It is important to collect e-mails from people who like you and your work.  Collecting doesn’t mean you have to spam people, but a good list is very powerful in the development of your brand.

You should have an easy-to-find location where people can input their e-mail address in return for more information, newsletters, special offers or free product samples.

It’s also very important that you are honest with the people who have placed their trust in you.  Let them know how often they will receive information.  Let them know if you plan on sending special offers.  Let them know you will not share or sell their e-mail address.

Always follow the rules of the CAN-SPAM act.  Make sure that you give everyone an opportunity to opt out of your e-mail campaigns whether you are selling something or not.   If you have a large list, don’t use your personal e-mail to deliver them.  It can be very harmful if you are pegged as a spammer by a major e-mail service provider.  I highly recommend using a service.

Often people who share their e-mail with you are a part of your community. Taking actions that would turn them off can be very damaging.  Take a moment to review your Web site and ask yourself if you are missing a great opportunity.

Rosh

WordPress is an amazing platform.  The plug-ins available make it even better.  Here are a few plug-ins I use for my blogs and Web sites.  Most of these plug-ins are available at http://www.wordpress.org.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important part of growing your blog. I would recommend either of these SEO plug-ins every time you start a new blog:  All in one SEO Pack and Platinum SEO Pack
• Google xml site maps: Site maps help Google and other search engines find all our your pages.
• Ultimate Google Analytics, Google Analyticator or Google Analytics for WordPress: All three of these allow you to use your Google analytics with WordPress.
• Sociable:  Automatically places buttons at the base of each post so visitors can share your content at their favorite social media sites.
• WordPress Stats: This is the standard for keeping track of basic statistics for WordPress blogs. Cystats in another one I’ll plug in once in a while.
• Podcasting: I use both podpress and podcasting for sharing my podcasts
• eShop has worked well for e-commerce.
• Zemanta: This plug-in gives you contextual content recommendations. I like this plug-in because it helps save me time trying to think of all the key words I need for post tags.
• WishList: If you want create  a membership site, try WishList. This is not a free plug-in, but worth the money.  They really are engaging their users with support and information. http://member.wpwishlist.com/
• I’ve been using Simpe:press for the forum at prosperousartists.com.  It has a ton of features.  If you are not interested in a lot of features I’ve also heard good things about WP Form.
• WP super cache is a good plug-in if you are looking to increase load time speed.  I’ve used it.  It’s a pain if you are updating your settings on your blog.  Make sure you deactivate it if you have a lot of work to do.

I don’t use these plug-ins, but I’ve heard good reviews:

• NextGEN Gallery: Flash gallery to display your photographs, it’s always been a popular choice.
• HeadSpace2 SEO
• Contact form 7

When I was a kid I liked to play with a rectangular wooden block.  I called it my ultimate device.  It could do anything.

I’ve not forgotten that device. I’m reminded of it continuously by advances in technology.

Today’s smart phones and the applications created for them are amazing.  I’m coming close to declaring these hand-held pieces of technology equal to my childhood ultimate device.

I’m a big Apple fan.  My first Apple was an Apple IIe.  My family had the first Mac and my parents published one of the first books created on the Mac platform in the mid  1980s.  I really would like an iPhone, but until Verizon and Apple decide they can be friends and place nice together, I’m out of luck. (Maybe I’m just stubborn.)

Last weekend I went swimming. So did my phone. I forgot to take it out of the pocket on my bathing suit.

The next day, I went to the Verizon store to see what was available to replace my waterlogged phone.  I looked at the Blackberry, but ultimately couldn’t justify adding another  $30 to my monthly cell phone bill.

LG released the new enV Touch (Voyager upgrade) at the beginning of June.  I like its features and selected it as my new phone. 

The enV Touch has both a touch-screen system and keyboard with a second screen inside. I’m amazed what these little boxes of technology can do:

The most important feature for me, as photographer, is the ability to display my portfolio.  It is a great advantage to have portfolio images available anytime an opportunity arises.

I need e-mail while on the road and I need a good system to view my feeds and listen to podcasts while I travel.

I’m able to organize my music and podcasts with the MP3 player.

I’m hooked up to all of my e-mail accounts and have the home page of my browser set on my Google reader page.

I have quick buttons that take me to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, favorite photos, videos and important contacts.

I have a voice-controlled GPS navigation system, 3.2 MP camera and video. Another bonus: editing features. I can edit both images and video in the camera.  Plus, it has an automatic blemish-removing mode; smile detector, color correction, macro- and manual focus.

The name card reader threw me for a loop. This feature allows you to take a photo of a business card. The phone’s technology automatically converts the image information (name, phone numbers and e-mail address) and places it in your contacts files.

Those of you with the really smart phones are yawning.  I’m familiar with the latest technology. But, being able to incorporate it into my daily work flow is new for me. I’m having a blast.

As soon as these little boxes are able to teleport me to Mars and shoot a devastating death ray at a moment’s notice, I will officially declare the arrival of the ultimate devices created in the imagination of my youth.

Rosh

Photographer Dave Warner is doing an excellent job interviewing Canon shooters at his blog and podcast Lensflare35.com.

His blog and podcast are young, but I find them well done and an enjoyable listen.  One nice thing he does is create a slide show of the photographer’s work to accompany the interview. Here is the narrative slide show he created of my work and a link to the podcast interview about my photography history.  Of course, we talk a little social media, too.

Lens flare 35 podcast interview with Rosh Sillars by Dave Warner. Click here.

New media photographer show notes:

This week Rosh talks about social media analytics and lighting.

Subscribe in itunes, click here

 

 Standard Podcast [20:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

When I teach my photography classes at the local universities one of the first questions I ask my students is how many lights do you start with to create an image?

The students typically guess one, two, three or four lights.  Then I explain to my class that I’m going to ask a second  question that will answer the first one. If they get the question wrong, they will fail the class.  I tell them that I’ll know if they get question wrong, because I’ll be able to see it in their eyes.

The question: How many suns do we have?

For those of you who may not know: We have one sun and it casts one shadow.

I feel too many photographers think shadows are bad.  It seems their goal is to light an object until every bit of shadow is eliminated.  In doing this they remove all character from the image.

There is nothing wrong with using more than one light in support of your main light. I consider the sun as the first light.   If I don’t have the sun to work with,  I’ll set up my first strobe.  Next, I consider what quality of  light I want for the image.

I have many options.  If I’m looking for a soft light, I can bounce it off a wall or an umbrella.  I can shoot though soft material or use a light box.

If I want harsh light, I can point the unfiltered light directly at the subject. I can also shape light with grids or shooting through a design of my own making.

Another important consideration are the ambient lights, if any, in the scene.  The photographer should consider if he can use it to his advantage.  Ask yourself: Should I slow down the shutter to include ambient light? Should I increase the shutter or power of my strobes to eliminate the light?

For my support lights I’ll make the same considerations as the primary light, but I might add a filter or color.

Additional spot grids often have interesting looks.  If I don’t want to use an additional light I can use a reflector. I have reflectors that contain multiple surfaces for different effects. Sometimes I’m looking for the crispness of the silver reflector, the softness of the white reflector or the warmth of the gold reflector.

I ask this question often on exams and students still get it wrong, even though I cover the answer in class: If you bounce light off a green wall, what color will bounce back?  Green, of course.

Lighting doesn’t have to be complex or hard.  Start with one light.  Decide on the quality of the light you are looking for in your scene.  Use supporting lights to your taste, desire and vision.

Rosh

When talking about analytics, we are usually referring to hard marketing: banner ads, AdWords and e-mail.  Our goal is to generate the best return on investment or ROI.

In social media, ROI stands for return on influence.  The influence and the trust we earn through our positive actions in the social media offer great rewards.

It is hard to measure the influence we’ve earned in the social media, but new technology is being developed regularly to help us measure the effectiveness of our actions.

Some basic measurements will always be important, such as subscribing to Google Alerts and using Twitter search effectively to keep track of who is talking about you or your company.

The grader Web sites such as Twitter grader and Facebook grader are a good starting measure of how well you are using various platforms based on Hubspots measure.

One of the key first statistics of how well your blog is doing is based on unique visitors. You can use sites like compete.com or Google Analytics to discover your visitor counts as well as from where your traffic originates.

Next are your subscribers. Using a service such as FeedBurner allows you to keep tabs on the number of people who have selected the option to receive your RSS feed in their favorite reader or e-mail.

Comments to your blog are a measure of community. Many bloggers are noticing a drop in the number of comments to their blogs, which may be attributed to people expressing their opinions elsewhere, such as Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets.

The link-shortening sites are developing into excellent jumping off points to post information in the social media.  Sites like bit.ly are now offering more than just link shortening. They also have basic analytics for each of your posts submitted through the service.  The measurements are basic,  such as a timeline, number of clicks and retweets. But, this is more information than we’ve had in the past.

Su.pr, still in beta, is taking link shortening to a new level by combining the valuable StumbleUpon service with unique analytics.

There are few sites that offer free analytics designed for social media.  The link-shortening sites offer promise until similar and expanded solutions are integrated into our favorite social media platforms.

If you are interested in more powerful paid services, consider omniture.com, which just released analytics for Facebook along with their other suite of online tools; Sysomos, which offers its “business intelligence for social media” with free tools due out later this year; and Radian 6, which has developed an excellent reputation for it social media monitoring for companies.

The future is still wide open. Quality analytic tools for social media are still being developed. My observation and instincts tell me the new tools will be coming fast over the next year.  Keep an eye out and share them with us.

New media photographer show notes:

This week Rosh talks about new Web sites for the photographer and your opinions, are they costing you business?

Subscribe in itunes, click here

 

 Podcast 54 [20:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

virl.com This site is a photo upload and link shortening Web site for social media.

Jotpix.com This site might be interesting for location scouting, if it takes off.

screentweet.com Share photographs, screen shots and videos on Twitter.

pubclip.com (paid service) Multi-media creation service for your web site or blog.

expono.com “Feature rich” social photography sharing service.

fotopedia.com Collaborative photography encyclopedia. (It has received a lot of press)

photoartgallery.com Photography art gallery to show, share, buy and sell photographs.

twitcaps.com Watch a continuous photography feed of  images being shared on Twitter.

http://picfog.com Watch a continuous photography feed from the internet (similar to twitcaps.com)

http://twitvid.io This is another Twitter video sharing platform.

aviary.com They are still launching excellent new Web based tools for photographers.  The newest is called Falcon.

fotomoto.com Sell you images online.  I’ve still not fully reviewed this site as intended. But, it is still worth another mention based photographers comments and reviews.

Glow Doodle: Create fun long exposures with your web cam.

I tend to focus on social media.  It’s a natural fit for me.  But, once in a while it is important to point out social media doesn’t replace your other marketing efforts.  It’s an extension of them.

I refer to by-the-numbers advertising as hard marketing.  This type of marketing is just as important as any of your other methods.  AdWords, direct mail, e-mail campaigns, print, radio or TV advertising all can play a role in the growth of your business.

But, if you don’t test and track your campaigns, you are wasting money and opportunity.  The ability to test headlines with Google AdWords or on Twitter is very easy and inexpensive.

The reality is that when you create hard marketing messages you have no idea what will work.  Your opinion doesn’t count.

Today you can test just about anything.  My sales representative told me she saw an airplane flying an advertising banner over a busy thoroughfare the other day. My first thought:  Is this an effective advertising method?

A few other folks I talked to that day also saw the aerial ad for the local car dealership. I’m assuming the campaign is working. After all, everyone in this town knows the name of that car dealership.

Ultimately, I don’t know if the campaign is effective to the company’s bottom line.  But, today’s testing methods could help the car dealership find out.

How is this done? Ideas include creating a Web page, or a contest with prizes based on viewing the banner’s message, and testing different banner colors and messages. Response rates could be tested using unique landing pages, phone numbers or polls.

The point is not for you to hire a plane with a banner to get your message across. The point is you really can test almost everything.  Your marketing opinions could be losing you money.  Take the time to test.  Use the readily available tools on the Internet to support your efforts and maximize your marketing dollars.