The Sound of My Own Voice

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into marketing recently. Maybe it’s because I’ve been speaking to other photographers about their strategies, victories or failures with their own marketing efforts. One thing that seems to be a common topic is the use of social marketing tools. Just about everyone is using some version but when it comes to using social media in an effective way, I’d wager that more than a few are not getting it right – myself included.

Case and point: Seth Godin’s recent post regarding tactics vs. strategy. There are plenty of tactics to help you market yourself or product – more than enough in fact. But the real effectiveness comes when those tactics (social media in this case) are applied to a bigger picture or strategy. Otherwise your talking just to hear your own voice.

Know who it is you want to connect to. Take the time to find out the best way to engage them and how your message can be conveyed to help tell the story of your brand. Some photographers like to speak to their own. That’s great and helpful and I fully appreciate it but it probably won’t attract photo editors or art buyers. Other photographers use blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc., to help put a face to their name and share a little more personality. This is group I hope to fall into.

Tonight I’ll be moderating the APA | SD Social Media Roundtable and I hope to gain some insight to what others are doing to add to their strategy.

Have any thoughts on this? Tweet it to me @gee_allard

~ by Gary Allard on August 12, 2009.