When the economy took a dramatic nosedive at the beginning of 2009 , many businesses, including photography studios and photographers, were caught off guard.  Since then, smarts photographers have made significant changes in how the run their businesses. Among those who have taken a proactive approach to keeping their businesses on track are photographer like me and may be you.  I may said that “2009 season was half full, but we could see what was happening in the local economy and knew we were in for a very bad position in 2010.  Our bookings dropped by two thirds, customers and clients interested in my high quality photography started making decisions based on prices.  Facing this reality, I made substantial adjustments in how I run my business.  I’ve eliminated staff, fixed expenses and paid down business debt with personal savings”.

One thing I haven’t eliminated is marketing. In fact I poured considerable effort and resources into getting the word out about my business.  Instead of pay advertising , this year I made a conscious decision to avoid pay advertising and to spend my time, not my money , on marketing.

Here some Marketing ideas to follow;

1. Display your work locally – There are shops, restaurants, museum, even libraries that will showcase your work for free.
2. Identify worthy pro bono project – Photographing a local non-profit organization or two at no charge every year is a win-win arrangement.  I had been doing it for several years, giving my expertise and free time to organizations as “LA Fondita De Jesus”.  By doing this work , my business has caught attention of people who associate themselves with this causes.
3. Think of Catching Promotions – Give away something that is in as a IPod to the first booking job for the month, or a 11” x 16” free.
4. Consider Business + Home as a good investment – Instead of  expend money in remodeling your studio or paying rent, prepare your home as your studio and save that money.
5. Generate Buzz online – Publishing your latest work , photos, schedule activities on timely bases on your blog or web site expand your reach and keep your business name in clients and prospect mind.

I have been using several social media (SocMed) as Facebook, LinkedIn and now Twitter as marketing tool to increase the leads of my business www.AliceasPhotos.com .

For the record, I am not a social media expert, nor would ever claim to be.  I’m a experienced photographer with computer science knowledge who latched onto the concept early.  Actually I have accounts on every major social network out there.  My goal is to give you my perception on what has worked and what hasn’t in the past to help you and save you time and trouble of making mistakes that I and other have already made.  So the purpose of this article is to give you an overview of, and insight into, some of the popular SocMed out there, but specially focus to my efforts on Facebook and Twitter.

If you’re not on Twitter yet, then you may think it’s just a place for people to talk about they are doing or have.  Although there’s plenty of that going around on there, Twitter  and Facebook can also be a great tool for marketing and networking with other; potential clients and photographers.

For example, I’m a landscape and commercial photographer from Puerto Rico, I love the nature photography, so I chose to follow anyone else who love nature or photography. I've built a conversation of people who love the same themes, sharing useful links, photographs, great stories and opinions.

So, here are the ways Twitter can make you a better photographer:

1. Signup for an account at www.twitter.com or www.Facebook.com
   • Define your Focus network – First thing’s first: If you are considering Twitter as a way to promote your business and skills, before you even start, ask yourself; ”What is my objective?  To whom I’m looking for?”.  This include the username selection.  This is how people will come to know you from now on.  Are you going to use your business name or you real name?
     You need to make yourself  “follow worthy” if you try to engage building a network.  You should give them something to received from them.  I get few follow request ( people that follow my updates in Facebook and Twitter) and I go through every single one and check them out.  I follow them back if the are active and interested designer, magazine editors, photographer or Photoshop users who follow me to keep the communication open between us.
   • Create a avatar – Leaving the default Twitter or Facebook avatar up tells the world that you either have no idea what you’re doing or you are spam. The should looks well and clear at 48 pixel square.
   • Create a background or at least change the default background colors.  If the avatar is important, as a photographer the background is twice important.  The Twitter background is your personal billboard, so take advantage of it.
   •  Fill in the Bio Section of your profile – The more the people know about you, the better.
   • Make your profile public – Twitter and Facebook allow people to keep their profile private, however, if you intend to use Twitter or Facebook as marketing tools, i strongly suggest that you make your profile public.
2. Build you network 
   • Upload you email address book – Start building your network by using the one you already have, your know people.
   • Meet Other Photographers – Twitter is all about networking with other people.  Look for photographer to follow (or to became friend of them in Facebook).  here some of them to start: @salvadoralicea ( my account), @artwolfe, @ricksammon, @strobist, @noelphoto.
   • Stay up to date with photography news – Twitter and Facebook are real time social network, and as a result it quickly cover news stories.
   • Build Slowly but Smart – Create balance. I suggest a ratio of 2:1 between following to followers.  One of the biggest mistakes you can make when building a serious network is to follow hundreds or thousand of people at once.  It make you look as a spammer.
   • Fill up your timeline or status wall (facebook)
     • Request feedback of your photos - One of the best ways to improve your photography is to continually seek honest feedback on your photos.  Other sites are great for this, but Twitter is even better because you get instant results. Just post a link to one of your photos on Twitter, and ask your followers what they think.
     • Ask Questions, and get answers -Although there are plenty of great photography forums out there where you can ask your questions, Twitter helps you get instant answers (if you have enough followers). This usually works best with short questions that also have short answers.
     • Be concise – You have only 140 characters or less to deploy your message.
     • Use “@” reply.  - Don’t be afraid of replies.  If someone asks aquestion or tweets something that interests you, answer them.
3. Connect Twitter with Facebook – You may connect them together, when you add an update in one is publish at the same time in the other.
4. Other reference to help you take advantage of the social network as facebook and Twitter;
   • List yourself in www.Twellow.com or http://Wefollow.com .  From here people can find you and you can find them.
   • Check you followers and following on www.lessfriends.com

My best Advice

Social Network as Twitter and Facebook are just tools for communicating. It’s only what you make of it, and the opportunity does exist for you to make something of it. My best advice is to just jump in and try it. Twitter offers an excellent opportunity to create one-to-one connections if you’re willing to make the commitment.

Regard, Salvador Alicea

I and Alicea’s Photo Gallery are proud of been part of the “Coalición de Artistas de Puerto Rico”,
the unique wed directory for Puerto Rican artists within and outside of Puerto Rico.

This organization founded and run by artists Velázquez Collazo y Leída Rodríguez Vila, with the aim to promote and unify the Puerto Rican artist and to support and defend the cultural, economic and social consequences of them, has become in very short time a value in breaking with the isolation of the artist within and outside of Puerto Rico. Using the NING platform as a base, used by magazines and institutions as Artreview, England, Art Calendar, Canada, ACE Project, Argentina, set the First Social Network for Puerto Rican art on the Internet, which operates in the style of facebook, and looking to get in touch with the Puerto Rican artist curators, critics, cultural managers, museum and local and international collectors. Launched last April, this virtual space and has over 300 registered artists who manage the content of their own pages, share information, photos, videos, blogs, reviews, discussions - online, access a calendar of events, where each Artist may advertise their exhibitions, workshops, exhibitions, symposiums, meetings and can also integrate the various art groups that exist. Certainly the Coalition of Artists from Puerto Rico with more than 3,000 visits so far and about 100 daily visits to the network from United States, Latin America, Europe and Puerto Rico is becoming the Puerto Rican cultural institution in the greater international Internet.

Artículo en español 

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Theft, misuses and potential loses are valid concerns as more photographer move their work online. For many of us, sales of images involves displaying them online thru portfolios or galleries.  Therefore, we must use some measure of security to protect our valuable assets.

Whether your focus is in preventing others from stealing your images to make prints, or making sure that clients do not re-post their proofs in popular social gathering sites like MySpace or Facebook, the following information will help you to deal effectively with this.

• Use common Sense
  One misconception is that theft and misuse of images will go away with enough security. As a web developer I often remind my clients that there is not such thing as perfect security online environment.
  Take an scenario, let say you are uploading 100 KB images to a gallery for proofing, then it does not make sense to protect them as though because it is not good enough to make a professional or fine art print.
  Be aware that not all online proofing services are doing a good job protecting your images. Always is a better approach if you host your images where you can control the size of them when are published online.   
• Use “Stop them” approach
  As I said, all security will not be enough. The rule of the game is to place measurement that will scare off the casual theft. For example;
  • Watermarks – The use of watermarks have proof to be effective on the Web.
  • JavaScripts – Javascript provide an easy way to modify the functionality that must people use to download images from the web.  See an example at the Puerto Rico image portfolio of Alicea’s Photo Gallery. It can be used to disable the mouse right-click and the save as of your browser.
  • Flash Payers – The widespread use of Flash for photography websites make it a respectable consideration for addressing the security needs of your images. It does the same to the browser than javascripts but with a higher level of security. The advantages of flash is that extracting the images is a more complex process and it does not download the images to the cache of the browser. See an example at Alicea’s Photo Gallery .

I would like to know your opinion about it…