Whether you're looking for a suitable match on your favorite dating app or searching the web for a real estate agent to sell you your first home I want you to imagine seeing two identical photos. One with dull, unappealing, unprofessional imagery and the other with vibrant, captivating photographs. Which one would you be more likely to reach out to?
The power of branding photography cannot be understated. It's the first impression potential customers/clients have of your business and can make or break their decision to engage with your brand. But it's not just about having pretty pictures. It's about effectively communicating the essence of your brand through visual storytelling. The right photographer can help you craft a narrative that resonates with your target audience and sets you apart from the competition. Don't leave the success of your business to chance. Invest in a branding photography session and give your brand the visual impact it deserves. Let's work together to create a story that will leave a lasting impression on your audience. Let's elevate your brand to the next level. What is Branding Photography?
Your brand's visual identity is as crucial as its products or services. Branding photography helps. At it's core Branding photography is about capturing your brand's or company's essence in a photo through Professional business headshots, product photos, lifestyle photos, or corporate headshots. These all contribute to brand building.
Good branding photography will reflect your company's professionalism and friendliness. These images are used on company websites and social media to demonstrate trustworthiness. A good headshot can humanize your brand and connect with your audience. The Importance of Branding Photography
Now Imagine the power of a single image - one moment frozen in time, yet capable of evoking emotions and shaping perceptions. When it comes to building a strong brand, that image is your key to unlocking the hearts and minds of potential customers. The imagery you choose is the foundation upon which your brand will stand, and studies have proven that people are more likely to remember a picture than a piece of text.
This is where branding photography comes in - it's the art of capturing the essence of your brand in a single shot, or a series of shots that tell a story. A good branding photographer is a master of technical skill, artistic vision, and understanding of your brand, who can create images that are not only visually stunning but truly representative of your brand. Make sure your brand story is told through the lens of a pro. The Role of Photography in Building Trust
In today's world, first impressions are everything. And when it comes to building trust with potential customers and clients, the imagery you use can make all the difference. The truth is, people are more likely to trust a brand or business that appears professional, polished, and well-established. And that's where high-quality branding photography comes in. It's the secret weapon in your arsenal that can elevate your brand, and make you stand out from the competition.
Think of it this way, when a customer visits your website, they are immediately greeted by the photographs that represent your business. These images are the gatekeepers to their trust, and they will form an immediate impression of your business based on what they see. High-quality, well-crafted images that are visually stunning, will not only grab their attention but also convey the message that your business is professional, credible, and trustworthy. On the other hand, if your images are poorly lit, poorly composed, or out of focus, it's likely to leave a negative impression, and you'll lose the customer's trust before you even had a chance to make your pitch. So, elevate your brand and make sure your first impression is a lasting one with the power of professional branding photography. Choosing the Right Photographer
It's not just about catching the moment when picking a photographer for your branding photo shoot or business headshots; it's also about capturing the essence of your brand. Therefore, it's essential to pick a photographer who not only has experience in branding photography but also is aware of your brand, goals, and target audience. Finding the ideal photographer is like finding the yin to your yang, or peanut butter to your jelly.
You should first check through the photographer's portfolio to identify your fit. An excellent branding photographer will have a portfolio that demonstrates their prowess in producing striking visuals that convey a company's story. Pay attention to the different brands and companies they have collaborated with as well as the photographic techniques they use. Are the images cheerful and energetic or melancholy and dark? Are all of the images taken either on location or in a studio with a plain background? Are their images heavily edited or lightly retouched? This can help you determine whether their aesthetic fits with your brand. An excellent branding photographer will take the time to learn about your company, your target market, and your brand's core principles. With this knowledge, they will produce photographs that are customized to your particular requirements and goals. This is essential since the visuals they produce will serve as your brand's face, and you want them to be the best representation possible. Find a photographer that not only has the knowledge, but also the experience and talents, to bring the story of your brand to life. Take your time, do your homework. Creating the Perfect Photo Shoot
Once you've found the perfect match in a branding photographer, it's time to start planning your photo shoot. A picture is worth a thousand words, and each one of those words should be representative of your brand. The key to creating the perfect branding photography is to make sure that every image tells your brand's story.
The first step in planning your photo shoot is to decide on the type of imagery you want to create. Will it be product shots that show off the craftsmanship and attention to detail? Or will it be team photos that showcase the people behind the brand? Or perhaps, lifestyle shots that put your products in action, showing how they make life easier and more beautiful. The possibilities are endless, and the choice is yours. But it's not just about the imagery, it's also about the setting. The location and lighting play a crucial role in shaping the mood and atmosphere of the photos. Choose a location that is representative of your brand, whether it's a sleek urban setting or a natural outdoor setting. And pay close attention to the lighting, whether natural or artificial, it should be carefully chosen to create the right mood and atmosphere. With the right imagery, location, and lighting, your branding photography will be more than just pictures, they will be visual storytellers that will leave a lasting impression on your audience. So, let's start planning, and create the perfect visual representation of your brand. Who Needs Branding Photography?
All entrepreneurs and business owners both big and small that need help building their brand and image can benefit from a branding photoshoot. That being said, you don’t have to be a business owner to benefit from branding photography. These days everyone is a brand and we are constantly branding ourselves online whether we realize it or not. How do you want to be perceived online on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or your favorite dating app? That is where branding comes in.
How much does branding photography cost?
All the personal branding photographers that I know charge anywhere from $500 to $6,000 per session depending on their skill and what they offer. For example, a session fee might be $1,700 and include 10-15 high-resolution edited images with an option to purchase additional images for $50 per image and additional retouching for $75 per image. You can find my pricing HERE
Conclusion
In summary, branding photography is the best tool you have in the toolbox for creating a powerful brand for your company. How potential customers perceive your business will without a doubt depend on the imagery you use to represent it. Your audience will remember your brand more clearly if it is visually represented in a professional way.
Working with a professional photographer who not only possesses the technical know-how and aesthetic vision but also a knowledge of your business is essential if you want to ensure that your branding photography is a success. Creating product images that highlight the craftsmanship, corporate headshots that personalize the business, or lifestyle images that show your products in use are a few examples of how to do this. In order to establish the proper mood and environment that is consistent with your business, choosing the proper location and lighting is also crucial. As you can see, the choice to invest in branding photography can make or break your company or brand. Now is your chance to highlight the distinctive character and values of your brand. When investing in professional business headshots the same care and consideration should be given as you would with any other part of your brand. Other Articles
0 Comments
How to make engaging Reels on instagram with still photosThis will be a quick and easy step by step tutorial on how to make an engaging reel on Instagram from your mobile phone just like the example below, perfect for any photographer, artist, or creator who wants to show off their work on Instagram. No getting on camera required. We've all seen them, flipping through reels on instagram and BOOM, an epic 10 second slideshow of beautiful photos with quick and unique transitions synced to the beat of whatever hip new song is trending that week. And if you're like me you think to yourself "how do they sync the photos to the music!?" Well I'm about to tell you. If you haven't used Reels on instagram and you're a creator you are missing out on the biggest source of new traffic there is on Instagram. Period. The unfortunate truth for photographers is that still photos don't even get half the engagement as video. Instagram's algorithm is built that way. They saw the huge success with TikTok and have decided to do the same thing. So think of Reels as the TikTok of Instagram and where all the attention is. If you want new followers, Reels is the best way to get in front of users who aren't already following you. 1. Download CapCutBefore we start you'll need these 2 free mobile apps. (Assuming you already have Instagram) and 13 photos you'd like to use. First app you'll need is CapCut. This is the App you'll use to create your video & no this article is not sponsored. 2. Download RepostRepost is an App you'll use to save my video from instagram. Once the video is saved on your phone you can extract the music in CapCut. 3. Save the song on InstagramNow that you have those apps we can get started. First step is saving the audio on Instagram so it's easy to find later when we upload our Reel on Instagram. You always want to make sure you use the audio via instagram because it links that song to your video when you upload it and the algorithm will show your video to more people rather than uploading as original audio. I'll explain. For this specific video we will be using the audio Hipinozze by Counterparty. 1. Type Hipinozze in your search bar on Instagram and tap "See All Results" 2. Under the search bar you will then see "Top" "Accounts" "audio" "Tags" and "Places" You want to click "Audio" 3. Tap "Counterparty" 4. Tap "Save Audio" You'll see why we did this later. 4. Save the videoNow that the song is saved for later you have to save the video so you can open it in CapCut and extract the audio to help you sync your photos. To save a video (in this case we will use mine) 1. Open my Reel HERE 2. Tap the 3 dots in the top right hand corner. 3. Tap "Copy Link" 4. Open the Repost App I had you download 5. The App should open that link automatically. Tap the video. 6. Tap the square and arrow in the top right corner. 7. Tap "Save Video" 5. Open CapCutFinally we can start creating. 1. Open the CapCut app. 2. Tap "New Project" 3. You'll see "Videos" "Photos" and "Live Photos" Tap "Photos" 4. Select the 13 photos you'd like to use and then tap "Add" 5. Tap "add audio" 6. Tap "Extracted" 7. Select the video you just saved from Instagram using Repost. Should be 9 seconds. 8. Tap "Import Sound Only" & Just like that you have your 13 photos & audio all ready to go. 6. Set the length of each photoNow that we have the photos and audio we need to set the length of time each photo is shown so it syncs with the beat of the music. Luckily for you I've already figured out the timing to make this very simple. Tap the first photo and in the left hand corner you'll see how many seconds it's pre set too. I want to say the preset is 3 seconds. Tap and hold the right handle of the photo and drag to the left until you see 2.4s then tap the 12 other photos and do the same till each photo is 0.5s The last photo should line up perfectly with the end of the song. First photo 2.4s 12 other photos 0.5s 7. Add the animationGreat news! You're almost done! Now that all the photos are synced to the music it's time to add animation to each photo. To add animation: 1. Tap the photo 2. Tap "Animation" 3. Tap "Combo" 4. Tap the corresponding animation I detail below. 5. Make sure the "Duration" is all the way up and you're good to go. Below I will detail what "animation" you should choose for each photo to make it super easy. 1st Photo - Combo - Sway in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th and 13th Photos - Combo - Wobble 5th, 7th and 11th Photos - Combo - Pendulum 2 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th Combo - Pendulum 1 8. Change the format to 9:16This part is totally up to you. If you want your photos full screen you'll need to change the format to 9:16 by tapping "Format" and then tapping "9:16" then tap each photo and using both fingers push your fingers apart and expand the photo to full screen and adjust all pics to the size you’d like. And Just like that you're all done! Now you can export your video as 1080p x 30fps. 9. Upload your video to Instagram as a ReelNow that your video is done and ready to post, open Instagram:
1. Tap the plus sign as you normally would to post. 2. Tap "Reel" 3. Select the video you just made. 4. Tap "Add" 5. Tap "Audio" 6. Tap "Saved" (this is where you'll find the audio I had you save on step one) 7. Tap "Counterparty" 8. Tap "Done" 9. Tap "Preview" 10. Tap the music icon at the top 11. Under Audio Controls you'll see camera audio at zero and Effects is at 100. 12. Under effects you can tap "edit" to line up the song perfectly but you shouldn't have to. Then tap the video. 13. Tap the "Aa" in the top right corner if you'd like to add any text over your video. If not just tap "Next". 14. Tap "Cover" to choose the cover image. 15. Make sure Also Share to Feed is selected. 16. Tap "Crop Profile Image" to choose how it will look on your page. 17. Add the Location 18. Write an engaging caption and throw in 3-5 corresponding hashtags. 19. SHARE and that's it!! You did it! Yay! Say hi on Instagram and let me know if this article helped :) If so I can make more with other songs. Find more Free Resources and tips here. Enjoy your new reel 🔥 How Photographers Benefit from NFTs Time to bust out all of those dusty hard drives you have photos saved on and turn them into cash. You know what I'm talking about, every photographer has hard drives full of amazing photos we've taken that haven't made us any money... Until now. Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few months, you have heard about NFTs. A form of digital certificate that somehow can sell for thousands of dollars. Artists, graphic designers, celebrities, influencers, and yes even photographers are among the ones creating these forms of digital certificates that become highly valuable overnight and can turn a profit in a relatively short time. But, if the idea of NFTs still bugs your mind, keep reading to learn more about the question on everyones mind right now: What’s an NFT? and how does it benefit my photography? What Are NFTs? NFT stands for “non-fungible token.” This means each one is unique and cannot be replaced with something else. These are one-of-a-kind images or digital images that cannot be exchanged for something of similar value. Each NFT is verified using the blockchain, a transparent ledger of ownership, purchases, and trades that no one can edit or see. Most NFTs are in the Ethereum blockchain, which is a cryptocurrency. However, there are different marketplaces and blockchains where NFTs are becoming more and more available. While it’s hard to wrap your head around the value of NFTs, most people recommend you compare it to buying one-of-a-kind art pieces. Say, a unique Picasso someone found in an old garage in the middle of nowhere. It’s like the digital evolution of fine art collecting. You could also compare it to trading rare baseball cards. Benefits of Creating NFTs The most significant benefit for photographers making NFTs is money. Some photographers have earned over $25,000 from selling a single NFT photograph. Take Kate Woodman for example. Kate is a the Portland based conceptual photographer and NFT artist. Her cinematic style is centered around narrative storytelling, nostalgia, vernacular architecture, and a strong use of emotive color. She is also the creator of thebackdropstudio providing immersive backdrops for Photographers. Kate sold a NFT for one of her photos for 11.888 ETH...... That equals $27,854.30!!! Even better, you get to maintain your copyrights over the image. This changed the way artists and creators make money from their work. There’s no longer the need for agencies, intermediaries, or other parties. NFTs are designed to give the buyer ownership of the work, but the photographer retains copyright and reproduction rights. So, even if someone else owns the original art piece (NFT), you still maintain copyrights to the image. It’s a win-win. Also, NFTs have an interesting feature for photographers. Just like trading sports cards you can trade NFTs for more bitcoin in the future. This means someone can buy an NFT of your work for let's say $200 and then sell it later for more if it becomes more valuable in the future. This isn't necessarily a bad thing because you can add a royalty fee to your selling price. This way you get paid a percentage every time the NFT of your photo is sold or changes hands. This means, if your NFT goes “viral” and balloons in value, you’ll still see some of that value and benefit from it. Another great example is Bryan Minear, a landscape photographer based in Michigan, who did an NFT drop with Bitski featuring five photographs ranging from $200 to $2,500. Within 10 minutes, he sold out of nearly everything! According to PetaPixel Bryan said “I was crying by the end of the day,” “It’s not like a life-changing money, but at the same time, when you go so long just creating for the love of it, and then you finally have that moment of validation, like somebody loves your work that much they’re willing to spend some money on it, it’s kind of incredible.” Minear said the reason he chose to embrace NFTs was when he realized crypto was “here to stay” — despite speculation that the NFT market is a bubble at risk of popping. However, he doesn’t see NFTs as a way to eliminate the potential of copyright, or the blockchain as a way to control the dissemination of his work online, but as a new opportunity to reach an audience that is passionate about digital art and willing to pay for it. “I think that the biggest reason is that you can monetize yourself easier,” Dinch said. “There’s a market for photography, but with the proliferation of things like Instagram, where a lot of photographers are putting out incredible content and getting tons of likes, but haven’t been able to convert that into paying rent.” Bryan sold this photo below for 3 ETH...... That's $7,033.89!! Are There Any Risks Involved? To be honest, NFTs have been around for a while, but people still don’t understand them fully. All new technology comes with risks and growing pains. For example, anyone can create an NFT. When someone makes an NFT from works they didn’t personally create, this brings up another set of issues. There aren’t many specific laws explaining who’s liable for copyright infringement, what’s considered copyright infringement in the digital world, and how you can prove ownership of an NFT in the first place. Then, there’s the tax issue. Like cryptocurrencies, NFTs require buyers to pay sales tax and pain tax gain when selling one. This is all new ground for most governments, so adjustments are being made yearly. Finally, the marketplace itself has its risks. While rare, there are some reports of NFT collections vanishing from marketplaces without notice. How to Make Your Own Creating and selling an NFT is relatively easy, but setting the initial value and listing it in the marketplace can get tricky. Here’s a straightforward process to making and selling your first NFT as a photographer:
1. Create It: first, you have to create your photograph, GIF, video, or graphic. Alternatively, you can choose an image from your archives like I have to turn into an NFT. 2. Find Your Platform: there are different marketplaces for NFTs, including Nifty Gateway or SuperRare, but Foundation & Opensea are the most popular. I like Opensea because after the first gas fee you don't have to pay any more gas fees and Foundation is by invite only. 3. Decide Your Value: Pricing your work is perhaps the most challenging part. You decide the price of NFTs, but there’s no framework to work from. You could set the price at $10 or $1,000; you have the final call on how much you think someone will pay for your art. But you also have the option to set a price and let users bid on your work at auction. 4. Think of Editions: you can choose how many editions of your work you want to sell. It doesn’t have to be a single one. You could sell different NFTs of the same artwork. However, if you’re going to bid on higher prices, a one-of-a-kind piece will likely go for higher. 5. Decide your Royalties: not to quote Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank, but royalty fees will be your best friend. A royalty fee is a percentage you’ll get paid every time your NFT changes hands or gets sold. 6. Mint Your NFT: it’s time to mark your photo available for sale. Minting is the process of creating an NFT certificate and publishing it to the blockchain. This is what makes your photograph essentially non-fungible. 7. Get eyes on your new NFT: Learn from me, it's not as easy as throwing your work up setting a price and waiting for the bids to role in. Literally no one will see your NFTs unless you send people to your gallery in my experience, at least with Opensea. So use social media to promote the hell out of your NFT gallery and maybe one of your fans will drop 20K like Kates fan did. There’s a lot of moving parts with creating, selling, and minting NFTs and lets be honest, cryptocurrencies are ever evolving but ideally, if you’re a photographer looking to benefit from NFTs and make some extra cash on epic photos you've taken that are just sitting on your computer, you should start learning and reading more about cryptocurrencies, which is the closest thing to a non-fungible token. Best Free Website Builders Guest Author: Jack Vale With more people launching businesses or otherwise wanting to communicate a message to others, free website builders have seen growing popularity in recent years. They reduce the reliance on coders in website creation, helping to encourage those without technical skills to assemble attractive websites. Not all free website builders are created equally. Some are gems that help you design beautiful websites with simple drag-and-drop interfaces, or other equally-simple solutions. Others can be less useful, either offering a more complex user experience or incessantly promoting a paid plan. This quick guide is to help guide you towards some of the better free website builders on the market. We have taken a look at their benefits and drawbacks, creating a list of the ones we believe can help you design a functioning website with the least headache. 1. Wix As one of the biggest global names in website builders, it is logical that it should feature on this list of the best free website builders. Wix does offer paid plans, but you can still get a lot done with its free version. Unlike other free website building services, you can edit your Wix domain to better reflect your business. This, alongside other customization features like the ability to actually drag content to exact positions, makes Wix a clear favorite for building a free website. Wix is very intuitive and flexible, offering simple functions like ‘Ctrl + Z’ to undo actions and organized templates. 2. SITE123 This is a great option for beginners to learn how to create a website. There is a walkthrough feature with plenty of explanations to make the experience as painless as possible. If you are looking to build a serious website for your business or otherwise, this might compare unfavorably to Wix because of the inability to edit your domain name. SITE123 provides you with a website address full of random numbers and letters. However, it is really easy for beginners to use with live chat support and intuitive website building. 3. Strikingly Strikingly is a great way to make a personal website for free. Perhaps best reserved for those wanting to design a simple website with limited call-to-action buttons, this is user-friendly and makes it very easy to change your design. While not as detailed as some of its competitors, Strikingly is focused on helping you to set up a simple, personal website as quickly as possible. 4. WordPress Take this recommendation with a word of warning: WordPress is built with blogging in mind. If you want to set up your own blog, this could be the free website builder for you. WordPress offers a great way to categorize blog posts, add a comments section and publish new content. If you are looking to build an eCommerce website or something more visual, this might not be the free website builder for you. 5. Weebly Weebly is another great option for building a free website. If you just want to get online as quickly as possible, they offer a quick Q+A to get to know your needs before they give you a brand new website.
Alternatively, you can get hands-on with the standard Editor. You can still pick between attractive templates and access live chat, so this option remains suitable for beginners. -- Jack Vale is a writer from Happy Writers, Co. in partnership with Checkworks, a classic personal checks retailer. How to grow your following with Facebook Groups Facebook Groups has to be one of the most overlooked and under valued free ways to multiply your following and double your business among photographers and content creators. As soon as I started using Facebook groups to show off my work my following on Facebook & Instagram tripled and so did my business. In this article I will give you actionable steps on how to grow your Instagram following as well as your Facebook following using Facebook groups. Of course there are countless great ways to grow your following using YouTube, TikTok, and Pinterest but I will just be discussing Facebook groups in this article. How to Triple your website traffic with Pinterest Do followers really matter? Before I explain how to get more followers on Instagram and Facebook you first need to understand why you want followers in the first place. I know to myself and many of you reading this it may seem like a no brainer if your trying to build a brand. But you would be shocked if I told you how many photographers and creators don't even use Facebook or Instagram. Maybe you've tried the social media game and you never saw results so you deleted your account. Well I'm hear to tell you, if your work is good, and you're consistent you should be getting new clients via social media. No question. If you aren't using Facebook to grow your brand YOU ARE LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE. Let's look beyond the superficial reason we all want a large following on social media shall we? and instead look at the practical reasons we want more followers and how they correlate with our business. With every new follower comes more opportunity and more potential. I'll explain. 1. Every follower is a possible client. Maybe not today, maybe not a week from now but at some point they will convert. I've had new clients contact me on Instagram and say "I've been following your work for 8 months and I have to work with you! I've been waiting for the right time and I'm finally ready to hire you" Even though that client (like many of my clients) followed me for months they rarely engaged with my posts. This is important to note because it shows me that people are always watching. Don't be discouraged if you're not getting alot of engagement. As long as your consistently posting quality content and not posting drama I promise you someone is planning on booking you as we speak. 2. Followers = free advertising. Think about it, a certain percentage of your followers will always share your content. That's FREE ADVERTISING! It's like having your own little sales team out there constantly promoting you and your work for free! It's really simple, the more followers you have the larger your "sales team" will be. So why wouldn't you want to grow your following? People buy from those they know, like, and trust. Word of mouth will always be the best form of advertising. 3. Brands want creators with a large following. If you're wanting to work with brands the hard truth is they wont even look at your work these days if you don't have a following. Big brands today look at following first and then quality of work. Sadly if it's between you and another content creator of equal skill the one with the larger following will always get the job. I mean it makes sense from a marketing stand point. As a brand I want to go with the photographer with the biggest following because that means my products will be seen by the most people. And that means more sales. 4. Free Stuff. Who doesn't like free stuff? I'm what is considered a "micro influencer." Someone with 5,000 to 40,000 followers and over the years I've leveraged my following for free massages, studio rentals, discounts on hotels, free coffee, free sun glasses, free jewelry, free float tank therapy, free acupuncture, free liqueur, free laser treatment, and the list goes on. Even if you only have 4,000 followers you can leverage your following for free stuff as long as you have good engagement. Fact is influencer marketing is the future of advertising. Brands know they can pay you far less than they would on traditional adverting and still get more value. It's a win win for everyone. How to use Facebook groups. Now that you hopefully understand the value in building a following on social media and why it's important, let's talk about how you do it using Facebook groups. It's actually very simple. This works best for photographers and content creators. I will use myself as an example and tell you exactly what I do. Every time you post a new photo or photos on Facebook like you should be doing from your personal page (That's important) I want you to share that post in every Facebook group you can find that is related in any way to that post. For example: If I posted a really stunning photo of a humming bird I would then search Facebook groups for any group that is not only related to photography, but also birds, hummingbirds, wildlife, or location specific. For example, when I shared my humming bird photos to the Facebook groups: Oregon City Chit Chat (a local group), Photoshop and Lightroom, Northwest Creative Collective, The Hummingbird Whisperer, Birds, PNW Photographers, Fstoppers, Hummingbirds Anonymous, and Birding Oregon. Example shown below. As you can see just in the group alone my post got 343 likes, 49 comments, and 17 shares. and that's not counting the engagement from the group members who clicked the post and engaged with it directly from my page. I know those aren't crazy numbers but this is a small example of how a post can lead to many new followers on Facebook and Instagram. What you don't see in that screenshot is the link I posted to my Instagram on the original post. And that's how I convert Facebook followers to Instagram followers. Before I move on to another example there are a few important things to note: 1st. Make sure your account is public. You can't share your post in groups if your account is private. I'll save the details for a future post but I can assure you without question a post on your personal page will always get far more engagement than if you post on your business page. If you take anything from this article it's this: You will be far more successful putting all your effort into growing your personal page instead of a business page. Free engagement on a business page is absolutely awful and not worth your time. The goal after all is to get the most eyes on your work as possible so MAKE YOUR ACCOUNT PUBLIC. 2nd. Read and follow the rules of the group. Every group is different. Rules to lookout for are as follows: Rule #1 Some groups don't allow you to share a post in the group from your page. They might require you to post straight into the group. No biggie, just make sure and check if they have a limit on how many photos you can post at one time. Some only allow 1-4 in one post. Rule #2 Some groups don't allow links. So if you share a post from your personal page and you linked to your Instagram they may delete the post. For groups that don't allow links just say something like "@kickassdesigns on insta" in the caption. It is your job to read and follow the rules of each group! 3rd. Don't waste your time with groups that have little to no engagement. As shown below when searching for a relevant group to join only join groups that have 40K members and up. So out of the options below when I searched birding I would only join "Birds" and "Hummingbird Anonymous". After joining a group and being approved immediately check the engagement of the group. If there is alot of posts but no one is engaging with the posts leave the group and don't bother. With all that in mind here's an example of how a post can go viral when a post is shared in the right facebook groups. The below post did good on my personal page but only hovered around 500 likes, 150 comments, and 300 shares until I shared it in the following groups: Oregon City Chit Chat (a local group), Photoshop and Lightroom, Northwest Creative Collective, PNW Photographers, Fstoppers, Art of Portrait Photography, Crisp nights & Halloween frights, I love Halloween, Extreme Halloween, Autumn fall and Halloween, This is Halloween, Cosplay, Spooky weird and cool, Amazing Cosplayers, Bette Midler Fans, Cosplayer Nation, and Mommy Needs a Vodka. I really want you to think outside of the box. Notice how I didn't just share the below post in a cosplay group and a photography group and call it good. The key is joining and sharing in any group that's relevant. So What's relevant to my Hocus Pocus photos? Cosplay, Halloween, Autumn, Spooky, Photography, Portraits, Fall, Family, kids, Etc. So I searched all those key words in Facebook groups and joined all the ones I found that had good engagement. Needless to say that post alone got me countless new followers on Facebook and many converted to Instagram. I have gone semi viral a few times thanks to this method and I promise you can too if your work is good and you follow the steps above. Another example: Let's say you're a landscape photographer and you shot a stunning photo of Mount Hood. Keywords I might search for in facebook groups are: Landscapes, PNW, Oregon, Photography, Hiking, Explore, Travel, Mountains, still life, nature, adventure, vagabond, Etc. Another reason to share in Facebook groups, you never know who's in them looking for exactly what you have to offer. I shared a Photoshoot I did of a kid as Joker with batman in a group and the owner of Boredpanda saw it and wrote an article about the shoot and shared it to their massive audience which led to another article written by a Canadian news channel CTV and my local news. My last tip: To keep your post showing up in the feed reply to every comment. But leave at least 45 minutes between each reply. and when you hit reply, type your comment and then click cancel, you'll then see a message that says "you're no longer replying to blank if you continue what you write will appear as a comment on your post." then click continue and post the comment. Facebook views this as a new comment each time and thus repopulates your post in the feed each time. ;) I hope this article has helped. I'd love to hear from you in the comments below. More information on how to grow your Instagram Following HERE. You think you know LSD? You have no idea. LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide)
Never in my 33 years of life did I think I would try LSD let alone write an article about it’s many possible benefits. Yet here I sit, a well educated, active, successful business owner, sipping my coffee, editing photos, listening to Beethoven Sonata No.14 and reflecting on my many experiences with LSD and the massive amounts of research I have done on the topic over the years that led me here. Let me preface this article by saying I in no way condone the use of legal or illegal drugs. I am not suggesting anyone go out and try LSD but rather reporting on the information I find intriguing. To be honest I have never been into drugs nor am I interested in taking LSD just for fun. No, what interests me is the possible health, wellness, and spiritual benefits of microdosing and creative problem solving at higher dosages. Viewing the world from a different perspective without the ego. The fact is 200,000+ people will use LSD for the first time this year and many more are thinking about it. Not all but hopefully most of these people will do their research before diving into the world of psychedelics as everyone should and when they do I hope they come across this article and it sheds some light on the topic. If you think LSD is just for hippies, trippers, and burnouts, think again. Fact is billionaires, celebrities and countless other game changers have openly discussed their LSD use and it’s positive effects on their lives. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Tim Ferriss, The Beatles, Joe Rogan, George Carlin, and Jack Nicholson just to name a few. And more recently a growing number of young professionals in Silicon Valley claim that taking small doses of LSD known as “microdosing”, which involves taking minute quantities of the drug (8-15 micrograms every 4 days) simply makes them perform better at work – becoming more creative and focused, (as a designer and photographer this in particular intrigues me) with enhanced overall well-being, reduced stress and anxiety while improving sleep and leading to healthier habits. Just to name a few. Ayelet Waldman (mom of 4) and Author of “A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life” resorted to microdosing after years of physical and mental suffering. Severe depression with years of drugs given to her by her doctor came with countless side effects but no relief. It wasn't till she tried microdosing for 30 days that her mood, marriage and life changed for the better. Business professionals, software engineers, biologists and mathematicians - say that microdosing aids lateral thinking and encourages more empathetic interpersonal relations and women have reported less cramps when it’s that time of the month. So what's my experience been like? Well, on average when I have about 200-300 mcg "1-3 tabs" I have no hallucinations, loss of ego, or dark feelings. I do however feel a sense of overwhelming peace, loss of anxiety, boost of creativity, and experience a dream like state yet my mind is clear. All noise from everyday problems vanish for 8-12 hours and meditation is never better. I feel a new appreciation for nature and others. A Oregon Coast sunset never looked so good. All that being said, there's a caveat. and that is, everyone has a different experience. Just because mine was great doesn't mean yours will be. If trying LSD for the first time don't do more than 1 tab as it may be too much to handle. Look at it like a hair cut. You can always try more in the future but once ingested there is no going back. Also make sure you don't have a family history of mental illness before taking LSD. If you do LSD should be avoided. Bad Trips. If you experiment with psychedelics long enough you will at some point have a bad trip. This could be your first time or your 6th time. In my many experiences with psychedelics I've had 2 bad trips. Both times were because I broke the rules I mention in this article. My very first experience with psychedelics was mushrooms and I had what I thought at the time was a very bad trip (fear, unease, helplessness, loss of time, loneliness, paranoia) Here's why: 1st. I had way too much, 2nd. I was camping at a location we backpacked 2 miles into. No way out. 3rd took them way too late, it got dark an hour after the shrooms set in and we didnt have wood to make a fire. Also it was very cold and uncomfortable where we were. As you can see I broke many rules and when you do you can have a bad trip. That being said looking back I only remember the good conversations and laughs we had. It was'nt all bad. My 2nd bad trip was much worse. I made the big mistake of breaking rule number one: Dont mix drugs. About an hour into my trip on LSD my roomate at the time thought it would be a good idea to give me THC butter. ( I don't smoke weed, he smokes a ton of weed) Well mixing had no effect on him but oh boy it did for me. When the THC kicked in I had an awful panic attack that lasted for hours and extreme paranoia. I just sat alone in my room and rode it out but there was nothing good about that experience. I learned not to have anything else in my system while on LSD and have never had a bad trip since. :) Dr James Fadiman, Author of The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide says "What you get with microdosing is the best parts of Adderall with none of the side effects. You function better physically and mentally. You find the office prick bearable and you're more compassionate about the flaws of others" "It helps me think more creatively and stay focused. I manage my stress with ease and am able to keep my perspective healthy in a way that I was unable to before" Lily, startup publicist On his website Fadiman offers guidance to participants on how often to dose and, in return, asks them to keep a journal of observations. Fadiman has reports from 125 participants, with 80 more on the way. In addition to this, he receives many requests for advice each month from people looking to try it safely. "It is no longer a fad. It is being accepted as a very different way to more safely benefit from psychedelics without any 'psychedelic effects'," he says. In such low doses, psychedelics should be viewed more like anti-depressants and cognitive enhancers. Alex, a biologist at Edinburgh University says "With a microdose you don't get the overwhelming rush of emotions and feelings. You don't get hallucinations nor do you feel sleepy." However, Alex will also take up to a third of a full dose when he is seeking to solve complex problems. As Portland rapidly grows I foresee the experimentation with microdosing blowing up among the huge number of young entrepreneurs here trying to get an edge on the competition. And I am among them. Recently, universities around the world have begun testing LSD for addressing PTSD, mental health problems, treatment-resistant depression, removing end-of-life anxiety in terminal cancer patients, ending nicotine addiction, and more. Roland Griffiths, phD, a professor at Johns Hopkins medical school, shares a typical upshot from one early study: “Most of the 36 volunteers looked back on their experience with higher doses of LSD up to 14 months later and rated it as the most, or one of the 5 most, personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives. “For volunteers with children, the experience was often put above, or on par with the birth of their first child. It should be noted that a normal trip today would range anywhere from 100 mcg to 200 mcg of LSD and 400 mcg and up for a mystical experience or “the feeling or the awareness that you are connected not only to other people but to other things and to living systems.” At this dose or higher it is critical to have qualified supervision in the form of a guide. Remember “If you are going to take a mood-altering drug there will always be an element of risk, particularly if you have an underlying mental health condition. But compared to the risks attached to other drugs, this is at the lower end of the scale," says Harry Shapiro, director of UK charity DrugWise. Warnings: If taking LSD it is crucial that you get it from a trusted source, test it before use and make sure to be in a safe clean setting with people you love and trust. Make sure your mindset is positive and open. Make sure you are in a good place in life and generally positive. If you have a history of mental illness DO NOT TAKE LSD. A dose can last 12 hours, make sure you stay in one place whether that’s at home or in nature (Camping is great). Make a list of questions you want to answer before you trip. Have a plan and purpose. Always have a trip sitter. ( more on this in The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide ) And finally, although there has never been a recorded incident of a fatal overdose of LSD, nor is it addictive, nor is there a link between psychedelics and psychosis, bad trips are very real and can happen. It can be terrifying but it will pass and you will be fine. Flashbacks from bad trips have been reported with excessive use but they are very rare. Look, Life is short, why not expand your mind? Lose the ego. See life from another perspective you can’t even imagine. To achieve this with a safer legal alternative to LSD you can try meditation or a float tank. I suggest THE FLOAT SHOPPE http://www.floatshoppe.com/ in Portland. Or Float Om Healing Center http://float-om-isolation-tanks.com/ in Eugene. Thanks for reading now join the discussion. Have you tried LSD? How was your experience? Was it good or bad? Would you do it again? Should it be legal? Did this article in anyway shift your view on the drug itself? Let us know in the comments below. Resources Videos: Microdosing: People who take LSD with breakfast - BBC News How Do Psychedelics Effect The Brain? Can LSD make you a billionaire? Have A Good Trip | Official Trailer | Netflix The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reports LSD statistics and facts saying more than 200,000 people use LSD for the first time each year. Sites: http://theconversation.com/lsd-microdosing-is-trending-in-silicon-valley-but-can-it-actually-make-you-more-creative-72747 http://www.nature.com/news/no-link-found-between-psychedelics-and-psychosis-1.16968 http://www.wired.co.uk/article/lsd-microdosing-drugs-silicon-valley Books: A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life by Ayelet Waldman The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys by James Fadiman Tools of Titans by Timothy Ferriss You clicked on this article because you want more traffic to your website and I am here to tell you there is no better way to do that then Pinterest. Besides TikTok I think Pinterest Has to be the most undervalued and misunderstood platform in 2020. Pinterest is one of those apps that we all use for inspiration but forget we can also use the platform to leverage our own business. Whether you’re an artist, photographer, hairstylist, MUA, designer, or brand you can without a doubt triple the traffic to your website using Pinterest for free. Think about that, how much do you think you would have to pay in ads on google, Facebook, or Instagram to triple the traffic to your website? As you can see from the screenshot below Last month alone I had 1.1 million impressions on my Pinterest account with over 25,000 engagements and over the last three months I’ve had an average of 656,000 monthly viewers. Although these numbers are far greater than anything you will get organically with Instagram or Facebook they are not hard to achieve. According to my Google analytics 65% of my organic website traffic comes from Pinterest. That’s huge. It’s very simple, If you are an artist, designer, brand, or business your end goal is sales and in order to make more sales you need more traffic to your website and to get more traffic to your website people need to find you and right now there is no better way to find you then on Pinterest. You need to understand, Pinterest is a search engine NOT a social media platform. No one uses Pinterest to catch up or follow their friends, they use it for inspiration. Maybe it’s inspiration for a photo shoot, a recipe, a wedding, make up, hairstyle, or outfit. Whatever it is use your product, service, or skill to be that inspiration. Inspiration leads to curiosity and curiosity leads to sales. Just ask Sharee Davenport a wedding photographer who booked over $200,000 worth of weddings using Pinterest. So now that I’ve shown you the value of using Pinterest for your business here are some tips on how to actually use Pinterest correctly. Tip 1. Every pin on your page should link to your website. Tip number one and probably the most important tip I will give you is this: If and only if you are using Pinterest for your business “in other words to drive traffic to your website”, delete every board and pin that is not linked to your website. This one change made the biggest impact on my account almost immediately. I repeat, delete every pin or board that is not linked to your website. No one visiting your Pinterest page gives a shit about what vegan recipes you’ve saved or at home workout plans you’ve pinned. Those things have nothing to do with your business. When using Pinterest for business every board and pin should be specifically related to what you have to offer. If it’s easier to start a separate account I would suggest doing that. This way you wont lose all the pins you've saved. Tip 2. Use Board Titles and DescriptionsBoard Titles and descriptions are important. Use them wisely. Whatever it is that you have to offer do some research and find out the most popular keywords people are using to search for your product or service. Take some time and think about what your perfect client would be searching for to find you. If you’re a wedding photographer in Portland Oregon you might want to title your board “Oregon wedding photographer” or “Portland wedding photographer.” or get more specific and have a different board for each Wedding Venue you've shot at like “Portland hotel wedding” or “The Nines hotel wedding” or “Gray Gables Estate Wedding” Remember newly engaged couples are looking for wedding venues, wedding destinations, wedding photographers, or floral inspiration. No one gives a shit about Jack and Jill‘s wedding so lose the titles like “Jacob & Sarah’s Beach front wedding” and go with something like “Pacific City Beach front wedding” It’s okay to use names on your blog but no one’s searching Pinterest for Tom and Karen’s lake view wedding I promise you. Use keywords in your description like Oregon wedding photographer, Oregon wedding venue, dream wedding, Oregon wedding ideas, Oregon wedding photography etc. If you’re a wedding photographer for example using keywords like the venue you shot a beautiful wedding at is crucial because the first thing soon to be brides look for when planning a wedding even before photographers are venues. So when a bride to be is searching Pinterest for local wedding venues you want your work to show up. Tip 3. Use Pin Titles and Descriptions Just like board titles and descriptions each pin will have a title and description as well. For example if I am adding a pin to my cosplay photography board I will keep the title and a lot of the keywords in the description the same as what are used for the board itself because they are related, the only difference I will make are some of the keywords in the description of that pin more specific to the photo itself. As you can see in the photo below I used keywords related to the photo like marvel cosplay and marvel universe and avengers endgame and female cosplay and female superhero. The keywords in your board description won’t be so specific they should be more broad. Remember Pinterests algorithm crawls the app for keywords not photos. Pinterest can’t tell a photo is of a bride and groom reading vows, you have to tell Pinterest what the photo is via keywords and that’s how Pinterest matches your photo with someone’s search. This is where so many people go wrong. Tip 4. Use Key Words on your Profile Page Not only is your profile the first thing people see when they come to your page but the web crawls Pinterest for keywords you want to use not only in your board titles and descriptions and pin titles and descriptions but also your profile page. For example If you’re an Atlanta hairstylist or make up artist you should use the phrase Atlanta hairstylist on your profile page in your pins and on your boards. That makes it very clear to Pinterest that you are a hairstylist in Atlanta. Tip 5. Keep it simple Keep it simple, this isn’t as hard or as time consuming as it sounds. If you’re a photographer you have an extreme advantage because you already have a ton of content you can post. Try to stick with as few boards as you can so you don’t overwhelm anyone coming to your page. 20, 40, 80 boards is too much. Remember Pinterest is a search engine not social media so unlike Instagram you don’t need to come up with a witty description for every photo, I literally copy and paste most of my descriptions from previous posts. If you are a fashion designer and you make a board for a new fall line, most if not all of the keywords you use in each photo from that line will be the same. Tip 6. Use Pinterest search to find popular Keywords For instance the photo below is a photo I took for a local athletic apparel brand. So to find corresponding popular keywords I use Pinterest search for suggestions by typing in a word related to the photo like "athletic" and as you can see a list will pop down of other popular search terms related to athletic. Such as athletic women, athletic outfits, athletic wear, athletic hairstyles. And because all of those are related to the image I’m posting I use those keywords in my description as well as the more specific keywords for local search like Oregon portrait photographer or Portland fashion photographer. Tip 7. Hire a Photographer to make you content Now you may be sitting there thinking to yourself OK Lance this is all great but I am not a photographer, I’m not an artist, I’m not a designer, I’m not a model, how am I supposed to create all this content to post on Pinterest? That’s where hiring a professional photographer comes in. As professional photographers we are content creators, our job is to create engaging and interesting content based around your product or service that you can use to promote yourself via Pinterest and other social media platforms. Let’s say you’re a business owner and your business is dental work. First thing you want to do is create a website/blog, and then write interesting and engaging articles like how marijuana affects oral health or how the keto diet affects oral health or how often you should replace your toothbrush or what’s the connection between stroke and oral health. Once you’ve done that take some photos yourself or hire a professional or hell you can even use free stock photography and use those photos to promote your articles on Pinterest. But the better those photos are the better your post will perform on the App. Tip 8. Switch to a Business Account Now that I’ve given you the knowledge how to utilize Pinterest for your advantage the only thing you can do now is take what you’ve learned and practice but the only way to practice and get better results is to track what’s working and what’s not so you can make the necessary changes moving forward and to do that you will need to track your analytics. In order to track your analytics you will need to go to your account settings and scroll down to account changes and switch to a business account instead of personal. Don’t worry this doesn’t cost anything. Tip 9. Track your Analytics Let’s take audience insights for example. Here you can see in the last 30 days how many people have engaged with your pins and what they are interested in as well as their age, gender, and location. You can choose between looking at your total audience or engaged audience but we want to specifically look at our engaged audience because these are the people who are actually clicking our pins and sharing our pins and viewing our website. We want to learn everything we can about the people who are the most interested in our pins because these are the type of people we want to target because they are more likely to click or share our image and view our website. As you can see which is as no surprise to me my engaged audience is most interested in art, women’s fashion, education, entertainment, and beauty. Tip 10. Get Specific Now that we have that information we can dig even deeper and get more specific. For example as shown in the image above 69% of my engaged audience is interested in women’s fashion and when I click that it then tells me of those interested in women’s fashion 61% is specifically interested in women’s fashion dress. So that tells me I should see higher engagement and thus better results when I share photos of a model in a dress and use the corresponding keywords like women’s fashion dress. I hope that makes sense. Now I can go even further by clicking dress and it will bring up a page of the most popular pins for women’s fashion dress and this tells me what kind of photos are doing well in that category. Great for inspiration :) Furthermore you can view your impressions and engagements per pin through analytics. This will tell you what photos are doing well and what photos aren’t. As you can see in the photo below my most popular pins are all Cosplay. This tells me I should post more photos in that category. When I compare my pins in that category the analytics will tell me the difference between what performed well and what didn’t so I can improve moving forward. Might be the keywords used might be the photos itself. I have tried the route of pinning straight from my Instagram to send people there hoping to gain more followers that way but I have found that the algorithm doesn’t like that very much so you’re going to get far better results linking to your website and not another social media. In conclusion, to make this as simple and straightforward as possible this is my method: I’ll create a board such as Portland portrait photographer because I’m a photographer in Portland and I shoot a lot of portraits. Because of this I obviously already have a ton of content I can use on my phone. Once my board is created and I’ve chosen the right keywords for my title and description I will then add one or two sets per day. A set being all the photos I shared previously on social media from a shoot which usually ends up being around 10 photos. Obviously if this board is for portraits all the photos from the set I’m sharing are going to be portraits. Each photo you add back to back will need a title and description and I literally just copy and paste because all the same keywords will be relevant for the most part. The only time this wouldn’t be the case is if let’s say you were adding a set of photos to a Lakeview wedding board and one photo was of a couple and another photo was of just the cake. Obviously you wouldn’t use the same keywords for the couple as you would the cake however you would still use some of the same keywords but some would need to change. This is why when I’m adding sets of photos back to back I’ll choose one board so I can easily copy and paste and that saves me time. So how do you copy and paste? I always have my Pinterest app open as well as a web browser open with my Pinterest account that way I can copy the title and description from the web browser and paste into the Pinterest app. Bonus Tip. Use Regrammer Pro tip for photographers, for a fast and easy way to find sets you’ve done, on your phone go to your Instagram profile and scroll until you find a set you’ve shared that you would like to share on Pinterest. Click the three dots on the upper right corner and then click copy link. Then with the Regrammer app “if you don’t have it get it, it’s free” paste the link in the app and you can quickly save the photos from that post, and there you have it you can immediately share those photos to Pinterest one by one via the Pinterest app. If you have any questions please ask them in the comments below and I will try my best to answer them. Also make sure to connect with me on Instagram HERE. Just remember, it’s very unlikely that someone sends you a message on Pinterest wanting to hire you or buy your product. Most likely they will click through to your website, check you out and probably follow you on social media. There they will see your work and personality. If they like what they see they might reach out to you and that is when your job begins, your job is to build a relationship with that person so they ultimately end up hire you.
With all of us stuck at home practicing social distancing there is no better time than now to improve our skills as photographers and get inspired. In this article I will share some of my favorite free resources I use to improve my skills not only as a photographer but as a business owner. In this article I recommend videos, podcasts, books, websites and more. All free resources to help you improve your photography and business and maybe even get inspired. Videos Let's start with the best. My favorite photographer/videographer has to be Peter McKinnon and considering he has 4.5 million subscribers on youtube it's safe to say I'm not the only one. His videos are not only informative but funny and entertaining, plus his videos are full of movie quality cinematography. He's just that good. I follow him for inspiration and general knowledge on portraits, landscape, product photography, and video. Evan Ranft is another great photographer with great video tutorials. I follow him for inspiration and general knowledge on Portraits and Street Photography. He's one of my favorite street photographers out of Atlanta, GA. His color grading is top notch and has a cinematic Neo-noir feeling to his work Sorelle Amore is the Queen of self portraits. Her outgoing bubbly personality, amazing accent, beautiful locations, and skills in front and behind the camera always make for a great video. Sorelle is a must follow for photographers and models alike. Because she only takes photos of her self she has great insight on posing as well as photography. She's also constantly traveling to beautiful places so add her channel to your list of location scouting tools. These next 2 guys I follow for 3 reasons. Portraits, Travel, and Cars. Chris Hau and Alen Palander have some of the best portrait photography, car photography, and travel photography you will find. These 2 guys are extremely talented and offer free advice on their channels as well as stunning video. Get inspired by these 2. Sean Tucker is a legendary street photographer. Sean offers great information on his youtube channel on street photography, editing, and portraits. You wont want to miss his content. Now this one is more of a marketing expert not so much photography. That being said everything I've learned about social media marketing I've learned from Gary Vaynerchuk. If you haven't heard of him you must be living under a rock because everyone I know follows him for marketing advice and day to day inspiration. I love his "I don't give a fuck what you think" attitude. Podcasts The Beginner Photography Podcast is a free weekly podcast hosted by wedding photographer Raymond Hatfield who interviews professional photographers of all genres who share what they wish they knew when they got started so you can grow your photography skills faster! I don't shoot weddings often but still take something away from every episode. Don't let the name fool you, this is no podcast just for beginners. Even seasoned photographers can gain insight from this podcast. Level-up your photography with the Master Photography Podcast. No matter your needs or experience level, one of their shows on their network is going to feed your passion for photography and help you to master your craft. So much great information on their multiple shows. Six Figure Photography is hosted by the award winning international wedding photographer Ben Hartley. Abundance comes from understanding your own self-worth and providing value to everyone you encounter. Six Figure Photography exists to inspire, empower & challenge photographers towards creating a life of abundance not just in profits, but in creativity and relationships. Ben does this through his weekly podcast, online training, and hands-on workshops. I've listened to almost everyone of his podcasts and learned something new with every episode. Jenna Martin, from Billings, Montana hosts the podcast Creative Chaos. This podcast is perfect for the oddballs and misfits of the world trying to turn their creative passions into legitimate careers. They discuss everything about creative professions; both the artistic side AND the business side. You'll learn how to produce your very best work on a consistent basis, how to grow your social media following, how to create passive income streams, and how to streamline you're dream business. Also checkout their DD ("Deep Dive") episodes where their guests go far more in-depth into various artistic careers. I listen to this one for marketing and daily inspiration not photography although the tips and tactics I learned from this podcast has improved my photography business. On his global top 100 iTunes podcast The GaryVee Audio Experience, you’ll hear episodes of Garys favorite series called the #AskGaryVee Show, a mix of his best highlights from his DAILYVEE documentary video series, keynote speeches on marketing and business, interviews, fireside chats, and any of his new and current thoughts that he records specifically for this audio experience! Books Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss $14.88 - Tactics, Routines, & Habits from Billionaires This book contains the tools, tactics, routines, and habits of billionaires, icons, and world-class performers you won’t find anywhere else. What makes the book different from most is a relentless focus on actionable details. This is reflected in the questions. For example: What do these people do in the first sixty minutes of each morning? What do their workout routines look like, and why? What books have they gifted most to other people? What are the biggest wastes of time for novices in their field? What supplements do they take on a daily basis? You get the idea. What most photographers don't understand is that you can learn life and business altering tactics from world-class performers in a range of industries outside our own. #AskGaryVee by Gary Vaynerchuk $14.95 - Social Media Tactics Look, if you're a photographer trying to make money with photography you need this book. End of story. I own all of Gary Vees books and they are all great but this one has the most applicable information for you to consume and use right away. 95% of my clients come from Facebook and Instagram (without adds) and that's because I use the information I learned in this book to slay the social media game. #AskGaryVee features the most useful and interesting questions Gary has addressed on his popular Youtube channel. Gary presents practical, timely, and timeless advice on marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, and everything else you've been afraid to ask but are dying to know. Gary gives you the insights and information you need on everything from effectively using Twitter to launching a small business, hiring superstars to creating a personal brand, launching products effectively to staying healthy-and even buying wine. Buy this book, then buy his others. For more book recommendations checkout my article 9 Books Every photographer needs to be more successful. Of course books aren't free but you can find these at the library to rent for free :) 15 Free Lightroom Presets Are you struggling to find a way to edit your photographs with a professional touch? Are you having a difficult time choosing between Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom to edit your photographs? In order to make it easier, PhotoWhoa is giving you various options to enhance your photographs. There is no need to choose between the two as they offer creative and professional presets for Lightroom and various actions for Photoshop. These presets are compatible with both Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop and are used by many photographers across the globe as they help to make the workflow easy while ensuring that the editing process is enjoyable as well. They are an excellent tool used by not only professional photographers but also amateur ones. In these, Lightroom presets offered by BeArt-Presets, various photo editing tools have been combined to create high-quality pictures. When it comes to adjusting the tone of photographs along with setting the appropriate exposure of a picture. These offer various combinations of editing features to create high-quality photographs that have a professional touch. Free (Royalty free) Images on Unsplash Unsplash is a platform powered by an amazing community that has gifted hundreds of thousands of their own photos to fuel creativity around the world. So sign up for free, or don’t. Either way, you’ve got access to over a million photos under the Unsplash license—which makes them free to do-whatever-you-want with. This site is great because the photos are so much better quality than boring standard stock photos. And they are all free to use however you like! :) Build a Free Website with Weebly When I built my first website I had no money so I did it for free with Weebly. With Weebly you get access to customizable webpage designs and useful tools to build your website and grow your photography business. Easily build a free website to help you get discovered and grow your customer base in style. It's never been easier to start your own website with no knowledge of webdesign. This is a great way to start that blog you've been talking about. Free Photoshop Alternative Gimp is a free, open-source alternative to Photoshop that's been around for many years, GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. Today it's available in versions for Linux, Windows and Mac. GIMP offers a wide toolset, similar to Photoshop in many ways, and is a great option if you're looking for a no-cost image editor. The interface differs somewhat from Photoshop, but a version of GIMP is available that mimics Adobe's look and feel, making it easier to migrate over if you're ditching Photoshop. The full suite of tools is everything you're accustomed to, including painting tools, colour correction, cloning, selection, and enhancement. The team that oversees development has worked hard to ensure compatibility too, so you'll be able to work with all the popular file formats without any trouble at all. You'll also find a very capable file manager built in, along similar lines to Adobe's Bridge. Overall, this is a great option whether you've either got a limited budget, or want to move away from Photoshop for other reasons. Free Overlays & PNGS with DeviantArt DeviantArt is the world's largest online social community for artists and art enthusiasts, allowing people to connect through the creation and sharing of art. This site is great for any digital artists who use Photoshop alot. Need an object with a transparent background or an overlay of smoke, fire, magic, rain, snow, etc? You can find it all on DeviantArt for free.
The point is, we’ve never lived in a time where we have so many free resources at our fingertips to help us elevate our skills and business. I hope these resources helped and if you have anything to add please do so in the comments below. In this article I will be breaking down ways you can survive this downtime that we have all suddenly been hit with as entrepreneurs. Although I will be focusing on photography many of these tips on leveraging downtime can be applied to any industry. I don’t know about my fellow photographers and business owners but I for one have had all my clients over the next two months cancel thanks to this virus going around. So now what? No money coming in, what do we do? How in the world do we turn this nightmare into a positive? How can we come out of this off time more valuable than we were before. Times are tough and they are likely to get tougher. Let’s be honest with ourselves, the reason we have found ourselves without work currently is out of our control so let’s focus on what is in our control. Make sure to connect with me on Instagram HERE Learn something new What better time than now to learn something new. Maybe something you’ve wanted to learn but never had the time to, like landscape photography, street photography, or wildlife photography. Maybe learn a new language, or how to meditate, or how to cook, or how to play an instrument. Learning a new skill can make a dramatic impact on your business. By learning how to be a better writer I’ve been able to write these articles that has not only helped my audience but made a dramatic increase in traffic to my website. I’ve always wanted to learn street photography so now that I have all this free time I can go learn and still keep a good distance from people. These days you can learn almost anything at the tip of a finger via YouTube for free without ever leaving your house. We all have things that we would love to learn but never make a priority due to lack of time so why not now? Work on Improvement Much like learning a new skill, improving on the skills we already have tends to get pushed aside because we are so busy. Work on improving your posing skills, or your lighting skills, or hell just the basics of photography. Maybe brush up on your cosplay photography skills or editing. For example, I am a portrait photographer but I also love wildlife photography, I just never get to do it. Unfortunately because taking photos of birds doesn’t bring in the bacon I never take the time to improve my wildlife photography. Now with all this talk of social distancing, now is the perfect time to shoot the birds. Fine Tune Your Website It’s not sexy, it’s not fun, but making sure your website is up-to-date, user-friendly, and eye-catching makes a world of difference. If you don’t already have a website it’s never been easier to make one with sites like square space or Weebly. If you already have a website, when is the last time you updated your portfolio or your homepage or your Seo? I recently took a hard look at my website that I hadn’t touched in many months and found it was in need of a huge facelift. As photographers it is so easy for us to just upload all of our work on social media and forget about a website but having a website is crucial if you want to look professional and reach those higher paying clients. Update Your Logo I can’t tell you how many photographers I know who don’t even have a logo. Without a logo you have no brand identity. Think of your favorite brand right now and I guarantee you their logo is the first thing you think of. Brand identity starts with a logo and you might already have one but when is the last time it was updated? could it use a facelift? Is it in line with your current brand? If not now is the perfect time. If you want to save money you can always use Adobe illustrator to create one yourself for free or ask your cousin who's in college for graphic design otherwise I suggest using a professional service like Kickass Designs but hey I could be biased ;) Work on Marketing What’s the point of having a website if no one can find it? How are you driving traffic to your website? That’s where marketing comes in, this can be done via social media or SEO or paid ads. My favorite method of marketing my brand is with social media. Of course I like it because it’s free but also because it gives me the opportunity to really get to know my audience. If you aren’t leveraging platforms like Instagram or Facebook or YouTube you are missing out on massive amounts of opportunity. Unless you’re selling tombstones this is where all your potential clients are so why not take advantage of these free platforms and get in front of those people. In an age where we day trade attention you should be posting fresh content every day to drive traffic to your site or social media platforms. If you have been slacking on the content creation now is the perfect time to make enough content to last you the rest of the year. Go Location Scouting As I’ve mentioned in past articles, location scouting is imperative if you want to stand out among the sea of photographers in your town. Offer your clients epic locations that other photographers don’t know about. Location scouting is the best way to do this but it is time consuming and often last on the list of things to do. So now is the perfect time to walk around your neighborhood and find some great spots or drive around town or out in the country with no destination in mind. Just pin the spots you want to come back to you on Google maps and you're all set. Practice Video In this day and age if you’re not offering video you will start losing clients to those that do. Plain and simple. Everyone wants video these days. This might just be one of the most beneficial skills you can learn while on this time off to make yourself more valuable when all of this blows over. I learned this the hard way. I had a photo shoot go viral and articles about it were shared on numerous news outlets. However I was contacted by numerous brands that had the potential to take that shoot to a whole other level but were uninterested when they found out I had no video of the photo shoot. The accounts that wanted to share my work until they found out I didn’t have video had massive audiences. I missed a huge opportunity on that one. Retouching I know a lot of photographers outsource their retouching because many photographers hate the editing process. However, taking this time to really master the skill of retouching Will make you a far more valuable photographer when all of this blows over and it will save you money in the long term if you’re not paying to outsource the work. Personal Projects As photographers we all have a list of personal projects that we’ve been meaning to shoot. Maybe it’s collaborating with a local designer or makeup artist or model. Our personal projects are so important for us to really show our creativity and passion. So contact that friend you’ve been meaning to collaborate with and set a date. It will be a great opportunity for both of you to take your mind off this nightmare. With no paid clients coming in now is the time for all those free projects with friends. Accounting and Bookkeeping Oh hey my least favorite thing to do. Blech.. Taxes and bookkeeping are always the last thing on my list but making sure you stay on top of your taxes is absolutely crucial. Have you been putting it off this year? If so, now is the perfect time to sit down and get organized with either Quick books or with an accountant. I am awful at taxes so I leave that up to my accountant at Serenity Tax & Accounting. Define your perfect Client If you haven’t done this by now you really should take the time to define your perfect client, what is their age range, are they male or female, are they married or single, what does their income look like, where are they located, what are they interested in, do they have children, what social media platforms are they using etc. Once you have defined your perfect client see if that’s in line with your current clientele, if not make the necessary adjustments. You can use your Google analytics from your website or Instagram analytics to find your current client demographic. Rest Look, if you’re an entrepreneur then I know you work your ass off. So take this time to rest and get inspired. Re-ignite that flame. Take it easy and watch some movies, search Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration. As business owners we never take the time to rest so take this opportunity to relax and reflect on why you chose to do what you do in the first place. If you have anything to add to this list I'd love to hear it in the comments below. We can all use more ideas right now.
Someone asked me the other day how I avoid burning out when I photograph people almost daily. I should start by saying I'm an introvert and I'm pretty vocal about that on social media. For all you extroverts out there FYI, Introverts, by definition, expend energy when they’re around other people. We recharge our energy by being alone, doing solitary activities like reading, watching Netflix, meditating, spending time in nature, and in my case editing photos at home. You could say I run a higher risk of burnout from too much social interaction as I am an introverted photographer and I work with a lot of people. In this article I'll explain how I shoot almost every day and don’t burnout. Make sure to connect with me on Instagram HERE I Guard my schedule fiercelyAnything that involves interaction with people, like client meetings, photo sessions, and networking events all drain my energy. Don't get me wrong, I love photography and everything that comes with it but I can feel very low on energy at the end of these social activities. I’m very careful that I don’t force myself into a schedule with too many social activities and not enough recharge time. I like to alternate photo sessions or meetings with plenty of down time. This is where time blocking really comes in handy and I learned this strategy in the Book The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results. I find it necessary to give myself permission to rest and recharge even though it can be hard sometimes. I Prepare Mentally & PhysicallyBy preparing in advance for photo sessions and meetings etc, I allow myself time to become mentally engaged in what I’m doing. I have to be ready and prepared to shoot so I don’t feel put on the spot or unprepared. I also find it helpful to prepare physically. For example, by cleaning my gear, charging my batteries, and packing my bags the day before a shoot, to keep myself from scrambling at the last minute, and having to worry that I forgot something. Another way I like to prepare is finding photos on Pinterest or Instagram the day before that I can show my client on the day of shooting for posing ideas based on what we are photographing, Fashion, lifestyle, portraits, etc. Practice, Practice, Practice In order for me to instruct my models confidently, I need to practice my favorite poses until I’ve mastered them. My clients take their cues from me. Not all my clients are professional models working for an agency, so by practicing ahead of time I’m able to feel confident and secure in my directions which allows for less anxiety during a shoot. You don't have to be a high energy outgoing extrovert to be a successful photographer. If you’re a soft spoken introvert like myself I would suggest using pictures like I mentioned above as examples to have your clients mimic the pose. I Rest and RechargeAs I mentioned above, as an introvert I have to set aside time for rest and relaxation. This could be meditation, reading, Netflix, Location Scouting, walking outside, hiking, playing with my dog, a good workout, or going to a movie. I know how hard it is to stop working when there’s a mountain more that could be done. It’s so easy to say, “I can read when I’m done. I’ll just edit one more picture.” Which turns into 2 then 4 then 10 and before you know it hours have passed. So I HAVE to time block to get it in. The truth is there will ALWAYS be something else you could do. If you don’t take time out for yourself, you’ll burn out, resent your business, and quit. And if you don’t quit you sure as hell won’t thrive in your business so give yourself permission to rest and recharge, so that you can continue to serve your clients and serve your business like a Rockstar. If you’re an introvert like me, chances are you’re even more prone to burnout than others. It’s just a fact of life. Especially at the end of a long, intensely busy day or week or month of shooting. But take it from me, you CAN avoid the burn!
Hope these tips help. And if you have any to add please do in the comments below 🙏😀 GEAR 👏🏻DOESN'T 👏🏻 MATTER (When you start out) Honestly, you do not need an expensive camera, fancy lighting, or an outrageous lens to get started. The key is just starting. Everyone has a cellphone with a camera on it. You have the tools you need right in your pocket. Some of the best creators on Instagram right now only use their iPhones. And as they say “The best camera you have is the one you have on you” I once had to use my cell phone for a real estate gig because my camera lens wasn’t wide enough for some shots and the client didn’t even notice. Don’t believe me? Checkout these 5 random Mobile Photographers who are killing it right now. The gear you use doesn’t matter when you start out. It's about the story, the creativity, the composition, and the emotions behind the photo. What’s most important is just start. I shot with a cellphone for years before I got my first camera. Plus, if you don't teach yourself the principles and techniques of photography, it won't matter if you have a nice camera, because your photos will look like garbage. One of my most popular photos (The Pittock Mansion) was taken on my cell phone because that’s the only camera I had on me at the time. Professional photographer Sephi Bergerson shot an entire wedding on his iPhone 6s Plus and were the results as good as they would have been with a camera? No. But were the bride and groom happy? Yes. Did he get paid? Yes. and that's all that matters. Making your clients happy Same can be said for video. In fact did you know the Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh made his latest film Unsane using an iPhone 7 Plus, and the accolades the film has received suggest it was worth the risk. Did you know Lady Gaga‘s music video Stupid Love was shot on an iPhone 11 pro as well as Selena Gomez's Lose you to Love me video? And check out this epic snowball fight filmed by the great John Wick Director David Leitch on an iPhone 11 pro. Now before you show this to a gear head and they lose their mind over the thought of someone using a cellphone for business keep in mind I'm only suggesting starting with a cell phone and upgrading when you're ready. There is no dispute, a camera lens will always take Higher Quality images than a cellphone. i.e. more pixels. and a cellphone will never give you that great depth of field you can get with a camera.
Say it with me: The👏🏻equipment👏🏻doesn’t👏🏻make👏🏻the👏🏻photographer. Do you agree? With over 1 billion monthly users you would be a fool not to leverage Instagram to promote your brand in 2020. Unfortunately it’s a lot harder to grow a following than it used to be and it’s far more competitive but with the strategies and tips I give you in this article you will see growth in no time. In this article I lay out the blueprint to gaining new followers organically without spending money in 10 steps. These are easy actionable steps anyone can take to grow their Instagram following. Grow your Instagram Following Tip #1: Create Memes That Resonate with Your AudienceIf there's one thing you can't go a day without seeing on social media it's a meme. Meme's are popular right now, like, really popular. Probably why Instagram accounts like fuckjerry & mytherapistsays built their brand around memes. They have both massed over 4 million followers thanks to memes. Brands are starting to realize the power of witty Instagram memes, especially when it comes to building brand identity, driving product interest, and gaining more Instagram followers. Memes will typically have some kind of cultural relevance, they’re often clever or funny, and they typically feature a combination of text and imagery (this can be a photo, a GIF, or even a video). Take for example my meme on models choosing what to wear. It got 49 shares, 25 saves with a reach of 6,146 and 57 profile visits. These are the insights that matter. and they are better than most of the photos I post. Don't worry about likes as Instagram is taking those away soon anyways. Likes and comments don't convert to new followers. Shares, Reach, and Profile visits do. Like my meme above your goal should be to generate a meme that is relatable to you audience, funny, and on brand. For example, my audience is mainly models, photographers, cosplayers, and anyone who loves photography. So any meme related to those 4 things will be relatable and preform alot better than if I posted a random meme about car owners or video games. All you need is a meme generator to get started. The App I use is Meme generator shown below. Grow your Instagram following tip #2: Collaborate With Kickass Brands The power of collaborating with like-minded and complementary brands is undeniable and will introduce your brand to a completely new and hopefully engaged audience you may have never reached on your own. When another Instagram user discovers you through a collaboration you’ve done they are more likely to crush that follow button because odds are if they found you from a collaboration they are the demographic you’re looking for. Collaborations with complementary brands will double your organic reach and are 25 times less expensive than digital advertising! Just make sure that your collaboration is mutually beneficial and both your audiences will benefit from your collaboration. On brand collaborations for example: Because I shoot alot of fashion it makes sense that I would collab with influencers, models, designers, and makeup artists because their audience will be similar to mine and thus mutually beneficial. 7 things I look for in a collaboration (meaning not paid). What's their following like? Whats their engagement like? Will their audience connect with my work? Will mine connect with theirs? Do we have similar values? What kind of connections do they have? How skilled are they? I try to find people and brands that have a similar or bigger following than me but will collab with someone with little to no following if they are incredibly talented. The 7 things I look for are important. If you're just collabing with anyone and everyone with no intention you will fail in your industry, miserably. So how do you find people and brands to collab with? Do your research, join local facebook groups related to your industry like Portland Models. Search local hashtags like #portlandmodel or #portlanddesigner or portlandMUA Grow your Instagram Following Tip #3: Promote Your Instagram Content on Other Platforms This might be one of my favorite tips on the list. If you want to grow your Instagram following you should really promote your page outside of the Instagram app. I have gained a majority of my following this way. Promote your Instagram page on your website, email, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Tiktok. My favorite platform to cross promote my Instagram content is Facebook groups. For example, I joined the Halloween 24/7 Facebook group because there is a big audience there who will most likely like my horror cosplay content. So when I post in that group I always link to my Instagram account to see more. I do this in multiple groups and every time I do I notice new followers who came from that post on Facebook. Grow your Instagram Following Tip #4: Get in front of the Camera More Don’t forget social media is still social and your followers want to see the person or people behind the brand. It’s extremely important to make your account as relatable and personable as possible not to mention photos with faces get 38% more likes on Instagram. People want to know who is behind the brand just as much as your business and products. If you have a team why not have them post and share content about the business from their personal pages. You never know, your employees followers may have an interest in your brand and people love behind the scenes content. Grow your Instagram Following Tip #5: Post more Videos In 2014 the future of social media content was video well the future is now. Every brand is now creating video content for Tiktok, Youtube, IGTV and their feed to drive business because that’s what people want to see. Video has by far become the most popular form of content in 2020. IGTV is a great place to post your video content and behind the scenes. And if your video appears on the explorer page they appear four times larger than photos. Video content isn’t going anywhere so if you really want to start growing your audience you must start incorporating more video content into your social media strategy. Grow your Instagram Following Tip #6: Use Instagram Stories Instagram stories are a great place to interact with your audience. Post things that don't need to be in your feed like a new post, behind the scenes, polls, quiz's, shout outs, tips, funny memes, everyday life, and questions. Give people a reason to follow you besides your work by posting more personal and fun daily content on your story. As far as photos go keep your feed business and your story personal. I'm also told that Instagram shows your feed to more people if people are interacting with your stories. Grow your Instagram Following Tip #7: Post long captions or multiple photos at once. The Instagram algorithm knows how long people are looking at your post. A post will be more successful the more time people spend on your post. If everyone is scrolling right past it you wont get much engagement or reach. Long meaningful or entertaining captions do better than short and sweet ones. And posts with multiple photos seem to preform better than one photo. Grow your Instagram Following Tip #8: Check your Insights! How do you expect to find out what's working and what's not without data? The only way to get that data is through insights and the only way to get insights is by making sure your Instagram profile is set to Business or Creator. To check and or switch your profile open Instagram and go to your profile, then click the top right 3 bars, then click settings, then click account, and at the bottom you'll see your options to switch your account to Business, Personal, or Creator. Once you see your insights you can see your followers age, gender, location, and most popular time of day your audience is online. Most importantly you can see what posts were shared, saved, and commented on the most as well as the reach of each post. This information will tell you what your audience is connecting with. Grow your Instagram Following Tip #9: Use Hashtags! Potential clients are using hashtags to search for what you have to offer. This is how they find you. For example someone might be looking for a local MUA for their wedding so they might search #OrlandoMUA. The key with hashtags is to use quality over quantity. Instagram allows 30 hashtags but I have been told posts preform better with 9. but however many you use make sure they aren't all too popular. When choosing a hashtag Instagram tells you how many people are using that tag. Try choosing 4 relevant hashtags below 100K and 4 between 100K-500K and 2 Super relevant hashtags like #PortlandWeddingPhotographer or #PDXphotographer. I've had multiple people find me and follow me from searching #Portlandphotographer. 2 Apps I use for every post is Focalmark to find relevant hashtags and IG LineBreak for clean spacing between paragraphs. Grow your Instagram Following Tip #10: Always Comment Back I’ll never understand why brands with under 20,000 followers don’t comment back. If you’re getting under 100 comments on a post you can make the time to comment back to your community. I understand if you have 1 million followers being overwhelmed and not being able to comment back but for most of you this won’t be the case. Your fans notice if you never comment back and before you know it they will stop commenting altogether. Show your fans you appreciate them by at least saying thank you to each comment. Don’t forget you wouldn’t be anywhere without them. And go a step further by interacting with them on their posts. It is called social media for a reason, you can’t succeed without being social. If you have to time block 30 minutes each day just to make sure you are interacting with your community I promise in the end it will be worth it. Grow your Instagram Following Tip #11: Bonus tip, Stop buying followers. Buying followers and joining engagement groups and Instagram pods is the quickest way to be shadow band or even having your account disabled. All of these things are against Instagram rules and guidelines but more importantly they just don’t work.
It’s blatantly obvious when someone has purchased followers, I see it all the time. 100,000 followers with little to no engagement on each post makes your account worthless. You’re not fooling anyone and it’s not helping you gain clients. So stop it. Not to mention purchasing followers is a waste of money. I know this all may seem like alot of work and it is but if you're trying to succeed in your industry you must grow your reach and these tips will help you do that. Let me know in the comments below what tip helped you the most or if you have any to add :) Connect with me on Instagram HERE |
Author Lance Reis
Most Popular Articles
27 Posing ideas for women
27 Posing Ideas for Men Location Scouting 33 Must See Castles in the US How to grow your Instagram Low Light Photography Tips Photography for Beginners Free Resources Take Better Cosplay Photos Categories
All
|