Developed by the Twitter team, Vine is a video recorder that creates a six second animated GIF with an audio background. Vine uses your iPhone’s microphone and camera to record video clips with the touch of a screen. Each time you hold your finger to the screen, Vine captures what your phone sees and hears, up to 6 seconds at a time. This 6 seconds in video is to the vlog world what the 140 characters is to blogging.

Already, businesses and bloggers are utilizing Vine for marketing purposes. However, not many photographers are taking advantage of this powerful, free tool.

So I decided to post the following video on Vine, and I would love to hear your thoughts (feel free to reply in comment form via Vine).

After recording this, I realized that many photographers wouldn’t know where to start with their marketing. So I decided to write this article with some thoughts on that.

AIDA

This is a common acronym used in marketing. Apply these principles to any marketing effort, including a blog post, and it will typically be successful.

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

AIDA can also be used in your Vine campaign. Since you’re limited to six seconds, you can literally separate the video into four frames, each representing a different principle of AIDA.

Vine Campaign Planning

When planning your Vine marketing campaign, consider AIDA, then grab a piece of paper or a sketch app for your iPad. Create four blocks in a row, like a storyboard.

[ ] Something to grab attention in the first frame
[ ] Something interesting to keep attention
[ ] Something to make the viewer want more
[ ] Something to make the viewer react in some way (the call to action)

Download the Vine Campaign sheet that I created and save a copy to your Google Drive.

Once your blocks are in place, fill them in with either a sketch or an idea for each of the four frames.

Vine Campaign Ideas for Professional Photographers

• Wedding photographers can create Vine videos during any wedding they are photographing. A quick video of the groom and his friends acting silly or the flower girl running away scared will engage an audience. Now, you might be thinking “but how can I photograph that and do a Vine video at the same time?” Use your assistant – give them your iPhone and show them what to do.
• Landscape photographers can capture behind the scenes videos of their setup. Capture clips close to your camera so the viewers can see settings, or the gear that you are using. Then capture pan throughout the scene so viewers can be in awe of the amazing landscape you are photographing.
• Photography bloggers can capture quick teasers of upcoming products or reviews that they have to share. Teasers are a quick way to grab attention!

More Vine Ideas for Professional Photographers

• Company introduction
• Mini portfolio or customers reference
• Trade show behind the scenes
• Mini guides and how-to

Marketing Tech News has more about using Vine in your business. Check out that article. In the article they also share some tips that can improve your videos.

There’s More

Photographers aren’t the only artists using Vine for marketing or branding. In fact, Robert De Niro recently interviewed with the Wall Street Journal where he said, “Six seconds of beginning, middle and end. I was just trying to time on my iPhone six seconds just to get a sense of what that is. It can actually be a long time. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand, five one-thousand, six one-thousand – you can tell a whole story in six seconds.” Read the full interview at the WSJ.

• While not the photography industry, the record label In the Clouds is using Vine in their marketing strategy by placing videos with albums for sale.
• I recently used a Vine video in a guest article I did over at WP Daily.  In the article, I shared a 6 second teaser of what is coming in NextGEN Gallery 2.0 for WordPress – the best WordPress gallery plugin for photographers.
• Chris Brogan wrote an article (and included a Vine video) about how Vine is a fun way to communicate.
• You can also read more on Vine’s explosion at PetaPixel.

Skeptics

Of course, like all new technology, Vine has its skeptics. I’ve been asking for thoughts on Vine for marketing use through social media channels. On Google Plus, I had some interesting replies from someone who doesn’t believe it will be useful.

Proof Vine Works!

Although there are skeptics, there is also proof that Vine can be a beneficial tool to attract and increase engagement. For example, when I was out photographing long exposures at an amazing park in New Jersey, I used Vine to create a fun six-second video. While setting up for a photograph, I opened Vine and shot a teaser of the photograph I was creating. The video went out to Vine, Twitter and Facebook. I also uploaded the video manually to Google Plus, since Vine can not share directly with Google Plus. You can see the post here. Minutes and hours later I received comments and emails asking to see the results. The following day, I obliged by processing the photograph and posting it on Google Plus. You can see that post here.

Conclusion

When it comes to using Vine, you are not limited to the mobile app. In fact, you can embed the video on a website page or in an article (like I did in this one). You can also take the video file that Vine creates and share it elsewhere, like I did on Google Plus.  You can not currently directly Pin your Vine videos to Pinterest, but you can grab a screenshot, upload it, and then link to the Vine video.

So I will ask you now: How do you plan to use Vine in your photography marketing efforts? Comment and let me know.

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Scott Wyden Kivowitz is a photographer in NJ and the Community & Blog Wrangler at Photocrati Media.

Having strategic and authentic interaction with your fans is the key to your success. Creating an editorial calendar that supports your marketing strategy (special events, promotions, etc.) can generate enormous interest in your audience if you are consistent in providing high value information, products and services.

How to Build a Loyal Fan Base with Social Media

Question and Answer Sessions: Conduct and or host a weekly Q & A session. To do this you make yourself and other possible partners available to answer questions. If you are a wedding photographer you could invite an owner of a flower shop, or a DJ or even a wedding planner. Plan ahead to have some of your community members ready with questions that they can ask you during a 60-minute time slot.

Post Daily Tips: Post daily tips at a certain time each day.  Make sure they are brief yet relevant and useful information for the type of clients you serve. If you specialize in portraits you could discuss best colors for outfits, or what type of makeup to apply, cool locations for shoots, etc.  Here is a special sensei trick, use Pinterest to find some great ideas.  Here is a Pinterest board that specializes in coordinated outfits. Tips like these can go far by encouraging questions and sharing content from your page.

Share Pictures of Your Shoots: What better way to show off your work than to post some photos from one of your clients’ photo sessions.  Here is another sensei tip:  When you meet with your client ask them to like you both as a fan and as a friend. If they do this then you can tag them when you post their picture or pictures.  This way their friends will also see the photos.  This is a FANTASTIC way to get referrals.

Step 1; click on “tag photo” underneath the photo you just uploaded.

Step 2; Click on the person you want to tag, and begin to type their name in the box. Your friends will begin to appear in a list below.

Step 3; Scroll down through the list and select the correct individual to tag.

Step 4; at the bottom of the photo, click on “done tagging” when you have finished tagging friends.

Share Experiences – good and bad: Sharing personal experiences can help you develop a closer connection with your audience.  I’m not suggesting that you bad mouth or criticize a client, but case studies that show how you may have overcome a challenging situation or a difficult experience reinforces that you are authentic and real.

Make it about the community not just your business: Ask questions and solicit comments that help the community to learn more about their peers.

What techniques have you tried that have helped you build a loyal following through social media?  I would love to hear about them.

Guest post by Georgia McCabe – As an author, speaker, trainer and social media and photography evangelist, her perspectives on social media appear in print in her newest book entitled “SocialMorphosis – Transforming Your Business through Social Media”. Georgia is also a co-author of the book “The Relationship Age”, with social media guru Mari Smith. Georgia is a frequent guest blogger for our professional photography lab.

H&H Color Lab has seen this need.  Our photo lab has developed a complete sports program for their customers.  This program provides all the tools necessary to enter into the youth sports market, which includes offering sports education to the professional photographer. One example of education, last month H&H teamed up with Marathon Press and Neil Enterprise to present the  JumpStart School and Sports program. Around seventy-five professional photographers from around the country attended the JumpStart programs in Dayton, Minneapolis, and Chicago.  Five basic topics on marketing, sales, and bid presentations were shared with these photographers in the hope to send them home with information that could help them jump start their sports photography.  That next week, we received two emails from attendees saying they went home, applied what they learned and got new sports contracts!

The next sports education event scheduled by H&H will be in July with their Sports Boot Camp. This two and half day event will be held July 22-24 at H&H Color Lab in Kansas City. It is a more detailed expansion of the JumpStart Sports program and covers sports photography from A to Z. The sports boot camp also includes two half days at a sports complex working on team and individual posing, action photography, outdoor lighting, and  the picture day set up.

For four years, photographers from around the country have been sent home with ideas on how to create, expand, and improve the sports photography segment of their business. A WIN — WIN for all involved.  Check out the home page of the H&H website to see the details for this summer’s sports boot camp including the early bird special that ends on May 31st. See you this summer!

Keeping a blog on your site can raise search rankings for your relevant keywords, raise business awareness, and in turn, bring in more smiling customers ready for you to photograph them.

Top SEO and Blogging Tips for Photographers

• Know your keyword targets. Make sure they are searched for, and useful to your business!
• Use your keywords effectively!
• Promote your content! Social shares and links to your content are keys to getting it to rank well.
• Your content must be unique!

All of these key points above fall under a buzzword known as SEO. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of optimizing your website’s content and gaining authority with the search engines with the end-goal of moving up the rankings for relevant terms.

In the presentation below, you can see all these blogging tips, and much more!

With that guide, and the following article, you’re now well on your way to writing the perfect blog post! If you need to get started with a website and blog to help drive business to your studio, be sure to check out our great free WordPress themes and tutorials on setting up your own WordPress site quickly and easily!

We also wrote a series of blog posts on general SEO tips for photographers too!

• SEO for Photographers: How to Get Your Photos Found on Google
• Creating Effective Websites for Professional Photographers: An Introduction
• Creating Effective Websites for Professional Photographers Part 2: Intro to SEO
• Creating an Effective Photography Website, Part 3: Link Building for SEO
• Creating an Effective Photography Website, Part 4: Local Search Engine Optimization
• Creating an Effective Photography Website, Part 5: Paid Search Listings

Georgia: David, how long have you been an H&H Customer?

David: I can’t remember the exact date, but I do remember my first experience with them. A local lab out here was closing up shop and I needed some stuff right away – I think I ordered rulers and something else, and I gotta tell you it was the best thing I ever did. And that was nearly 10 years ago. I think I found them when I was poking around online – I was looking for a specific product and man am I glad I found them.

Georgia: I’m intrigued by your website, especially the portrait of Ronald Reagan, and I surely want to hear that story. But I see that you’re pretty well rounded from school photography to family portraits to musicians and videography. Do you think of yourself as an all around photographer or do you have one area you specialize in?

David: I’ve been doing photography for 28 years. I cut my teeth on weddings and portraits – and then learned about the benefits of volume photography, and the downfalls of volume too [chuckle].  Those transitions have occurred but I always get calls for various things, not so much weddings any longer. If it’s a commercial portrait – I’m your guy!

Georgia: You mention benefits of volume photography – can you expand on that?

David: For a wedding, you’re selling to 1 person for something around $2,500 dollars. Seniors go for $400-$500. A school can be upwards of $8,000-$10,000. And another benefit of a school is that you might pick up the sports – when that happens you lock in a consistent cash flow.

H&H has made it incredibly easy for me to manage all of this with their photo lab’s ordering software. From eZevent to eZSports; it’s been the greatest thing for me that they developed these software applications. My orders come and I just plug them in and deliver them. A lot of times when you’re a one-man show, you just are short on time. This type of software makes it easy and maximizes my time. I learned how to use the photo lab’s ordering software with all their photography training videos and had great support from their awesome customer service staff. One thing I would encourage any H&H customer is to get involved and go to the bootcamps to get the hands on training; they are extremely beneficial!

Georgia: What percentage of your work comes from school portraits?

David: I’d say 65%-70% comes from school portraits.

Georgia: Is it consistent work year over year?

David: Yeah, one of my accounts I’ve had since 1988. I attribute it to relationships – it’s all in relationships.

Georgia: Talk me through your new client process.

David: You have to find out who the decision maker is. And you might find that from school to school the process and decision is different for each one. Most of my work comes from referrals and connections. I picked up one school because I had photographed the Principal’s daughter at an entirely different school. I’ve had that account now for 12 years.

Georgia: People can still book you for their own portraits for Seniors, right?

David: Out here in CA, it’s done at the school for seniors – ran through a couple poses with a backdrop. They all want to be different - so what I have done is give them a better option. One of the hardest challenges has been how to take this approach and work it into an efficient process. That took 2 years to finally tweak and implement. And those are now set up as special appointments. I have kids coming in that have been looking forward to this experience since they were freshman. They are motivated, they saw my videos – they’ve thought long and hard about what they want to do to make theirs special.

You don’t always want to be doing the same thing, right? Well I cannot get my seniors at one particular account to get out of this one pose – there’s one that they seem to love specifically. They take their sports jersey and they pin it to the backdrop and then photographing them using various props like their trophies or books. They live for that shot – Moms, kids, they all want that shot – it’s amazing!

Georgia: Aww, that’s so sweet, what a tear jerker! I guess that’s your signature now.

David: You know, you want to be outside the box – but they’ve got me on this one!

Georgia: Do you offer videos?

David: If they request it, I will, but I don’t have it as a standard offering.

Georgia: Tell me why Ronald Reagan is on your website homepage.

David: The photographing Ronald Reagan story comes from 1991. I would help out another photographer who was connected with a booking agent who booked speaking engagements for famous people. President Reagan,who was out of office at the time, was speaking to the top 30 Chrysler dealers in the United States and their spouses at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. My job was to photograph President Reagan individually while the other photographer photographed him with the dealer and spouse at the same time. So, as President Reagan waited for the next couple to come into the room, we were photographing in, I would get his attention and shoot away.

The killer part of this gig was that by the end of the evening the participants would walk out of the event with a 5×7 photo. We spent some tense moments that evening at a one hour photo lab in Los Angeles that processed and printed 120 film in an hour.

Georgia: Wow – what a great story! What would you say your biggest challenge in your business is today?

David: The biggest challenge is managing the details. In volume photography there’s always one or two people that just don’t get it. As far as packages are concerned, and they simply walk away with a couple of 5 x 7′s. I will sell digital files, but only on request, and that happens few and far between.

Georgia: How do you handle special requests from students if you are selling a uniform package to the schools?

David: Of course I’ll do the special requests, because if they are spending a certain amount on the package, then why not incorporate the additional request? I will customize packages for people to help with their decision making. In my mind, that’s just part of building relationships.

Georgia: If you could sum up H&H Color Lab in one sentence for new photographers, what would you say?

David: H&H Color Lab has a great system to make you a successful photographer; they make me look good.

Georgia: You just gave me goosebumps! I like your attitude, a lot! I think you’re extremely customer focused and very relationship oriented, and that’s completely in sync with H&H’s core values and how they conduct their family-owned business too. David, it’s been entirely my pleasure to talk with you today.

Guest post by Georgia McCabe – As an author, speaker, trainer and social media and photography evangelist, her perspectives on social media appear in print in her newest book entitled “SocialMorphosis – Transforming Your Business through Social Media”. Georgia is also a co-author of the book “The Relationship Age”, with social media guru Mari Smith. Georgia is a frequent guest blogger for our professional photography lab.