Social Media Services
Many people who commission photography are unaware of the potential role that social media can play in their marketing plans.
Content is king, social search is queen
The reality is that just having a website for an event is no longer enough. Content is still king but social search is queen. Together the two can rule.
Photographic and social media expertise
Unlike most photographers I can bring a unique mix of photography and social media expertise to boost public awareness of your event.
This can be done by seeding social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Flickr with high quality photography which then encourages people to create their own content and so populate an event website with crowdsourced material.
There are three phases when this should be done. Let’s take a cultural festival as an example.
Phase 1. Raising awareness
This raises the initial awareness of the festival. Photographs of preview events and specific artists work are shot and posted on Flickr and Facebook and announced through Twitter with links back to the main event website. People are encouraged to think about taking their own photos at the festival.
Twitter should be used to start a conversation with the potential visitors to the festival. This is extremely important.
Phase 2. Involvement through crowdsourcing
Rolling coverage is added to the festival website and social networks are used to drive traffic towards the site. Users are again encouraged to comment on the festival and submit their own content. This gives them a sense of involvement with the festival.
Phase 3. Maintaining interest
It’s more than a little expensive to stage the festival for only a few days and then let people forget about it. Making the most of the user base that has been created by phases 1 and 2 extra content can be added to the main website over a period of weeks (or months if appropriate) to maintain interest and the profile of the festival in the publics mind.
This is especially important for annual festivals as it makes the task of promotion for the next year that much easier – and cheaper.
Integration of photographic and social media strategies
Of course there are right and wrong ways to do this and there needs to be complete integration of the photography and social media strategy at all stages. Social media architecture has to be well considered and robust.
This is where I can use my combination of skills to maximise return on investment.
