Maintaining Your Brand With Your Photography Blog

by Skip Cohen

This is an incredibly difficult time for all of us, especially photographers. Sadly, I'm hearing people who are sheltering in place with EVERYTHING, including their business and client relationships. Now is the time that social media can play it's most significant role ever in helping you maintain your presence and brand awareness.
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As I've written so many times before - your website is about what you sell, but your blog is about what's in your heart. So...USE YOUR BLOG to maintain contact with your clients. We're all in this together, and you've got a unique opportunity to be more helpful than at any time in the past.

The other day during the conversation with the f64 Lunch Bunch I mentioned sharing ideas on blog content. So, here's a starting list of topics, and I'll keep adding to it in the days ahead.
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• From one of the attendees with us at the lunch bunch: Convert your images to line art and send them to your clients for the kids to use as coloring book pages. (I love this one because kids are stuck at home with their parents and little to do. If you're a children and family photographer, then you've got images from past sittings to share with your clients - customized just for them!)
• Build a community calendar - Plenty of events have been canceled, but there are also plenty that have moved to cyberspace. Share the information with your readers.
• Share the Joy! This one came from Anne Geddes in yesterday's Lunch Bunch segment. She started requesting images from people that meant JOY. You've got a chance to do the same in your community and on your blog, Instagram page, and Facebook.
• Photo Tips - there are things you do every day that can help Mom and Dad become better photographers. Share a different idea each post about exposure, composition, posing, fill-flash, etc.
• Great places to photograph - share places in your community you like to photograph. 
• Gift ideas - you might be tired of canvas prints, but your clients aren't. Call your lab and ask, "What's new?" Personally, I love Bay Photo's Performance EXT Metal prints, and I've had a 30x40 sunset shot hanging in the sun and rain, outside by our pool for 18 months, and it's as beautiful as the day I took it out of the box. And check out Marathon's Bella Art Prints - they're knocking it out of the park with a growing selection of papers.
• Technology updates: Be a resource to your readers. What's new they might enjoy hearing about while they're hunkered down.
• Your favorite charity - the events might be postponed but not the need for the services they've been supporting.
• Important camera gear - This is a little more for the advanced reader, but again, you're the expert.
• Profiles in your community - share stories about people in your community.
• Pets of the community - Pets are always a strong subject and people love sharing and talking about them.
• Photo tips for kids - the kids are home - so give kids ideas on things to photograph. You might even want to set up a photo contest.
• Holiday Cards - it's early, but is it really? Now's a good time to get Mom thinking about images for her family cards this year.
• Stationery - images for thank you notes are ideal and something to design now. You've got the background to give them tips.
• How to be a storyteller - share ideas on how to tell a story with images.
• Slideshows - Pick a topic that's current now - it could be something as simple as cooking a family dinner together when everybody is stuck inside. 
• Throwback Thursday - I love Throwback images. Use them to remind your readers not just of better times, but how they'll come back. And this is a great way to remind Mom it's time for an updated family portrait.

This list is hardly all-inclusive, but it should give you a starting point to use some of this downtime to build content for the pipeline. When you've got a dozen posts ready to go...then start posting at least twice a week.

We'll get through this mess, and business and life will come back to some level of normalcy. In the meantime, you can be a leader in your community, and it's really simple - just be helpful!