Photography is a powerful tool to enhance your online presence, whether you are a business owner, a freelancer, a blogger, or a social media influencer. With high-quality images, you can showcase your products, services, skills, personality, and values to your target audience. In this article, you will learn how to use photography to improve your online presence in six simple steps.
The first step is to decide which online platform you want to focus on, depending on your goals, niche, and audience. For example, if you want to sell your products online, you might want to use an e-commerce site like Shopify or Etsy. If you want to share your expertise and opinions, you might want to use a blog platform like WordPress or Medium. If you want to grow your network and reputation, you might want to use a professional site like LinkedIn or Behance. If you want to engage with your followers and fans, you might want to use a social media site like Instagram or Facebook.
Choosing a platform is less about you and your business and more about whom you and your business are for. Know your audience and go where they are.
For photographers, platforms like Shopify or Etsy are your digital storefronts, perfect for selling prints or books. WordPress or Medium can be your online gallery, telling the stories behind each shot. LinkedIn showcases your professional portfolio to peers and clients, while Instagram or Facebook connect you with a vast audience to share your visual journey, one snapshot at a time. Each platform frames your work in a different light, so choose where your photos will shine the brightest. Each platform offers a unique lightbox to illuminate your work in its best light. We just have to be mindful while selecting.
Let me share with you my platform selection experience. I began concentrating on photographing corporate events, headshots, and other things a few years ago, and I used Instagram to market my business. However, for almost two months in a row, I failed to land any corporate clients, so I began to wonder why, and this is what I ultimately came to understand. First and foremost, we must comprehend the behavior of our customer. For instance, Imagine what would happen if someone tries to sell alcohol in a sacred space. The marketing must understand the behavior of the product. Is it preferable to market corporate centered B2B on Instagram or LinkedIn? Where will my potential clients be will determine where I chose to promote the business.
Your choice of platform depends on what you want to achieve as well as your end user. My colleagues and I are sports photographers which means we need to be able to send our photos to press agencies via technologies such as ftp. We also need the capability to allow organizations, individuals to be able to download photos from our portal. PhotoShelter is one example for such a powerful tool. Smugmug is another where you can also order prints.
The second step is to define your style, which is the visual identity of your online presence. Your style should reflect your brand, message, and personality, as well as appeal to your audience. To define your style, you need to consider elements such as color, lighting, composition, mood, and theme. For example, if you want to convey a sense of professionalism and trust, you might want to use a neutral or cool color palette, a balanced and clear composition, and a bright and crisp lighting. If you want to convey a sense of creativity and fun, you might want to use a vibrant or warm color palette, a dynamic and playful composition, and a soft and dreamy lighting.
Defining your style helps to create brand recognition and ultimately set you apart from your competitors. For this reason, a cohesive style is important across all platforms. Defining your style shouldn't stop at your photography, copywriting and messaging should also reflect your brand style.
One of the most important parts of creating own artistic style, is maintaining a consistency of the portfolio, in terms of composition and color. It has a positive impact on sales. Customers know what to expect and whether your style fits their vision and needs.
The third step is to plan your content, which is the substance of your online presence. Your content should be relevant, valuable, and engaging to your audience, as well as consistent with your style. To plan your content, you need to consider aspects such as purpose, format, frequency, and variety. For example, if you want to educate your audience about photography tips and tricks, you might want to use a tutorial or a guide format, post once or twice a week, and vary your topics from technical to creative. If you want to entertain your audience with your personal stories and experiences, you might want to use a vlog or a podcast format, post daily or biweekly, and vary your themes from humorous to inspirational.
Show your work, with the intention to engage your target audience. However, how to you engage a new audience that you hope will eventually become your target audience? To do that, it can be helpful to show some images from a personal interest type of photography project that is NOT your main business.
The fourth step is to shoot your photos, which is the execution of your online presence. Your photos should be high-quality, original, and attractive to your audience, as well as aligned with your style and content. To shoot your photos, you need to consider factors such as equipment, location, subject, and editing. For example, if you want to showcase your products online, you might want to use a DSLR or a mirrorless camera, a studio or a natural setting, your products and their features, and a minimal or a realistic editing. If you want to share your skills online, you might want to use a smartphone or a webcam, a home or a workplace, your work and your process, and a creative or a stylized editing.
There are many factors that go into great photography and finding a creative that understands all of these factors can be detrimental to elevating your brand and creating more sales. When in doubt, hire out!
What make a good 'technical" photo is very subjective. Sure, it can help to have "good" equipment but that is also debatable. No matter what equipment you use or have, if you can create an image that evokes an emotion, a curiosity, a reflective thought, or is interesting, that would an engaging image.
The fifth step is to optimize your photos, which is the optimization of your online presence. Your photos should be optimized for the web, which means they should be fast-loading, responsive, and searchable. To optimize your photos, you need to consider aspects such as size, resolution, format, and metadata. For example, if you want to upload your photos to an e-commerce site, you might want to reduce their size to less than 100 KB, their resolution to 72 dpi, their format to JPEG or PNG, and their metadata to include keywords and descriptions. If you want to upload your photos to a social media site, you might want to increase their size to fit the platform's dimensions, their resolution to 300 dpi, their format to GIF or MP4, and their metadata to include hashtags and captions.
One way to optimize your photos for web presence is by "saving images for web" in Photoshop. You can do this by going to File > Export > Save for web (legacy) or Option + Shift + Command + S (save) on a Mac computer. I set my images to JPG - High - Quality 60 This way of saving will give you the best option for fast-loading images on the web. Using the drop-down menu, you can choose what metadata to keep in the image when exporting. I typically keep "Copyright and Contact Info" included when exporting, but the option to strip or keep all metadata is also there. You can use alt-descriptions to add necessary metadata and descriptions for your images to come up when someone is searching.
Optimizing your photos helps with page load time and search engine optimization. Page load time is a factor in google rankings, and adding alt descriptions also helps to improve your SEO. It's important to use descriptions and keywords that your audience will be searching for. Research short-tail and long-tail keywords that are relevant to your audience and use these in your metadata and captions.
Any photo software has settings to export images that are optimized for your audience, whether it be for the web (low resolution), or printing (high resolution) etc.. Lots of online options to optimize your photos (e.g., squoosh)
Very usefull and practical help is provided by JPEGmini PRO software, that helps compress images to the smaller lighter format, without visible lowering quality.
The sixth and final step is to analyze your results, which is the evaluation of your online presence. Your results should be measured by the metrics that matter to you, such as traffic, conversions, engagement, or feedback. To analyze your results, you need to consider tools such as analytics, surveys, comments, or reviews. For example, if you want to measure the traffic to your blog, you might want to use Google Analytics or Jetpack to track the number of visitors, page views, bounce rate, and sources. If you want to measure the engagement on your Instagram, you might want to use Instagram Insights or Iconosquare to track the number of likes, comments, shares, and saves.
As a creative all this may actually make you share less rather than more photos of your work, your studio or your process. Remember that "done is better than perfect" and it is important not to force your creative process to comply with made-up lists of things to do. If some steps are necessary, fine, but be discerning and put the actual, fulfilling creation first, or you'll end up with an empty space where your art should have been