and more similar ads start to pop up. For example, if I am interested in a skin care product for acne all of the sudden there are several ads on my timeline showing me these new innovative acne products that are apparently the best out there. Or they will show me ads showing me a face wash, or a make up brush, or really anything relative to the one image I saved to look at later on.

The imagery used is usually effective, and I have talked to my friends about this as well. I have noticed more and more often my friends are buying products that popped up on their social media pages and I am guilty of this as well. I have many items saved that I will then look up reviews elsewhere and potentially end up making that purchase. I would never know these brands or these items if they did not show up on my feed. They tend to show videos with "real people" using the product, or they show pretty imagery to make the product more attractive to the viewer. 

The ads that annoy me are the ones that come up daily that I scroll by with absolutely no interest. You would think over time those ads would go away and they would curate new ones for my page. I have gotten to the point a few times where I have removed the ad myself and they then ask you why to which I say "I see this too often" they immediately reply with "you will never see this ad again." That has always been accurate, they never showcase the ad after I manually request them not to.

I feel that advertising done on social media is much more effective today than the ads in newspapers and magazines. From what I can remember, ads in magazines are typically luxury brands that no one necessarily reading the magazine can afford. I would see the same ads in magazines that I saw on billboards and although they always look pretty and professional it was unrealistic for most of the people looking at them to afford anything they were trying to sell. Social media ads are targeting the right people and they are prices that are affordable most of the time. Not many people in this generation are picking up a newspaper and looking through them when they can easily find any information they want on their cell phone. 

Week 12

 There are many amazing tools out there for businesses but it is important to keep in mind the ones that will be best for the particular business you have. I do not think every business needs to have all social media outlets because it can then get a bit confusing and overwhelming.

For my photography business, I think LinkedIn is a great outlet to connect with people in my area as well as look out for collaborations and those wanting to assist in photo shoots. I would love to be able to connect with locals who I could use as models for a shoot as well as find people who may want to work on a project together and they may have equipment that I do not own but would be a great contribution for a shoot. LinkedIn is also a great way to get a photography job and have people see my work and reach out to me. I could potentially get paid a lot of money for a job just by networking and connecting with the right people in my area.

When it comes to growing my business and receiving the right feedback, I feel that a website like Yelp could be useful for me. I feel that this is something I could incorporate after I have had more interaction with people or have done actual shoots for people. This is not the first social media outlet I would use but would gradually incorporate it over time. I would want people to be able to refer me to others or have new clients find me on there and read my reviews to see if I would be a good match for them.

Lastly, I feel another great source for me would be to join a Meetup group. These groups are specifically designed to meet with people who share the same interests as you and you can find other people in that industry to connect with. I feel that Meetup would have a ton of photographers in the area that I could learn from as well as collaborate with.

Week 11 Post 1

 Hi Everyone!

I have recently been introduced to the world of Twitter and I am still trying to navigate through it. My brother and my dad are obsessed with Twitter and always seem to find the best insights just by following the right people. They have been using it a lot lately to share articles discussing politics and new information regarding the pandemic. My brother and dad are always sending me articles and most of the time I could not access them because I did not have an account so I recently decided it was time to start.

When my husband and I were in New York my brother had mentioned how he found out about this secret standup comedy show that was happening in the city the following night. My husband loves standup comedy and we could not believe some of the comedians that were going to be playing that night and for only twenty bucks. This is when I really saw how cool Twitter was because you were getting information instantly that could happen at any time. We were able to attend this amazing comedy show with comedians that can cost 200 dollars or more to see and we were in this intimate setting of about 30 people. It was one the highlights of our trip, all thanks to Twitter. 

While I find Twitter to be a bit confusing still, I am starting to understand it more and learning how to follow the right people and navigate through it. There is so much information on Twitter that it can become overwhelming; thankfully I have my brother to give me the best tips!

LinkedIn is a website that I personally feel is fantastic for networking and one of the best to get to know people in your area or your industry. It is a great way to not only find a job, but to find other opportunities as well. For example, I love my current job and do not have any desire to leave but I use LinkedIn to find other opportunities that may come up involved in marketing, photoshoots, fashion, etc. I think it is a great way to expand your social circle and potentially find some amazing people to work with.

I have had a lot of people reach out to me on LinkedIn over the years with some of it being useful and then other times not as much. Either way, I see it as an awesome way to connect or reconnect with people that you may have not spoken to in a while. I like the way LinkedIn is organized by telling you who went to the same high school or college as you as well as the people who work at the same company as you or ones that are similar. They ask you for your interests as well as a tool to help you find what you are looking for. Overall, I think LinkedIn is definitely the best for all of those reasons.

Week 10: Post 1

 If I were to create a newsletter for my business I would have it sent out quarterly. I would want to send something out just enough times during the year to offer promotions, sales, and photo exhibits where people could take a look at my photography up close. I would want to promote my photography and show during those quarterly times I would want to show the new photographs I have taken and offer them to those who are interested.

Some of the information my business could use for a newsletter would be to offer seasonal discounts on some of my photography or doing some sort of promotion that encourages people who were interested before but may have not been able to purchase a print at the time. I would like to extend invites to have people come and view my photography, meet with me, and get a print sized and framed of their choice. I would love to see my photography in people's homes and would love to meet my potential customers and see what photos they show interest in versus those that may not have gravitated as much of an audience. 

I believe it is really about putting my stuff out there, locally to get my name more known. I think having photo exhibits twice a year or even more at the right locations can really be beneficial for my business. I can also give people my business card that will offer them direct access to my social media platforms and my website, I can introduce an entirely different audience just by hosting these events.

I would not want to send out a ton of emails and be annoying, I would like to send a few to be on people's radar and introduce new photos I have taken that can be available for purchase. I want to engage but not be someone who is pushy where it turns my audience away.