5 easy ways to jump start your photographer presence online
The basics, the forgotten and the a-ha.
In the past few years photography’s popularity has exploded. Does this mean getting noticed today is harder than ever? Not necessarily. With a little initial effort, you can automate and maximize your online presence, allowing you to spend more time shooting. Here are five essential ways to jump-start your online photography:
1. Sign up for a photo-sharing site.
Sign up for accounts on 500px, Flickr, SmugMug, Google+, Instagram and Facebook. You don’t have to sign up for all of them, but having a presence on several photo- sharing web-sites is important to put the word — or rather, photos — out there for the world to see. Choose the ones you feel comfortable with, and stick with them, engage your audience by answering questions and comments, and by uploading your new works as well as following people whose work you admire.
2. Automate publishing with ifttt.com
With sites like ifttt you can automate your publishing. Sign up for an account, and get going. You’ll be surprised how much you can automate. You can set up the service so that if you post a photo to instagram, it also gets published on Flickr. Or, when you push on Tumblr, it gets automatically saved in your Dropbox. There are hundreds of rules you can create, and in just a few minutes you can automate your work, so you don’t have to spend time handling several accounts manually.
3. Engage the audience
Especially if you are just starting in photography, you’ve probably learned some new skills recently. The best way to engage your audience is to share your knowledge — write a blog post (so that it automatically goes to Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) about what you’ve learned — rules of thirds, golden ratio, some Lightroom tricks. Even if it’s a tiny bit of information and takes you 5 minutes to write — chances are, some of your readers won’t know it. Knowledge is the most valuable content you can provide your audience.
4. Go offline
As strange as it sounds, to be more present online, you should also be present ‘offline’. Visit Meetup.com and check ‘Photography’ meet-ups around you. Getting to know people in your city that are passionate about the same things you are will significantly enhance your satisfaction of being online. You’ll finally know the people behind the avatars and nicknames.
5. Ask questions and always try something new
You can learn a lot by asking questions. Useful places to start are creativeLive, Quora, Flickr Groups, and 500px Blog.
You can read and watch tutorials, engage in sessions, and try out the new tips in the wild. Experimenting with what you have learned will bring you new knowledge — which is an enticing story to share with your audience.
