The Problem Of Plenty And How You Can Make Your Work Stand Out
From never ending rounds of selfies to an overflow of visuals on Instagram, the art of photography is no longer limited to the traditional norms. One would say that photography is no more a niche skill, but has become a hobby instead for anyone who owns a camera- of any sort!
For people who’ve seen photography grow in front of their eyes believe that the art is slowly dying, as the camera holders mostly go rampant clicking anything and everything around them. They say that the importance of capturing moments and the authenticity of their essence has dissolved.
Why is Photography NOT What It Used to Be?
1. Too Many Cameras In the Picture
The ever growing number of cheap cameras and the usage of smartphones has given just about everyone their ‘photography’ skill. The innumerous DSLR tutorials and demos available online has also turned a lot many people semi professional. The number of people following it as a hobby are closing in on those who actually follow it as a career.
2. People Can’t Recognize Real Photography
Backed with the huge number of people clicking pictures rampantly, most of us have lost the sense of differentiating between a good photograph and a bad one. Photography is and has always been an art that only a few can master. It has taken people years to practice different aspects of it. However in all the clutter we see only, just how many of us can point out a picture that isn’t clicked by a photographer?
For instance, type out #photooftheday on Instagram. Here’s what you’ll see — there’s practically everything in our search result:
3. Businesses are no longer just hiring talent
With the economy being in the state that it is, a lot of companies are hiring cheaper talent to cut down or manage their budgets. However, this has only led to people thinking of the creative industry. It has become something that anyone can do as long as it is for cheap.
4. Visuals are everything
The digital industry has grown exponentially over the years. We have moved from textual content to visuals and are focusing on growing the latter as the days pass. Be it creative graphics, product pictures or videos, visuals are becoming everything. Not that we are complaining, but this too has a part in the ‘problem of plenty’.
While the importance of creative visuals are increasing, it is also becoming increasingly important for the professionals to get their work noticed on search. Now not everyone is experienced at SEO and not everyone can spend thousands of dollars to just promote their work digitally.
Here’s why Search plays an important part in the future of creative professionals:
1. To Attract The Right Projects
You would already know how thousands of internet users are searching through an even higher number of creative professionals to work on their projects. If you set your work on the right platform, with a powerful search feature, you’d have half your problems sorted. All your work would be displayed as per requirement and people won’t have to move from one platform to another trying to figure out what the professional is actually good at.
2. To Present what you have earned
Today, social proof plays a very important part in determining the success of an individual or a business. People want to know what experience the others have had working with the creative professional. Since search technology provided by companies like Siftr curate your work from social platforms, it gives you the ability to show how ‘loved’ your work is in the industry.
3. To Build Your Authority
When your work is present on the right channels and is credited by the right community, you start to build your authority in the industry. People follow your work closely and even recommend it in their circles as they see you as someone who knows the value of his work, and how it needs to be presented.
4. To Cut Down on Paid Marketing
If you’re on the right platform, showcasing the right work to the right people, you’re already taking care of 80% of your marketing through those channels. In such a scenario, the need to promote your work via paid campaigns gradually decreases.
5. For Simple, Organized Curation
An online portfolio is supposed to serve the purpose of letting your prospect clients see all your work without having to contact you for it. This doesn’t just save their time, but also acts as a buffer between people who are genuinely interested in working with you and those who probably don’t value your work as much. But it is important that your portfolio is highly organised.
The Siftr Photo Organizer, enables you to connect your digital profiles, conduct a search and analyses your work to create meaningful collections. It also lets you share those collections in any way you want — privately or publicly, in a layout you desire and even create storylines for the same.
Choosing the right platform and collating the best of your work is the only way creative professionals can stand out during this ‘problem of plenty’. Making use of technological and digital advancements is the one way to ensure your work doesn’t get drowned amidst that, that probably doesn’t even match up to 50% of yours.
Creative professionals need to use digital intelligence technology to get their work searched for better. After all, if it is the time for visuals, their work needs to be recognized better.
Search, Discover and Showcase your creative work better with Siftr.
** This article was contributed by Aakanksha Sidhu
