An overview of social media tools and networks aimed at photographers looking to promote their work and engage potential clients.

1. Social Media for
Photographers
Mandy Jenkins @mjenkins mjenkins@digitalfirstmedia.com

2. Why Social Media?
● Market yourself & your work to a wide
audience
● Connect with customers and other
photographers
● Post photos on the go
● Increase your SEO for freelancing
● Obtain portfolio space online for free

3. Keys to Social Engagement
1. Respond to replies, comments and questions
everywhere
2. Be transparent
3. Ask for help, be thankful when you get it
4. Make corrections quickly and publicly
5. Share others’ content, too

4. On every social network you
post photos….
Read the Terms
of Service!

6. Watermarking
● MyPix (iPhone)
● Add Watermark (Droid)
● PicMarkr (Web)
● Visual Watermark (Mac or
Windows)

7. From PhotoShelter:
Regularly sharing your photos, adding captions,
and filling out photo details including the
dimensions of your photo, the specific camera
you used, exposure, ISO speed, and focal
length, adds to your credibility as a professional
photographer.

8. Social Media Tools

9. Who’s on it: Everyone (more than 1B active users)
Pros:
● Shares make it easy for arresting images to go viral (with
caption info)
● Crosses all demographic lines, mobile-heavy audience
Cons:
● Users are there to connect with those they already know
● Image compression can warp images
● It can be really hard to build community here

11. Profiles Pages
● One place to manage ● Completely separate
everything presence from profile
● Control your privacy ● Completely public
● Timeline design with large ● Timeline design with large
image image
● Could mix ● Detailed analytics to see
personal/professional who visits
● May be more likely to be ● Can sell there, if you’d
seen want

12. Target Your Updates

13. Create An Engaging
Presence

14. ● Attach older photos to their dates on
your Timeline with milestones
● If you aren’t comfortable posting
images, post a link to them (make
sure the thumbnail works)
● Update often and mix it up with links,
photos, albums, etc.

15. Who’s on it: 16% of U.S. online adults, urban, college
educated, split on gender and age
Pros:
● Short and fast – ideal for breaking news, instant feedback
● Mobile-centric
● Users are there to surface new content
Cons:
● Can be really noisy (no filters)
● Only displays its native images inline, others are links

17. Who you should follow
● Sources of inspiration
● Other photographers
● Those in your area of interest
● Those who reply to you
● Those who re-tweet, share your
links

18. Find Who to Follow
● Find journalists: Muckrack.com
● By subject/location: Twellow.com,
Wefollow.com
● Follow and use photo and subject
hashtags (#photo, #DC, etc.)
● Look at others’ follows/followers

19. ● When tweeting a photo, say where it
is and what is happening
● Note the time/date if not today
● Tweet followups if photos are newsy
● Share newsy photos with relevant
hashtags

20. Who’s on it: Photographers and wannabes, worldwide
Pros:
● Meant for photos and only photos, images look great
● Uploads camera info automatically
● Can prevent downloads
● License directly to Getty, Creative Commons
● Can be used to host all your social photos
Cons:
● Look is outdated and clunky, owned by Yahoo
● Not a very social network for non-photogs

21. ● Caption and tag images thoroughly – this will
help them be found by those seeking images for
stock use
● Use location on photos when possible
● Understand Creative Commons licensing and
use it
● Join groups based around areas and topics you
shoot
● Join photographer groups

22. Who’s on it: Allegedly more than 300 million users
Pros:
● The social layer on all Google products
● All content is indexed for search, helps with SEO
● Photos are large and look great
● Active photog communities on G+
Cons:
● Not a lot of people use it for engagement

23. ● Fill out a profile completely, even if you
don’t plan to use it very much
● If you publish anywhere, set up Authorship
● Upload images with SEO in mind –
descriptive titles, names, locations and
keywords

24. Who’s on it: 80+ million users, under 30
Pros:
● Fastest growing mobile photography network
● Easy to use and share to other networks
● Great sense of community and interactivity
Cons:
● Largely mobile-only
● Square shape and filters can stifle creativity

25. ● Be judicious with filters –and identify when you do and
do not use them (#nofilter)
● Use tags and hashtags to spread your images
● Search image tags & users using Search.stagram or
Gramfeed
● Follow tags and communities of interest
● Share others images (like retweeting) with Statigr.am

26. Who’s on it: 25 million+ users, largely female
Pros:
● Fastest growing social network
● Visually-based, made to spread content fast
● People use it to shop and get ideas
Cons:
● Users may or may not click through to URL
● Not particularly interactive

27. ● Create pinboards of your photos grouped
by subject area, location
● Link back to your site or other networks
● Look for inspiration
● Pin others’ photos for ideas

28. Who’s on it: 80+ million blogs, people under 35
Pros:
● Growing fast amongst teens
● Reblogging allows photos to spread fast
● Easy to use and mobile friendly
Cons:
● Could be difficult to monetize
● No comments, just reblogs

29. ● Share images with descriptive tags so
others can find them by location and
subject
● Follow and participate in community tags
like photography, photooftheday, etc.
● Use it as an easy publishing platform for
collaboration

30. Who’s on it: Brands and photogs
Pros:
● Adds attribution, ownership, context to images
● Beautiful displays and interface
● Can host most social images, gives analytics
● Ecommerce support
Cons:
● Not very social
● Not all features are free

31. Final Thoughts
● Don’t get caught up in the numbers game of
social media.
● Don’t try to do everything at once, pick networks
that make sense for your subject.
● Measure your progress using sites like Klout.
com and onsite analytics.
● Engagement doesn’t happen overnight

32. THANKS!
Mandy Jenkins
mjenkins@digitalfirstmedia.com
@mjenkins
Blog: Zombiejournalism.com
These slides & more at slideshare.
net/mandyjenkins

33. Sources
● Photoshelter.com’s tips for photographers
on social media
● Pew Research Center’s Internet &
American Life Project
● Colby Brown’s Social Media Tips for
Photographers
● Ignite Social Media’s Demographics