Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Contributors
LOTUS CARROLL is a photographer and blogger living in Austin, TX. She is known for self portraits, but enjoys documenting the world by photographing everything from urban decay to landscape and sunsets. She enjoys using her art to elicit emotion in the viewer. A former student of psychology with two degrees, she is intrigued by both universal emotional concepts as well as the specic feelings of people who are viewing her photos.
TREY RATCLIFF is a photographer, artist, writer and adventurer. Each day, Trey posts a new photo to his website StuckinCustoms.com, which receives over half a million monthly page views. Trey has over 9.5 million social media followers via. Google+, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. His photos and stories capture the beauty of exotic travel destination and the humor of bizarre situations he often nds himself in. There is always something new, unexpected and beautiful to see.
NICOLE S. YOUNG is a professional photographer and author based in Portland, Oregon. She has authored several books and eBooks and is best known for her book Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots, published by Peachpit Press. Nicole creates commercial and editorial images for her stock portfolio on iStockphoto and Getty Images, and also works as a Photoshop Help Desk Specialist for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.
Preface
by Catherine Hall
The camera is, and always has been, the lens through which I understand the world. It dictates my choices on nearly everything: from friends to career to travel. This passion to participate in life through my lens resulted in stuffed closets, cabinets, and boxes bursting at the seams, overowing with prints and negatives. I had fallen victim to the curse of all lm photographers: image hoarding. Although a chosen few images climbed above the legions and made it into my private portfolio to share with loved ones, the amateur photographers version of show and tell, the long journey toward brand exposure and recognition was extremely daunting. This is why now, more than ever, I am thankful for the pervasive
culture of online sharing and social media. The world changed drastically when digital hit the scene. Cameras are now carried everywhere. These cameras, aka cell phones, can be seen jammed in pockets, purses, and messenger bags. Everybody is suddenly an accidental photographer; telling our life stories using images rather than words. Social media has driven this evolution. Images no longer suffer life in the depths of archaic le cabinets; instead they are shared worldwide easily and regularly. This profound change in photographic history has created new opportunity for us all. My advice? Share often and share well.
Getting Started
Create a Page or Enable Follow
Whether you enable Follow on your existing prole or create a Page for your photography, both are powerful tools for sharing your imagery and growing your audience on Facebook. Here are some things to consider in deciding whether to use Follow or a Page or both: PROFILE WITH FOLLOW Follow enables you to grow your audience on Facebook through your existing prole. When you enable Follow, people interested in your photography will be able follow you and receive your public updates in their news feeds. Every time you post, you get to choose with whom its shared. When you make a post public, followers will get it in news feed. PAGES Some photographers choose to setup a Page to promote their work or business. People interested in your work can simply like the Page to connect with it and receive updates from it in their news feeds.
Personally, I choose to have both a Prole with Follow enabled, and a Page. This allows me to maintain existing personal relationships with my personal prole, and to further my professional exposure to potential followers and friends through my business page. While some people wish to engage with me personally and others prefer to visit my professional Page, I want to be available in the mode through which they feel most comfortable. People who follow your Page or Prole will be exposed to your content in their News Feed and specic mini feeds, where they will be able to interact with, and re-share the content. News Feed is personalized for each user and sorts the top content they are most likely to interact with by looking at four primary factors: USER ENGAGEMENT How much engagement the post has received, and its freshness POST ENGAGEMENT How much engagement the post has received, and its freshness CONTENT TYPE If a user interacts with photos more often, theyll see more photos NEGATIVE FEEDBACK Whether the post has been hidden by users or marked as spam To keep up with updates to News Feed changes, check out this blog. Users are also able to get your content through mini feeds such as Photos, Most Recent or Following, which show content in chronological order. These feeds give users other ways to discover your photos in real-time.
(i.e. facebook.com/CatherineHall242) and if its an option use capitalization rather than periods for readability (i.e. facebook.com/AwesomePhotography vs. facebook.com/awesome. photography). You must rst have a minimum of 25 friends or Likes to have a unique URL. To get your unique URL, go to facebook.com/username
Choose a photo that is shoulders up so that people can easily recognize and see your face -even in smaller sizes on mobile devices. COVER PHOTO Use a cover that evokes the professional quality of your work. The Cover Photo can be a great way to showcase your most recent photos or projects, but keep it authentic and dont make it overly promotional. Contact information or website details should be left for the About section of your Page or Prole. People arent coming to Facebook to see a commercial.
Prole Settings
If youre going to use your Prole to engage with a broader audience and to grow your followers, you have to make sure your Prole settings are set up properly. Here are some settings to consider adjusting on your Prole: PUBLIC SEARCH If you want to make sure your Prole is ndable on and off Facebook, enable public search in your Follow settings. ABOUT SECTION VISIBILITY You may have your About section lled out, but hidden to non-friends. When clicking the edit button various sections, each one will have a privacy icon showing you who its visible to. Adjust to public what you want followers to see. COMMENT SETTINGS When you enable Follow, youll notice in the settings there is an option to adjust who is able to comment on the public posts. To enable followers to comment on your public comments, set the setting to everyone. POST AUDIENCE On each piece of content you create, youll be able to adjust who is able to see the post. To publish a photo that followers get in their News Feed, make sure to select public in the privacy drop-down of the post. You can always change the setting on any post retroactively.
10
are linked to your Facebook profile or Page, enable your clients and people interested in your photography to follow you or like your Page on Facebook without leaving your site. Its easy to install the buttons with simple embed code, which you can find and customize
on the Social Plugins page. If you run a website using WordPress as your content management system, you can also take advantage of the Facebook plugin, which includes the Follow and Like buttons and makes integrating them into your website even easier.
12
Content is King
Ultimately, content is king, so think about what you are posting Is it something you would click on if you were scrolling through your own News Feed? If the answer is no, nd what it is lacking, and get to work on solving it. Your understanding of how to post and what to post will develop as your following grows, and you see trends of what they are most responsive to.
Lotus Carroll
If you want engagement, dont ignore comments and likes. Answer questions, like/reply to comments, and return the favor when you have time. And clean up spam in your comments. It makes other commenters feel more welcome and comfortable on your post.
Lotus Carroll
Photos on Facebook are essentially your lifeline on the network. Share with pride and remember to always keep your followers wanting more.
Be Selective
Post high quality photographs. Yes, you can use images captured on Instagram, but they should be well lit, composed, and processed. The bottom line is; if you are an image-maker, the expectations are going to be higher for youso post content that consistently stands-out as superior amongst the sea of vacation snapshots. Everything you show and say on Facebook directly reects your brand and others perception of your professionalism.
Lotus Carroll | Instagram has become critical tool for social photography. You can sync your Instagram account to post directly to your Facebook Prole or Page with your followers.
14
Edit
If you learn nothing else from this guide, please learn the value of EDITING your work. Instead of posting ten good images of the same subject matter, just pick one or two GREAT ones. When you maintain high quality standards, your following begins to see a trend of greatness in your posts, and lets admit it, everyone wants to be a part of something great. The biggest challenge photographers face when editing own work is that we are far from objective. Nine times out of ten, we will pick a shot that required a lot of effort over an image that may have been easy to capture but carries more artistic merit. At the end of the day, we are terrible at editing our own work! (Hence the reason why commercial photography outlets have editors buffering photographers from clients!) I recommend doing an initial broad edit on your own and then sharing the images with a select group of people whose opinion you respect. I cannot tell you how many times my favorite images has been rejected by colleagues. Despite how great you may believe an image to be, if everyone else thinks its weak, majority rules. Your body of work is only as good as your weakest image. Consistently strong images will always impress your followers much more than a blast of mediocrity, clogging peoples News Feeds (ticket to being un-followed!)
16
Stagger Release
When you have a strong group of high-quality selects from a specic shoot, make them last. Resist the urge to post a bunch of similar content at once (even if you are really excited about it). For example, if you take a trip to Europe and get 25 incredible shots (which by the way is a lot, as epic shots are hard to come by), denitely dont post them all at once. Instead, stagger the release of images so that the content remains fresh, engaging, and new to your audience. You could easily post this content over a time period of at least a year, sharing an image every couple weeks. People will think you are quite the world traveler.
More than often a powerful image is accompanied by and equally incredible story. Dont leave people guessing; share the details of the shot and what it took to capture what you are displaying in front of them.
enjoy these anecdotes. The explanation can be short, as long as it is interesting, which shouldnt be difcult, because I doubt you would have bothered taking a photo of something that was not interesting in the rst place.
Tips and tricks can come from a wide variety of sources. Consider things you read outside Facebook that you can then share with your followers. Above is an example from Trey on the pros /cons of watermarking.
Facebook for Photographers | 19
18
Your watermark should be a symbol of your already-established brand. Place the watermark in a manner that is unobtrusive to the subject of the image, that doesnt consume the entire frame.
Nicole S Young
online. You will nd out that you cant always please everyone with everything you post. Yet, having a strong, but small number of loyal followers who feel deeply connected to you is innitely better than tons of indifferent, tuned-out followers.
I do my best to make it so the watermark does not overpower the photo the ones I use are usually small, and sometimes even blended into the background so its not the rst thing you look at.
Nicole S Young
20
22
The image on the left is a good example, where the subject in the photo on the right is too small in thumbnail form to maintain impact.
24
Album Tips
ALBUMS ARE PORTFOLIOS Edit wisely as they are only as good as their weakest image! CHOOSE A POWERFUL ALBUM COVER When choosing an album cover photo, an image with too much detail will not resonate sufciently at its small size. Make sure the album cover images that are viewed rst are enticing enough to make followers want to click through and view the entire album. When a users mouse hovers over your album they will be able to view a slideshow of the rst ve images within the album. ORGANIZE YOUR ALBUM Go to Album Options menu and click edit. You can then drag photos into optimal display order. You can also drag photos and move them around by simply going into the album. You can also move photos from other albums into the relevant album they belong in. SHOW THE BEST IMAGE FIRST Arrange your albums to always display your most powerful body of images rst, to ensure you grab viewers attention. POST YOUR BEST WORK You dont have to post every single photo youve ever shot; as a professional photographer, your albums are not a personal archive. If you shoot an assignment or project and arent happy with the outcome, dont post the photos. Work that doesnt reect a strong aesthetic will only diminish the overall quality of your portfolio/ body of work. HIGHLIGHT PHOTOS YOU WANT TO EMPHASIZE If you want to make an individual photo the focal point of an album, click the star icon to enlarge the photos size in the album view. This gives you the ability to emphasize your strongest images and shape the storytelling aspect of the album. Trey Ratcliff
26
Timeline
Your timeline is a reection of your identity as a photographer and individual. It offers a lot of control in how you present yourself. Here are some key features to take advantage of: MILESTONES Timeline allows users to archive life events with a large image, date and caption. You can add milestones anywhere, at anytime, which is STARRING STORIES Hover over the story you want to star and click !. Starring stories lets you highlight what you think is important. Starred stories are highlighted on your timeline and include a star banner.
great for backdating. Lets say you took a few incredible shots a several years back at a New Years Eve party, mark it with a milestone and image. Backdating allows you to go back a number of years in order to give your Page and/or Prole depth and history. Remember, people love a good story, even if it is from years past. PINNING POSTS With the pin tool, make your most newsworthy photos and hottest Trey Ratcliff
Take your favorite photos and click that little Star - that makes them nice and wide across your timeline.
Trey Ratcliff
content stay at the top of your timeline for seven days. This feature helps users nd the information you nd to be most important.
28
Photos on Mobile
Facebook Mobile is an important tool in how you will update your fans and share content on Facebook. Its also the way that most of your fans and followers will engage with your content on Facebook, on their mobile devices. Its important to keep this in mind when you share content.
Pages Manager
If you use a Page to interact with fans and share your photos, you can use the Pages Manager mobile app to update and respond to fans while youre on the go. The app also makes it easy to track your progress and Page growth from your mobile device. Learn more about the app in the Help Center.
30