Social Media Mistakes to Avoid
Lesson 41 from: Developing a Social Media Strategy for PhotographersColby Brown
Social Media Mistakes to Avoid
Lesson 41 from: Developing a Social Media Strategy for PhotographersColby Brown
Lessons
Class Introduction
13:12 2Ages of the Internet
18:47 3What is Social Media?
06:36 4Social Media by the Numbers
08:19 5How Social Media Changed the Photo Industry
17:02 6Social Media Myths
19:13 7Finding Value in Social Media
38:58 8How does Noise Effect Social Media?
05:18The Rise of the Curated Feed
16:27 10The Longevity of a Social Media Post
07:13 11Tips for Creating Successful Posts
07:36 12Leveraging Facebook for Your Photography
33:40 13Importance of Instagram for Photograhers
19:12 14Why Use Snapchat?
09:07 15Using Twitter to your Advantage
08:22 16Tips for Leveraging LinkedIn
08:48 17The Benefits of Pinterest & Google+
11:17 18What is a Social Media Strategy?
32:28 19Social Media Strategy Hotseat
17:53 20Identify Why You're on Social Media
05:45 21What networks are right for you?
15:35 22Choosing your Online Personality
10:14 23The Role of the Website in Social Media
11:19 24Outdoor Photographer Case Study
22:58 25Wedding Photographer Case Study
16:01 26Fine Art Landscape Photographer Case Study
11:54 27Music & Event Photographer Case Study
16:51 28Advocacy & Viral Content Photographer Case Study
18:18 29Tips to Building Your Social Audience
19:20 30Identify Your Target Audience
24:24 31Paying to Play on Social Media
16:54 32The Anatomy of a Social Media Post
07:20 33The Value of Engagement
06:33 34The Value of Consistency
14:26 35Feeding the Social Media Monster
16:09 36Details of Posting on Social
07:17 37Tools to Manage Social Media Accounts
12:30 38Taking Advantage of Momentum
13:09 39Reflections from a Career Built Around Social Media
26:05 40Lessons Learned from Social Media
04:23 41Social Media Mistakes to Avoid
08:41 42Common Social Media Questions
25:44Lesson Info
Social Media Mistakes to Avoid
All right. So social media mistakes to avoid. That's a pretty good representation, right? How many times have you guys been online and you're like, "What happened? Oh, no." All right. So the first part, "Failing to Have a Strategy." Pretty self-evident. I kind of would be remiss if I didn't mention it since it's kind of in the title of this class. The idea is to create a strategy and have a plan of action. If you don't have a plan of action, it's very easy to be stagnant. Stagnation is a problem with social media. Everyone else is growing. Why shouldn't you? Having a planned out action makes it much more feasible for you to do so. We've given you lots of tools in order to help you create a plan of action here. So after watching this class, you have no excuse. "Spreading Yourself Too Thin." Don't put yourself on every social network. If you find on whatever social platforms you're using things are just becoming too overbearing, pull back a little bit. Nothing wrong with pulling back, co...
ntrolling a little bit more of the time you're spending doing social media, or building your business, or finding, you know, inspiration, or trying to learn about photography. Pull back a little bit. Don't spread yourself thin. "Playing the Numbers Game." Another mistake you want to avoid. Again, overall followers don't matter so much. It's the amount of engagement and the quality engagement that you get that generally turns into quantifiable value propositions for you. Whether it's financial or not, quality engagement matters, quality followers matter, quality content. Don't play the numbers game. Don't fixate and say, "I got 10,000 people," or, "I got 100 people," or whatever it is. Concentrate on the quality of what you're building, not necessarily just the quantity of it. "Growing the 'Wrong' Audience." Again, we talked about this. Depending on the target market audience you're going after, a lot of people grow the wrong audience in terms of connecting with the wrong people. Case in point, nature landscape photographers connecting with other nature landscape photographers, creating ads to market to nature landscape photographers, and then getting upset when they aren't selling prints. It's the wrong audience. You've got to change that around. You've got to figure out who your audience is and go after them. "Paying for Fake Followers." Again, numbers game, "Oh, I want lots of followers. I'm going to buy fake accounts." Those accounts generally have no interaction. It's complete inflation. It doesn't help you at all. Avoid it. Believing your followers see every post. I think most of us know or most of you guys that are, you know, interested in taking this class understand that algorithms are limiting so many things out there and there's so many variables in terms of what people see. You can control only so many of them, but you still have some sense of that control. So your followers are not going to see everything you have. Don't get upset with them. Don't think that your work isn't good enough. Understand how the system works so that you can figure out how to change the system, or at least game the system for your benefit. Talking about yourself too much, which is ironic coming from an individual that has just spent two days talking about myself and social media to all of you. But it's important. Again, we talked about before, people feeling stressed out about the idea of creating too much original content. It doesn't have to be about you. It shouldn't always be about you. Share other things. Get to learn about your followers. Ask them questions. Have that content become the focus of so many of the things that you're posting out there. There's a million things that you can do. It doesn't have to be about yourself. Don't neglect your audience. Again, this is the idea that you've built up a platform and then, all of a sudden, you neglect it for a few weeks. You will be penalized and it'll take a while to get back. "Taking Things Personally." It's hard for photographers. You post an image, your favorite image, you're upset that your photo of your coffee got more interaction, a photo of your cat. Cats are popular. Don't take it personally. There's a lot of variables at play in terms of social media, the benefits of social media, and as well as how your content is being perceived. "Forgetting the 'Social' Part of Social Media." Again, a lot of people are like, "Hey, I'm going to post." Then, when I post out I expect things to happen, it doesn't work out. You've got to work hard. You've got to build the audience. You've got to create the content. You've got to curate your followers. You've got to spur engagement. Don't cross-link. Crosslinking is spam, essentially. Don't sit there and every time you post, all of a sudden, instantly post to like every other network. I see photographers do it all the time, which is the quickest way for me to unfollow you if I am following you. People don't want to see it. If I'm following your Facebook page and your personal page, I'm going to see five different things if you're posting it, you know, from your Facebook page to your personal page. Or if you're in a bunch of groups and we're in them together, and you're posting to all those Facebook groups as well. I'm done. "Being a One-Trick Pony." So what I mean by this is just constantly posting the same exact thing all the time. Change things up a little bit from time to time. Try to figure out where your followers are. This is how you experiment. This is how you learn. This is how you grow. "Being Too Controversial." Again, it's not necessarily the idea that you can't talk about controversial things. It's just that if you have an opinion based on controversial subjects, expect there to be backlash. Controversial subjects generally require people to feel the need to express their dissatisfaction with your personal opinion in as vehement way as possible, typically, online and you don't want to encourage that. It's no place on your business pages if you have personal pages and especially if your brand is part of your personality. Just be careful. Understand there has to be lines. Don't pick fights whenever people do come out, and you have people sit there and give you a critique on your image. Because even though you didn't ask for it, let it slide. You don't need to jump in there and defend yourself, sit there and tell people how you edited your image. People come in and say, "Oh, this image looks Photoshopped." That's, you know, an adjective they like to use these days. "It's not real." Just smile, "Thanks for stopping by." No reason to jump in and pick fights. It's not going to help you. It's not going to help anyone. It doesn't help your image. It doesn't help their trust. Just let it be. "Sharing Too Much Content." Again, don't push too much stuff out there. You're going to drown out your followers. You're going to drown out your interest. You're going to sacrifice your engagement. Most people aren't going to see that stuff anyway. Don't share too much of it. "Don't Get Hacked." What I mean by this...Well, it's pretty simple. [inaudible] don't get hacked. But most social platforms now have two-factor authentication. So essentially, what you do is you set up where your phone is attached to your social media account. So anytime I log into Instagram, regardless of how I log into, a text message is sent to me, where I have a number that allows me to have confirmed access to log into said account regardless of what phone or device I'm on, regardless if it's mine that I've used before. I have the same thing set up on everyone of my social platforms. And if someone still hacks me, then they probably deserve to get in, anyway, because I'm impressed. But for the most part, try to make it hard to do. Don't open up, you know, crazy emails. If you have something you open up that has a link to Facebook, don't open it. Don't follow through with it. But set up things like two-factor authentication because it's exponentially more difficult to break through, and you don't want to have to deal with it. It's no fun. What a lot of people are doing these days or some people are doing these days is their accounts are getting hacked, and then they're being held for ransom. So then, you have to pay to have access back to your account. That's fun. So you don't want to have to deal with any of that stuff. Put the important measures in place. "Forgetting to Proofreeeed," "-reeeed." I had to make sure they didn't fix this when they were editing it. And this is actually a little bit of irony coming from myself because I am notoriously horrible at spelling and grammar. So everything that I push out there, I try to go through and have proofread by someone else. The nature of my personality. Just think about it when you're pushing stuff out there. You're having a big push, you've got beautiful content, and spell a word wrong. Autocorrect, that kills me all the time. I posted a photo about Hawaii the other day and a beautiful waterfall just north of Hilo called "Akaka Falls." Autocorrect turned it to "Alaska Falls." I had to jump back in when someone messaged me and said, "I think you meant this." Just try to think about proofreading and checking your stuff before it goes out. It's always helpful.
Ratings and Reviews
Giles Rocholl
This course is designed to help you develop a Social Media strategy if you are Photographer. I am a professional photographer with over 37 years of experience and although I know how to use Facebook and Instagram I didn't really understand how to use them to achieve business and personal goals. I started watching this course about 2 months ago and have just finished it due to work commitments. However I have put into practice his advice as I learnt new understanding and my following has grown rapidly. Also my work load and quality of assignment has increased dramatically too. It takes some brain rewiring to understand how social media has taken the place of many traditional media streams but Colby does an excellent job of painting a picture that helps hugely. The best thing about Colby's strategy is that it is real life, honest and something I feel I can personally and ethically live with happily. I happily endorse this course and recommend it.
Beatriz Stollnitz
I was very lucky to be in the audience for this class. Colby is an incredible instructor - he has the rare combination of being successful, knowledgeable and talented, but at the same time down to earth, approachable and genuinely willing to help others succeed. The content presented is actionable - I have so many ideas of things that I can do right now that can help my online presence! I can't wait to get started!
Rob Lettieri
I learned a few things I never knew...especially the whole inside scoop on LinkedIn....who knew??? Easy to listen to....a lot of deflection to later answers to questions...which would have made a director allow for less...why ask if you cant answer just then....and he says every question is a "great question" but it clearly isn't in a few cases....so credibility goes down...I understand positive enforcement for the millennials...but every question is not great. otherwise easy to follow and straightforward....