The flying baby by Rachel Hulin

Former PhotoShelter team member and Providence/New York-based photographer Rachel Hulin was picked up by TIME LightBox and The Huffington Post earlier this week for her photos of flying babies. The idea came about while on assignment, when Rachel decided to make her son Henry fly. While she wouldn’t talk about the exact details of her shots, Rachel says that she never threw the babies. Well, phew!

Photo by Rachel Hulin

The anatomy of a viral photo

The RAW FILE by Wired wasn’t the only online source to spread word about Tsuneaki Hiramatsu’s long-exposure firefly photos. Hiramatsu, who’s from Japan, posts to his Digital Photo Blog but at some point the photos appeared on a Tumblr blog – next thing you know, 24,000+ people have reblogged and liked the post. Since then, Hiramatsu has been contacted by the American Museum of Natural History and covered by countless other blogs. What’s next for the viral photographer? Upgrading to the Nikon D800. Read more about how he took the shots on the RAW FILE.

Photo by Tsuneaki Hiramatsu

“Portfolio Perfect – What Buyers and Agents Are Looking For Today”

This March, the American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP) will host a panel of art buyers, producers, and stock agency creatives reviewing photographer portfolios in both one-on-one and group settings. The event takes place March 8 from 6pm-8pm in Seattle, Washington, and is a great opportunity to get feedback and fine-tune your portfolio. Register before March 1st for a 15-minute private consultation. Check out more info and ticket prices here.

American Photography’s Pro Photo Daily

American Photography presents images by established and emerging photographers, selected by a jury of  people from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Glamour and more. The collection offers an informed view of photography today, and now the group is offering a newsletter – Pro Photo Daily. Register to receive inspiration work and insightful news/opinion from across the photography world.

Ami Vitale & the 10th anniversary of the Gujarat riots

In 2002, violence escalated to an unprecedented level between Hindus and Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat. Documentary and travel photographer Ami Vitale was there to cover the riots, and 10 years later the nature of these events remains politically controversial. Regardless of political or cultural opinion, Ami wanted to share her images from those days with us. Please also see her full PhotoShelter gallery, Gujarat (some images are graphic in nature).

Photo by Ami Vitale. Nisha Rathad, 20, covers her face and giggles as she stands in front of the Hindu Aryan symbol painted on her home March 2, 2002 in Ahmedabad, India. Her Muslim neighbor had been killed a few feet away from her home the day before. These symbols were painted on most Hindus homes to protect them from the religious violence that swept through this region and killed over three hundred people in three days, the worst communal bloodshed in a decade.

Photo by Ami Vitale. Indian police drag away a man believed to be instigating violence in central Ahmedabad, India, March 3, 2002. The violence left more than a thousand dead and an entire nation traumatized and divided.

Japan tsunami: before & after images

Reuters has posted an incredible slideshow of images from the 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan, and how those hardest hit areas look today. Seeing the before and after photos side-by-side is a real testament to the ability for people to bounce back from disaster.

Source: Reuters

Stock agency Alamy reporting 48% revenue increase

While talk continues to circulate about the declining stock industry, photo agency Alamy is reporting U.S. revenue up 48% in the last quarter of 2011 (source: About The Image). The agency is also close to “smashing” the 30 million image milestone, and has already accumulated 1 million images in the first 6 weeks of 2012. Do photographers think that the profits of a big-name agency signal anything for individual stock photographer success? Read what professional stock photographers have to say in our free guide, Selling Stock Photography.

New camera concept explores cylinder-shaped camera

Last week Geeky Gadgets reported on Jean-michel Bonnemoy’s new D-CAN camera concept, which takes all the functionality of a rectangular box-designed camera and gives it a sleek cylinder shape. The idea is to reduce the camera’s volume, while still allowing all the controls that we’re used to. A little futuristic, but is it even appealing? You tell us.

Source: Geeky Gadget

Ken Kaminesky’s marketing adventure in brand strategy

PhotoShelter member and travel photographer Ken Kaminesky decided it was time for a change. He was a fan of his blog’s design, but felt like it needed to tie better with the rest of his business materials. That’s when he started working with Agency Access’ Campaign Manager Pro program and Jennifer Kilberg of FluidVision. From there, Ken focused on taking his on-brand blog design and marrying it with everything from business cards to email promos to PDF portfolios. Read more about this “adventure” and see the works in progress in Ken’s post for Agency Access’ The Lab.

www.kenkaminesky.com

It’s time to start thinking of your blog as a place to build backlinks, create content around your keyword hit list, and build a following that regularly posts your work to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. We’re not saying that these should be your only  goals in blogging – your SEO efforts should never interfere with posting good, valuable content – but given what you now know from the SEO For Photographers workbook, you can now start better utilizing your blog.

Here are our 5 reasons why blogging is crucial for SEO, followed by tips for how you put these strategies into practice.

1. Use the anchor text you actually want

Remember when you read this whole post about anchor text, and so you went out and got a ton of backlinks to your website, but everyone kept linking to you with “click here”? Pretty frustrating, right? Well guess what – with your blog, you’re in the driver’s seat. You have total control over what webpages you link to and what anchor text you use.

Now when you post about you work, you can say “Here’s a story about my latest gallery, Underwater Caribbean Stock Photography” and link “Underwater Caribbean Stock Photography” to your gallery for some awesome anchor text. You’re in charge of your blog, so take advantage and put those anchor text best practices to use.

2. Give people something that they can naturally link to

Although it’s totally possible to email someone about your galleries and score a link, sometimes people aren’t motivated to do so unless there’s a story to go alongside it. It’s much easier and more natural for people to link to your blog post  about how you shot those photos. And if your blog posts links to the gallery with those images, then you’ve just helped your website’s SEO.

Joe McNally gives a shout out and link to Strobist on his blog.

Next time you have new work to share, consider writing a blog post about it – tell some funny story from the shoot, or talk about the beautiful scenery, or even run through how you actually set up your camera and captured the shot. For more ideas on what to post, check out 9 Ways To Blog More In Less Time and just remember to use anchor text that complements your keyword hit list.

3. Encourage people to “socialize” your work

When you regularly post to your blog, you have more content to share with your network via social media – namely, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Similarly to how people are more likely to link to your blog posts, people are also more apt to retweet you, like your Facebook post, or +1 it. It’s an easy one-click of a button – and ease is key in getting people to share your work. Once someone has shared your post, then it get shared with their  network, thereby increasing its reach beyond your own personal network.

Adorama links to Zack Arais’ blog post “Why I Moved To Medium Format” via Facebook.

How is social sharing related to SEO? Remember that Google takes socialization into consideration for its ranking algorithm, especially from Google+, so it might actually help your blog and website move higher up in the rankings.

4. Increase website traffic & build a following

If you post engaging content that presents value to your readers, then they will probably spend more time on your blog and continue coming back for more. If you’re frequently linking to your images, your blog becomes a tool to drive traffic to your website.

Another likely outcome of building a following for your blog is that you’ll get found by new clients and customers. If enough people are sharing your posts and your blog is moving up in the SEPRs, photo buyers are more likely to stumble across it. When they do, be sure that links to your contact information and website are obvious so that they can see your portfolio and get in touch.

5. Play nice with Google’s Freshness Update

In fall 2011, Google announced that it had altered its search algorithm to provide users with fresher, more recent search results. Dubbed the Google Freshness Update, the intended purpose was to place greater emphasis on returning the most up-to-date web content. Said Google:

“Search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven or cool refreshing fruit on a hot summer’s day, are best when they’re fresh. Even if you don’t specify it in your search, you probably want search results that are relevant and recent.”

Although this was meant to help ensure that when you search for something time sensitive – like recent events or hot topics – you get the most recently updated webpages, it ended up affecting about 35% of all searches.

Searching for “Nikon” yields to the minute results

What does this mean for bloggers? SEO experts largely agree that Google’s update means that fresh content can boost your blog or website in the SERPs for a certain period of time. Bloggers have an advantage because they continuously publish large amounts of fresh content.

Keep in mind that in most blogging platforms, every time you publish a new post you’re also creating a new page. Large sections of content and new webpages are signals to Google that you’ve updated your blog and therefore might be more relevant.

Takeaway: How to put this into practice

You know that blogging takes time and effort, so if you’ve chosen to make it part of your regular workflow then it’s a good idea to know some SEO best practices. Below are our top tips for how to blog and  help boost your SEO at the same time.

Infuse your keywords throughout the post. Most people initially think that “keywords” refer to a big comma-delimited list of terms they want to rank for in their webpages. But this a great way for Google to ignore you. You want to provide as many keywords in context as possible (in other words, write like a human being, not a computer). Again, don’t appear spammy and unnatural, but get specific – instead of “Here’s a sneak preview of my beautiful images from the local farmer’s market” try, “Here’s a sneak preview of my New York City garden stock photos from the farmer’s market.”

Pay attention to your post title. Most blogging platforms take your blog post’s title and use it for both the URL and the page title. Meaning that choosing a relevant and SEO-friendly title is critical. Use this as an opportunity to input your keywords, and try to keep it at 70 characters or less, which is SEO standard practice for page titles.

Input the alt text. When you upload an image to your blog, there’s usually a place for you to input a caption, alternate text, and link. Be sure to utilize all these features – include a descriptive caption, choose alternate text that’s relevant to your keywords, and link to the original image on your website. If you can’t find where to input the ALT text, then simply include a text link under your image. Because Google can’t read images, this all helps to tell the search engine what your image is about.

Utilize social sharing buttons. Find a widget or plug in that’s compatible with your blog platform, and use it to install social media sharing buttons. It’s an easy and effective way to get people sharing your posts.

Strive to post frequently. Make a commitment to posting at least once a week. The more you post, the more you can positively impact your SEO.

Hungry for more? Download the free SEO For Photographers workbook.

Whew. People got riled up by my first post entitled “Hey Photographers! Pinterest is Not for You” and the feedback on the blog, Facebook and Twitter provided some great discussion points worth commenting on.

First and foremost, a small minority of people thought I was making a sexist statement. I wasn’t. I am not taking a sexist position about photography being a male pursuit, and that women only care about fluffy things. Some of my favorite photographers are women, half of our staff are women, and even my mom is a woman. Also: I like to wear scarves. Ok, now that that is out of the way…

• I presented the gender skew because it matters in understanding the psychographic make-up of the audience (If this wasn’t relevant, we wouldn’t have Gentlemint)
• The order in which I presented the stats wasn’t implying hierarchy, it was the order in which the information was presented by Google AdPlanner.
• Explaining which categories are thriving on Pinterest helps to frame user intent.
• I cannot competently comment on international usage. It’s very hard for us to see those analytics.

The thesis of my entry had nothing to do of whether a virtual pin board is a good idea or not. It had to do with whether Pinterest can act as a business tool to drive revenue for photographers. Why did I pick this aspect? Because retailers are driving revenue on Pinterest. They have found a way to monetize the pinning behavior of their audience to drive traffic and revenue. And savvy pinners have signed up with affiliate programs to make money from their pinning.

I completely agree with the commenters who stated:

• It’s a great tool as a mood board.
• It’s a great tool of self-expression that allows clients and potential clients to gain insight into your taste.
• It seems to be popular with wedding photographers.
• A few superstar photographers have benefitted immensely from it.
• The service is nascent and evolving, and we cannot predict how it will be used in the future

A number of commenters pointed out the point isn’t to sell directly. That’s fine. I accept that point of view. If that’s the case, we need to recognize Pinterest as a “top of the funnel” tool that is designed lead generation mechanism. You’re not necessarily collecting emails off the thing, but you are creating visibility for your business via pins, repins, likes and follows. It’s great to have a big sales funnel, and we should always be working on widening the top of the funnel. But if you’re not continually improving your conversion in the middle and bottom of the funnel, then you aren’t building new clients.

• If you’re getting lots of repins, but people are only using your images for “inspiration” (and not hiring you), then it has dubious business value.
• If you’re getting referral traffic, but that’s not translating into bookings or sales, then it has dubious business value.

It’s not good enough to measure your business simply by saying I have 5,000 hits, 1000 Facebook Likes, 800 Twitter followers, and 560 repins. Those are just statistics. It doesn’t represent qualified traffic. Unless you are tracking conversion of those statistics into paying clients, you’re giving yourself a false sense of security over the real metrics that drive your business. If you’re using it as a post-sale tool (e.g. the client hired you, and now you’re both pinning ideas for a shoot), then you’re using Pinterest in a way that is in support of, but not creating new business. Don’t tell me that “but it’s raising awareness and one day it’ll pay off.” Show me the numbers that substantiate that claim.

Pinterest for Wedding Photographers
Jessica D’Onofrio, a Dallas-based fashion, lifestyle and wedding photographer e-mailed me to explain how she was using the service. She has been using Pinterest as a way to collect inspiration for brides after they’ve hired her. But, because the brides have followers themselves, the pinboard has become a source of additional leads for her business.

“I create a pinboard that I invite said client to join where she can pin her inspiration for a shoot, or for the wedding day…all of her Facebook girlfriends sign up and ‘follow’ her board (in essence also following me.) While not my original intent, I HAVE received solid leads from this. And perhaps the fact it was not the original intent is why it worked…I think if they just post a big display of their personal images and expect the rest of the work to be done by repins, they’re missing the point. It needs to be something they’re using in an interactive format that includes participation from brides, friends, and other like minded demographics. It’s a dialogue, not a monologue.”

If every wedding client who uses Pinterest leads to another client, then I would say this is a highly productive ROI (return on investment). It doesn’t require her to change what she’s doing because she’s already using Pinterest as an customer engagement tool. And if the network effect leads to 5 leads, and 20% convert into clients (I’m making some big assumptions based on word of mouth referrals), then it’s a huge win, and a major step in the right direction in using Pinterest for the business of photography.

Conclusion
We spend a lot of time trying to help photographers understand how to use emerging technologies to improve their business, and we also spend a lot of time educating photographers on business concepts that we use to grow our own business. One of the benefits of running a website service used by so many photographers is that we can see website analytics in aggregate. So I know definitively that Facebook and Stumbleupon drive significantly more traffic than Twitter and Pinterest. I also know that the sales conversion through Facebook is much higher than Pinterest across all the PhotoShelter websites.

When people respond with “Trey Ratcliff gets 15% of his traffic from Pinterest,” I feel really happy for him. But he’s an outlier. He’s a very successful photographer who has a large online following. He’s also a master marketer. You are not Trey or Jasmine Starr. Your audience isn’t other photographers. We’re trying to provide information that we think can be used by the 99%, which is likely you.

Nothing would make me happier than to find another great source of referral traffic that increases sales. So if you’re finding that Pinterest is driving jobs and sales, let us know like Jessica did. We’ll be more than happy to spread the word.

First, let me express some brief disappointment in Sebastian’s search engine optimization. This is what happens when you don’t have a page meta description on a Flash website — you get a message asking you “Get Flash Player now.” Boo. He does, however, get social media props for having a Tumblr account.

But back to the images!

Sebastian took Fassbender’s hotness to the next level by photographing his photo on fire.  The cover of Interview magazine’s February 2012 issue is black and white and gritty. It’s beautifully lit. I love the softer rim light (which arguably might not qualify as rim lighting). Pose is good, and the mottling of the skin fits the interpretation.

Henry Leutwyler’s image from Vogue is kinder and gentler. I love the feathering of the light (reminds me of Dan Winters), and even though the image is obviously retouched, the skin detail still has good texture.

Verdict: Leutwyler. I give big props to Kim for the creativity, but I’m gonna side with my boy, Henry for the more sensitive portrait.

And truth be told, when Google tweaks algorithms, we don’t just see search traffic fluxuate, we also see indexed content move around too. How do you know what’s indexed? Go to Google and type “site:[yourdomain]“.

The results show you the number of pages included in the index. You can also do the same on Google Images.

When Panda hit last year, we started to track indexed content on a more regular basis. Then we decided to collect the data on the total indexed content over a trailing 90-day basis, and graph the results. Here’s a graph of Facebook and Flickr images:

Quite honestly, we were a little shocked. The day-to-day fluctuations ( or “sawtooth” formation) were disturbing. There were some days where we witnessed a 90% drop in (reported) indexation. But in doing some light testing, it didn’t seem like the results on the top SERP (search engine result page) for any given keyword term were falling out, so we assumed that the content in question was poorly ranked content. Not long tail content, mind you, but stuff that might be on page 73 of Google search results, and whose presence (or lack thereof) would have little impact on the majority of searches.

The theory behind the daily sawtooth is that we’re hitting different banks of servers at various times, and it’s a thought that we shared with Will Critchlow from Distilled, one of the top SEO firms. He agreed that this was probably the case.

The more disturbing trend was these massive upswings. If you’re Facebook (in blue), you’re thrilled. Your total number of  indexed images went from 10 billion images to 17 billion overnight and stayed there for the most part. If you’re Flickr, you’re pretty pissed off (and I’m not talking about your feelings toward Yahoo!). Flickr is a great site with awesome images used by millions of people. So what is Facebook doing that Flickr is not? It might be a sitemap. It might be that a lot of pages of images were in robots.txt for exclusion. It might be the addition of some other structuring of data that made indexing more effective. It might be an algorithmic change.

Takeaway

Whatever the case may be, the indexation graph provides us an interesting look at the unpredictability of SEO, and can illustrate that signal and algorithmic changes can dramatically affect results. Fortunately for PhotoShelter members, our internal results have yielded very favorable results with overall image indexation up 400% in the past few months. This doesn’t necessarily mean that every member was positively impacted by our regular SEO updates, but rest assured that we are monitoring these types of trends closely and continue to test various improvements.

Earlier this week, I expressed a preference for this Nathaniel Butler photo over Heinz Kleutmeier’s. After reading your comments, I have officially recanted my position. I think that the Butler photo is technically better because it’s on strobe and thus very crisp with no distracting backgrounds. But this Kleutmeier photo tells a better story with the game action.

Ironically, this week, Sports Illustrated used a more TIME-like image with the “jube” (that’s short for “jubilation”) shot that doubly ironically was shot by a Getty photographer, Chris Trotman. Jeremy isn’t the most outwardly emotional player, so this smile is about all you’re gonna get after making a good play. It’s a nice image, and the bokeh is buttery. By the way, SI hasn’t used the same athlete on back-to-back covers since….last year. Dirk Nowitzki.

Verdict: If last week’s cover was good enough to best a more pedestrian image, then it’s still good enough this week. Hooray for the SI staffer! And also, thanks for your comments — I like to have a civil discourse which leads to changing my opinion. Still love ya, Nathaniel!

***

Mini-rant: Defend Against Racism

A photography blog isn’t the type of place that I would typically use as a platform to speak about racism. And truth be told, having grown up in the very culturally diverse state of Hawai’i, I don’t really think about race that much. But I gotta speak my mind. Oh yeah, disclosure: I’m Asian-American.

Jeremy Lin is a star because he’s an unrecruited, undrafted, slightly above average height Asian-American who went to Harvard, and came off the bench as the 4th string point guard to turn into a superstar, all the while sleeping on a teammate’s couch. When his parents emigrated to the US from Taiwan, his father became so enamored with basketball, that he trained his sons to play. In his last 10 games, Lin is averaging nearly 25 points, 9 assists and 4.5 rebounds. MSG (the company that owns the Knicks) has seen its market cap increase by $228M since Lin started. Any one of these facts would be impressive on its own (e.g. if he had been the starting point guard and put up these numbers). So if you don’t understand the appeal of the story, try to understand the improbability of these events.

During the past two weeks since he started, the media has tried every single pun it could that incorporated his surname: Linsane, Linsanity, #linning, Linvasion, Lintense, Lindescribable, and the NY Post’s “Amasian” (which I thought was pretty funny).

Then came the “Chink in the Armor” headlines. I skeptically accept that one sports writer might innocently use that phrase — it’s commonplace enough. But when multiple sports writers use it to describe his first lost after using Lin puns for so long, I can only chalk it up to racism. That pundits would try to defend it as innocent strikes me as linsanity. Using a phrase that has a racist double entendre is crazy. It’s akin to saying a black point guard with no turnovers gave a “Niggardly performance” or a Hispanic relief pitcher had a “Spic-and-Span Performance.” They are both semantically accurate, but the racist connotation is undeniable, and no one would stand for it.

Following Lin’s 38 point performance against the Lakers (in which he outscored the scoring league leader, Kobe Bryant), FOX sports commentator Jason Whitlock tweeted, “Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight.”

And then when JR Smith joined the Knicks a few days ago after playing basketball in China, ex-NBA player Rex Chapman tweeted “I say JR is such a great pick-up 4 the #Lins only because he’s been playing the past 6-mo’s in China. So easy now 4 him to recognize his PG.”

When he was criticized, he responded with, “I’ll let you know when I begin 2 give a shit.”

Boxer Floyd Mayweather tweeted ”Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he’s Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don’t get the same praise.” You might initially think the same (former WNBA Rebecca Lobo posed the question in a more politically correct way), but you have to understand that no athlete rose from such anonymity to such stardom ever. Playing the Asian card only exposes Mayweather’s ignorance of the stats.

At some point, the rise of Jeremy Lin will jump the shark (maybe it’s already happened). And truth be told, as a NJ Nets fan, I was more than happy to see Deron Williams torch him with 38 points the other night. But the story is incredible, and the shrugging off of obvious racism towards an Asian-American, in a way that wouldn’t be tolerated if it were directed at other races, is a real moment for reflection as expounded upon by the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Plaschke’s insightful op/ed. Throwing racists barbs erode the foundations of a remarkable story that should serve to inspire. Racism is insidious to the fabric of society — culturally, morally and economically. And racism that’s casually shrugged off as innocent is all the more caustic. Defend against racism.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

While we definitely appreciate the fact that you shared our post on your blog, the link isn’t as valuable as it could be in terms of SEO.

The reason is simple: crappy anchor text.

What is anchor text?

It’s the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink, and is usually blue and underlined. A link that would have incorporated better anchor text in the example above is digital point-and-shoot cameras used by pros. If you Google the term “digital point-and-shoot cameras”, you’ll see that PhotoShelter’s blog post on this topic is in the top results (under all the darn ads and shopping results, of course).

Part of the reason that post ranks so highly on the search engine result page (SERP) is that 142 backlinks point to it. You already know the importance of backlinks in building good SEO, but it’s really important to understand that there are links, and then there are GREAT links. A great link is one that uses anchor text that matches or is related to the terms on your keyword hit list.

Both Brian Smith and Dave Pattinson graciously link to the PhotoShelter blog post on point-and-shoot cameras with relevant and SEO-friendly anchor text.

Why is anchor text so important?

Remember that search engines are just robots at the end of the day, and they need your help in figuring out what your website is all about. If someone links to your website with the anchor text “click here”, that tells the search engines nothing. But if they link to your site with something like “Washington DC stock photos”, then the search engines have a better idea that your website is about Washington DC stock photos and thus your site is relevant to someone who searches for that term.

Just like on-page SEO, we have to do everything in our power to make search engines see that our website is relevant to the keywords that we’re trying to rank for. Getting backlinks to your website with relevant anchor text is also like giving your site a vote of confidence from the Internet world. Imagine that when Google scans your site, it looks for backlinks as a sign that other people trust your website and what it’s about.

How do I get the anchor text I want?

Anchor text is like an extra boost for your SEO – as if saying to Google that not only do other people like and trust your site enough to link to it, but they also all agree that it’s about Washington DC stock photos (or whatever your keyword terms may be).

Problem is, not everyone understands this concept, and so plenty of people will link to you with bad anchor text. You might have to be a little pushy. If you know that someone is blogging about you, or if you’re contributing as a guest blogger, be explicit: ask that when they credit you, to please link to sports photojournalist Jamey Price, for example. It might seem silly, but it’s your best bet in guaranteeing that you get the right anchor text and benefit most from the link.

We try to help boost photographers’ SEO on the PhotoShelter Blog by linking to their websites with good anchor text.

People who are clued in about anchor text will often look to your page title for keywords that you would want included in your link. They can easily find this by opening your website and hovering over the tab. So there’s one more reason to pay attention to your page title.

Takeaway

Now that you understand the importance of relevant anchor text, you might be asking yourself if there’s an equivalent for your images. There is, and it’s called the ALT attribute (see the SEO For Photographers guide). Ensure that the ALT attributes for your images include your keywords, since this is what search engines read when they come across an image. Whether it’s on your own blog or your comfortable sharing your photos on other websites, the right ALT attribute is just as important as relevant anchor text when getting a backlink

You’d have to live in a world with no Internet to not have heard of Pinterest by now. Although the service has been around in various incarnations since 2008, it’s really caught fire in the past month. And it recently made claims to the title of “Fastest to 10 million registered users,” allegedly beating out Instagram for that title.

So I’ve watched with interest as various conversations have played out on forums and Facebook amongst photographers, and whether they should 1) protect their copyright and insert code in their website that prevents people from pinning their photos, or 2) embrace the new world and start participating in Pinterest. And in my humble opinion, the answer is neither because Pinterest isn’t for you.

What? What sort of rabble rouser am I?

Here are some facts gleaned from Google AdPlanner:

• Pinterest drives a ton of page views
• 82% of visitors are female
• 79% fall between the ages of 25-54
• Under “sites also visited” are such places as chef-in-training.com, foodgawker.com, the-girl-who-ate-everything.com, apartmenttherapy.com
• Under Audience interests are “Fashion Designers & Collections”, “Fashion & Style”, and “Crafts”

In other words, the Pinterest audience isn’t so charmed by your photography because they are too busy pinning clothing, crafts and interior design items. Pinterest is an aspirational pin board for women. The “Likes” and “Repinning” help to validate a user’s curatorial skills. And like every social media site in the world, the service is a tool of self-expression. Let the people express themselves, it’s therapeutic.

Pinterest is an awesome marketing tool for retailers. In fact, for one of the retailers I advise, it is the top source of referring traffic. You can’t buy that kind of free marketing.

But for photographers, it simply isn’t a good referral source because it doesn’t lead to sales. So worrying about the rights-grab and whether it’s skirting copyright law is moot. And Pinterest hasn’t shown itself to be a good referral mechanism for service-based offerings (e.g. hiring you for a wedding). And if you compare the number of repins for the fashion category vs. the arts category, you’ll begin to understand that spending time on Pinterest as a marketing activity simply doesn’t pay off for photographers.

So while I am a proponent of Internet-based marketing and copyright control, photographers are missing the point when they whine about Pinterest. It’s not going out of business any time soon, it will continue to be a popular service and retailers/brands will find new ways to exploit it, but the best use for photographers is to pin that fashionable pair of photographer pants you want.

Can’t get enough Pinterest? Read Round 2.

Photo by Hunter Harrison

Starting off in an over-saturated market

When close friends insisted Hunter shoot their weddings, the pieces started to fall into place. Hunter became instantly ravenous for everything wedding industry. In his first year he shot a couple of weddings, and in his second year he shot 24. For the upcoming year, he booked enough weddings to leave his day job and become a fulltime photographer.

The northeast Ohio market is larger than one might think, with nearly 2.5 million people living in the Cleveland area. There are many ways to dive into a new market, but Hunter’s tech knowledge inspired him to take a unique approach. As he was starting to market himself, Hunter noticed that a significant number of people were searching Google for their specific suburbs – not greater Cleveland. Yet, most photographers in the market were aligning themselves with Cleveland. So he decided to keyword himself as a wedding photographer for his suburb of Lakewood and a neighboring one called Rocky River.

His hunch paid off. Many of his initial clients were looking for someone in the neighborhood, even if they weren’t planning on getting married there. In fact, many clients would end up having their weddings in Cleveland. Once Hunter started building his portfolio and blog, he would keyword the posts with Cleveland and has since risen up the Google search ranks as a Cleveland wedding photographer. In many ways, starting small helped him leap up faster to a bigger market.

Building a business on-brand

Since expanding to a larger market, Hunter has continued to maintain a neighborly approach to his business. He invites all clients to his home to review wedding proofs in person, to create a more familiar customer service experience. He also shares a Google calendar with colleagues in his market. If he has a fantastic bride but is already booked or she isn’t quite the right fit for his brand, he always tries to refer her to one of these colleagues. This fosters not only a spirit of cooperative competition, but a community among Cleveland photographers.

Another key turning point for Harrison’s business was paying for a re-brand. Through a recommended consultant, Harrison streamlined the look, the philosophy, even the name of his business. He had a specific target in mind of highly educated, independent adults with exciting personalities that an observer would call “an extraordinary couple.” With the help of his consultant, he was able to build a brand that spoke directly to his desired clients.

Photo by Hunter Harrison

Photo by Hunter Harrison

From SEO to word of mouth

The secret to his success is creating an experience in which his clients walk away feeling as though they received a gift. From the client packet with a tag and a bow, to buying a wine-loving couple a bottle of Veuve Clicquot for their engagement shoot to an unusually generous complimentary archival presentation box of 4 x 6 proofs of every single wedding image as part of the base package – Harrison’s brand touches every aspect of his business.

Like many wedding photographers, the majority of Hunter’s business comes from personal referrals. The key to good word of mouth is of course a good impression. His advice to newcomers is not to fear mistakes, but recognize that they will happen. The best thing to do is embrace the mistake, address how to rectify it and then do that as quickly as possible. That is what actually makes good customer service great. And memorable.

Photo by Hunter Harrison

Takeaways

• Consider seeking out potentially untapped markets and neighborhoods, instead of jumping right into the biggest one.
• Invest in your brand, because the upfront cost will likely pay off in the long run.
• Do not let mistakes get in the way of excellent customer service.

Photo by Hunter Harrison

Hunter Harrison is just one of seven wedding photographers we profiled in our free guide, How To Grow A Wedding Photography Business. Get more insights from the pros, plus ways to get smart with your business – everything from marketing your services, to screening clients, to the wedding day itself – in this free guide. Download here.

Delivering upwards of 12,000 images per event is no joke, so Rory has figured out what kind of photographer it takes to get the job done. After seven years of coordinating events, Rory knows to hire photographers who are self-motivated, independent, and have a go-get-’em attitude. Sound like you?

Our live webinar will take place this Wednesday, February 22th, at 4pm ET. Registration is free, but space is limited – so reserve your spot today. Register Here.

Overview of the FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen

In this live webinar, you can expect Rory to give us his insights on:

• What he expects from photographers before, during, and after events.
• How photographers can distinguish themselves.
• Plus ways to get repeat business from a high-end magazine that also runs major events.

Mario Batali at the FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen

Register here for this live webinar: February 22th @ 4pm ET.