Time to Clean Up Your Blog

​by Skip Cohen

​I'm sticking with the "clean up" theme with another short list of ideas - this time for your blog. While social media reach constantly changes, a good blog can still help you inspire your target audience. Like "Subliminal Man" on an old episode of SNL, it's the perfect time to plant the seeds of ideas for the holidays.

But a good blog has to be relatable for your readership. Here are a few tips to clean up the process:
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• "Mom" Appeal: For most of you, your target audience is "Mom." Women make 98% of the purchase decisions to hire a professional photographer in the portrait/social categories. Your content needs to appeal to Mom, but so does the look and feel of your blog. 
• Gift Ideas: Share ideas on things to do with photographs. From frames to albums to canvas and prints, technology has made the choices to suggest virtually unlimited. I've written this before - photography is the perfect gift idea.
• Make Your Audience Better Artists: There are things you do daily as a photographer that you take for granted. Help your audience better capture images of their family - even if it's just with a cell phone. 
• Throwback Thursday: Use your throwback images to remind your audience how fast the kids are growing up and how their family is changing. 
• Be Consistent: Consistency is crucial in building readership, and if you find yourself blogging every full moon, you're better off shutting off the blog entirely and coming back when you can make the commitment it deserves.
• Build a Stash: Every post doesn't have to be done in real time. Build a stash of posts you can use, and then don't relaunch your blog until you've got 12-15 posts ready to go and in the pipeline. Then, alternate between posts in your stash and something fresh each week. 
• Guest Posts: Sharing and exchanging content with other artists helps you build stronger awareness. Look for partnerships where you swap material with other photographers and groups within your community.
• Support Your Community: Writing about upcoming community events gives you more traction in giving back. You'll likely find the sponsoring associations for each event you help publicize, sharing your information and helping you build more awareness.  

With just two months until seasonality officially kicks off, now is the time for you to start getting your audience thinking about the great ideas you can share, bringing them together with your skillset as an artist.