December 5, 2012

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Biz Sense, Editorial/Journalism, Gavin Seim, PPS Photography Tips, ProPhotoShow, Web Design, Workflow

Facebook is Charging – What's Next for Your Page + Five REAL Tips for Traffic.

by Gavin Seim: Now here’s the reality of your Facebook page: If you want the majority of your connections to see your posts you have to PAY – Love it or hate it (mostly hate it), that’s how it is. We can complain about how people subscribed to our posts, how Facebook is using bait and switch on us. That’s is probably true. But they own the space and it’s a business. Many of us saw this coming. And yet we may not have been as prepared as we should have.

There’s some good news though. Facebook pages themselves are still free. That’s good. And if you post something really, really, REALLY engaging more people will see it than average. That’s cool. Though still not everyone who likes your page. That’s not cool. From what I’m seeing on pages, (and I have quite a few of them,) a post generally gets seen by 10-25% of your fans. Sometimes less. That’s bad.

So if you want to get seen, you PAY to promote the post. For example on my photography page which has around 2500 fans, I’ll pay about $10 for most of them to see it. For my Seim Effects page that has closer to 8k fans. It might cost $30. This can work, but it’s too costly for every post. We’ll come back to that.

First I think we’ve come to rely too much on social networks. Even those of us that make blog posts have come to rely solely pages, tweets and the like for the traffic to our sites. Higher content saturation and low interaction reduce the value of our space. But the problem with social network reliance it goes beyond that. Facebook censorship is bad. In fact recently I was BLOCKED from Facebook for 24 hours for posting this portrait on my page, titled The Bath.

I can’t operate a business like a two year old, wondering if I’m going to get a Facebook Spanking every time I post something or open my mouth. I can’t rely on a system like that. At least not entirely. So all this has made me evaluate how I use social networks. How we can be more independent and build Content Freedom.

There’s always everyday social network tips like posting good content. How images get more interaction than plain posts. How you need to be interesting and visually appealing. These are basic rules of engagement. But lets go deeper. Here’s what I’ve learned. Tips on not only how to maximize what’s left of Pages, but to step further away from reliance on social networks while maximizing how we use them to gain the valuable traffic.

 

5. Cross Planning Your Content.

Regardless of where you post you need to engage your viewers and make sure you’re not posting crud. If you post photos they should shine. If you make products, make them look good. If you’re monologuing like me, make it worth it. As Captain Picard once said – “Engage.” Take the time to refine your brand and showcase things the best way you can. Use all this to get traffic to your own site.

Always make it easy to share, subscribe and engage. People won’t generally go out of their way for it. Keep it classy, but easy to click. In this share bar for my new EXposed workshop, I used a direct call to action here. This is not always necessary bit can be nice on static pages.

Next, cross promote using your site in ways that get people to engage further. Get them on email lists and or following your other networks. On your own website make people want to share content, Like, +1 and Re-tweet, Pin and the like. And don’t just use any share tool. Find one that looks and works good. Note the share bar I use at the top of this post. It makes it easy and fast to share. Don’t use tools that people have to work to make function. The one I use right now is called Social Sharing Toolkit for WordPress.

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December 3, 2012

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Gavin Seim, Nature, PPS Photography Tips, ProPhotoShow

Mobile Cameras vs Real Cameras & Why it's Not Even Close – w/Examples

 

Winter’s End – Taken a few minutes apart. The mobile image  lacks any fine detail up close and fine detail is totally lost in that pasty look that is common of low end cameras and lenses. The film scan however holds up well. See complete image details here on Gavin’s journal. More examples below.

by Gavin Seim: When I was starting out you we’re not even regarded as a respectable portrait photographer unless you used at least medium format. How things have changed. But this mobile photography for the sake of it is a passing fad.

The camera in your iPhone costs about ten dollars to make – Now I was browsing Facebook the other day I found the above reference photo I posted while on our Spring 2012 tour. I remembered that morning, the light on the trees and how my 4 year old son rode with me to greet the sunrise. It was a good memory. But next I compared it as a photographer to the final print version of Winter’s End. That promoted me to compare others, from both film and digital, comparing them to their mobile counterparts.

A great image is more than the sum of it’s tech specs – But when those details are far below the sum of it’s artistic merit, it brings down the entire work.

What was really illustrated was the vast difference between a point and shoot image and a quality photograph. Even I had not realized how poor the quality was. The phone photo is a good reference and helped me plan and log I wanted to produce. It was also fun travel memory and some might say it was “good enough”. But I’ve learned that “good enough” is not how we produce great images to stand out in today’s market.

I see more and more people acting as if phones are serious cameras. Sometimes even touting it as something special. This bothers me because a low grade camera is not a feature of your art (and make no mistake, your phone camera is low grade). It’s true that gear does not make a photographer. But low image quality can make even the most accomplished photographer look like an amateur. Comparing a phone snap to a professional level camera is a bit like comparing a Prius to a dragster.

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December 1, 2012

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Editorial/Journalism, Gavin Seim, PPS Photography Tips, ProPhotoShow

7 Sure Fire Ways to Become a GREAT Photographer – In Under 10 Years!

  • Practice.
  • Study.
  • Practice.
  • Study.
  • Practice.
  • Study.
  • Practice.

Sorry, I could not resist – Honestly though it’s no easy road and it’s not fast. But learning photographics the right way is wonderfully rewarding. Edward Weston once said – “If I have any ‘message’ worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no short cuts in photography.” – I’ve found that to be true. I also learned that the sooner you dig into the science of light and art working together, the easier it gets.

Take your time, enjoy it and don’t ruin it for yourself by trying to go pro before you’re ready or be something you’re not. That said, I’ll give you more. Visit the Best of Pro Photo Show page. It’s a list of of the best tips, shows and articles we’ve ever shared over the years. It will keep you busy for the rest of the weekend and you’ll walk away a better photographer. Good luck, Gavin.

Gavin Seim: Portraitist, Pictorialist, Speaker and producer of Seim Effects Photo Tools and the EXposed workshop.

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November 21, 2012

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Biz Sense, Editorial/Journalism, Gavin Seim, news, ProPhotoShow

A Facebook Spanking – And How it Feels on Your Business.

The Bath – A Portrait that got Gavin banned form Facebook. Read more here.

by Gavin Seim: We all should to consider how social media effects us in the long term. I recently released a new portrait called The Bath. I posted this portrait on my Facebook page and the next morning I logged it to find it had not only been removed, but I had been banned from Facebook for 24 hours as PUNISHMENT for supposedly violating an “unnamed” responsibility of using Facebook. I assume they placed this under nudity, even though it contains none.

There’s is nothing inappropriate about the photo and did not even consider that it would get taken down. These are my kids and I intentionally made sure nothing showed that could be taken wrong in the slightest. So here I am, a business on Facebook, being treated like a three year old, slapped on the hand for being naughty. And that’s it. No appeal, no recourse. I call it a Facebook Spanking!

Even as a paying advertiser who has spent thousands of dollars with FB, I don’t have a real contact or way to get help. Just a black mark on my record, meaning that in the future, the punishments get worse. Some random thing could even get the PERMANENTLY REMOVED from Facebook. What happens to the years of work and thousands of dollars building my network and pages? Who knows. The thing is, they can do whatever they want. It’s their network. Just like every private network.

This got me thinking about how reliant we’ve become on social networks. Even someone like me who blogs actively on his own sites, relies on Facebook, Twitter and others to let people know about those articles and get traffic flowing. There’s nothing wrong with using those tools, but when we rely on them all our eggs start rolling into one basket. What happens if we get cut off. How many of us have maintained traffic sources that “we control”? Things like newsletters. Why? because I don’t like my business being under the thumb of corporate management that won’t even talk to me.

Personally this prompted me to start a fresh email list called the Light Letter. I want to make sure I can connect with those interested in my work on “my terms”. That’s not to say I won’t use Facebook, Google +, Twitter and other professional networks. But this experience really showed me that we as people and professionals need to become less reliant and start controlling our own content and traffic. I hope others will follow and start thinking about Content Freedom. As people who rely on content communication as part of our business, it’s time we make sure we can keep it flowing.

What are the solutions? I think a well made engaging newsletter is one. The list is not dead. Organic SEO traffic is good too. Maybe even traditional mail. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m thinking. What ideas do you have for controlling our content on our terms rather than on the whims some corporate management who couldn’t care less?

I’ll be going into more in depth on this soon as we look at how we can keep our content ours. You can also join my Light Letter below if you’re interested. Either way I encourage to check out LightLetter.com to see how I set it up. It’s been converting quite well.

Gav

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