Don’t Blog
[By Leslie Burns-Dell’Acqua]
Here’s the thing about blogs: I don’t think you should do one.
Don’t do one if it is a chore. Don’t do one if you have nothing of yourself to offer to others. Don’t do one if you wont update it. Don’t do one if it is nothing more than links to others. Don’t do one if you have anger management issues. Don’t do one if you don’t make work regularly for yourself (and others) that you are willing to share. Don’t do one only if you think you are supposed to (same for any social media tool).
But, if you have things you are willing to and want to share with the world and you are willing to commit to updating regularly, then a blog can be a great tool in your marketing belt.
A blog can be a great alternative creative outlet for photographers. It’s a great space to share experimental work, things you are just playing with or giving a try, but aren’t yet fully committed to adding to your services. You can put videos on it. You can write about your process or share funny stories about how you saved the shoot when everything that could go wrong did go wrong. You can talk about how grateful you are to do what you do. You can talk about how fun it was to work with a particular client. There is a lot of good you can do with a blog.
Keep in mind that while a blog is a more “open” space, where you can get away with showing less-than-perfect work, and while other people who blog, especially non-photographers, often post rants and political diatribes on their blogs, for your purposes you should keep your blog mostly positive. People are more attracted to humor, helpful information, and interesting creative work of all kinds. Giving is much better than asking when it comes to your blog (in fact, selling on your blog is a quick road to alienating readers). And you must keep it updated regularly–that is, you must commit to a schedule of updates of at least once a week.
Blogs are fantastic tools to humanize your business. There you can reveal more about who you are and what it is like to be a part of your world. Being open and honest is important (but be careful of “over-sharing,” there are boundaries) so that your readers can connect with you. Offer your inner creative self to the world and you can touch targets and build a tribe of followers. All of which is not only good for your business, it’s good for you as an artist.Do
2 Responses to 'Don’t Blog'
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You make a very good point about sharing. That quality is exemplified by blogs authored by David Hobby (Strobist.com), Chase Jarvis (http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/), and Joe McNally (http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/) amongst others.
Bravo.