Chloé Browne, a London-based wedding photographer, only started using Twitter after three clients found her through tweets written by others: clients raving about her services. Now Browne tweets throughout the day, and weaves this focused social media marketing into the fabric also comprised of the threads that are her active blogging and Facebooking.
Brown is one photographer featured in “Hello, world: Social Networking for photographers”, a great article by Diane Smyth, published in the “British Journal of Photography.” As Smyth explains of Browne:
“Browne’s Facebook and blog pages link back to each other, her Twitter account and her main website, and she updates her Facebook page and Tweets each time she publishes a new blog, which is at least once a week. It is a lot of admin, she admits, but in her case it’s had real results – she only advertises online, and wins most of her new business this way”
In “Hello, world” Smyth reports on just a few of the different ways that photographers are finding business and (just as important) creative success with social media. One, clear message that Smyth conveys is that these photographers are finding quantifiable, positive value from social media because they are using social media in ways that are true to their personalities and business goals.
This is refreshing. It is different from the constant pressure I feel from advice that basically says: Use social media or perish.
I, for one, am overwhelmed by the sense that I must use social media better and more often, even when I’m not clearly motivated to do so. This is what is happening to me with Twitter. I am playing with the media, and feel that it must have value (and look forward to finding it), but so far I have not experienced the value. But I still feel the pressure. As a result, my tweets are pretty infrequent, pretty unfocused, pretty pathetic. Will this be the cause of my undoing?
Two nice comments to “Hello, world” both speak to “Yes! Yes! No! No!” sensations I am feeling regarding social media. David Axelbank notes, “I do feel that there is something to be gained from an online presence, no matter how small or large,” but that:
“On the other hand, I also feel there is perhaps too much emphasis being made of the influence of these social networking platforms.”
I think that “too much emphasis” is certainly the case if the emphasis drives us to do something desperate like, say, tweet in a reactionary manner.
While Axelbank questions the real value of the number of one’s Flickr or Twitter friends, Tom, whose comment is named “Photography Should Be Seen”, makes a very nice point, responding, in part:
“Surely part of the joy of being a photographer is having your work out there to be seen by as many people as possible.
“Completely agree with David Axelbank, number of social media friends doesn’t mean you your good. But it does mean that people are seeing your work. Thats gotta to be a plus.”
Tom, like the photographers Smyth features in “Hello, world”, is thrilled by social media for the sake of social media, which seems to be the real key to getting the most out of whatever type of social media fabrics we choose (or choose not) to weave.