Use Of Social Media for Photographers
--
I first started to think about how viewers experience my photography after this amazing course.
Imagine a new person who is exposed to your works for the first time. Are they amazed? Or confused? In terms of navigation, do they have a clear next step no matter where they start? In other words: does your universe look as a museum or an attic for them? It’s useful to have several narratives in your SM, optimized for different groups of people. Every narrative should have clear way to explore it, viewer needs to know where to go next otherwise they go to a next tab.
Let me show you how I arrange my work. Today I will give you a brief characteristic of my 3 main sites, tomorrow I will talk about nine additional resources (picture above) and then Monday I will show you 3 possible narratives for people of different background and with different first contact.
As always, I welcome any questions (aliona.kuz@gmail.com)
My website — clear and simple interface centered around a picture. My first link in every business and collaboration letter. Gives easy access to my portfolio and resume. Plus for viewers with a lot of time it gives access to dozens of my stories as well as my blog and interviews. You can spend there 2 minutes and only get the info you want or 2 hours and never run out of new stuff.
Facebook is much more dynamic then website. It has 81,5k followers, many of whom are from Europe and with only basic level of English (because I started it while still in Switzerland). Here you will find mainly resulting pictures. First function of FB is to bring my viewer’s attention to new cool stuff (see the scheme on top), second is to give me outside perspective on either best or most experimental photos I make.
Instagram has only 900 viewers. Most of them I know personally — they are people I worked with or plan to work with in different cities, other photographers, magazine editors and small brands. A lot of my clients and collaborators contact me here, so I try to show not only my work, but also my creative process and of course resulting pictures being used by magazines and in exhibitions.
