Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Photographers
We get to see more photographers get on Twitter every single day, and it’s fun to see. Since they live in a real world,where commerce is the engine that makes things move, Internet should be thought of as a marketing medium. Photographers should take advantage of the inline tools to market their work.
A few ways you can use Twitter as a marketing tool…
a. Use Twitter to replace e-mail
If you run a Twitter client in the background , then you’re in effect, always available via Twitter. If someone who follows you wants to send you a message they can do it at least as quickly (if not quicker) than they can via e-mail.
b. Use Twitter to replace RSS
When we post something new to the RSS feed, and to Twitter at the same time, depending on the time of day and day of the week, we can see that the Twitter audience is hitting the site harder than the RSS audience. It’s something to take note of if you use blogs or podcasts to promote or market your photography.
c.Showing the work is the most basic marketing activity a photographer can do. You can use Twitter to link directly to photos. Some photographers are building nice, organic followings by simply linking to a photo every day.
d.Contests/giveaways are effective when done well.
Keep them by sharing real, free, valuable information like photography tips, news about new gear or firmware updates, contests or shows and free tutorials, podcasts, blog posts, etc.
Many photographers (and people in the photography business) are testing and learning, playing with different methods, audiences, goals; examples abound, including Jeremy Cowart (@jeremycowart), Thomas Hawk etc
There are certainly benefits to having a large Twitter audience as there are in any media. If you build it well and provide something your audience cares about – they will come.
The REAL opportunity is in finding ways to use online and off line together; to integrate twitter, blogs, comments, communities, mailers, exhibits, books, etc. That’s where the real fun lies, and what few people do very well.
Source:http://photofocus.com/2009/04/28/how-photographers-can-use-twitter-as-a-marketing-tool/
