One of the things that I notice from reading my logs and various bits of server information is that my visitors are primarily interested in photography, rather than my photographs. Basically, I’m preaching to the choir here.  That’s OK with me, as I tend to do the same thing – I read other photographer’s blogs to pick up bits of knowledge, see their images, and perhaps get an idea to use.

Why do photographers write blogs? If all we wanted to do is share our photos, there are plenty of resources to accomplish that result. Some write to market their business. I write because I like writing and photography, so it combines two creative outlets into one.

While attending Photoshop World, I sat in a session including Scott Kelby & Matt Kloskowski appropriately titled Blogging for Photographers. Perhaps I was somewhat curious if I was doing it right.  Perhaps I was somewhat curious to see if I could do it better. At any rate, I’ll share some of the bullets that they presented and you can make up your own mind. Any comments of my own are in italics.

Why Blog?

• You become a publisher
• You build an audience
• You get to connect with people who have similar interests
• You are seen as an expert on your topic
• You will learn things from your audience
• Make money – note: Scott mentioned that some people make enough money from Google ads to make their car payment.

Blogging vs. Facebook/Twitter

note: The bullets about having more impact and reach than Facebook & Twitter are interesting. When you publish something on your blog, you reach every person who visited the site.  They come to you to get your message.  It’s different with Twitter, though. You may have thousands of followers, but how many of those people actually see your message at the time you post it? Certainly not all of them. More than likely, not even most of them. Facebook is much the same way – your message may get lost in the feed.  If the viewer isn’t ready when you publish, your message is lost.  This doesn’t happen with a blog.

The Secret to Success

• Be consistent
  • You must blog regularly (not necessarily daily)
  • At least 3 days a week
• How your blog looks matters
  • Get a great template. It’s gotta look cool – note: If you use WordPress (and you should), check out the commercial themes at WordPress.org. You can find some great stuff for very low prices.
  • Add images with posts – note: Scott mentioned it looks pretty bad for a photographer to blog without some images. Guess I’ve screwed that pooch a few times here.
• Everything you shoot, you blog
• Encourage comments
• Don’t feed the trolls
• Specialize in something
• Give something of value
• People love FAQs
• Do case studies
• List resources
• Interviews work very well – note: A comment about interviewing someone else is that it helps marketing. Your subject will likely link to your site regarding the interview, and you can link back. Mutual links, in turn, help build your page rank in search engines.
• Share personal stories
• Present your writing as you could normally speak. – note: In other words, don’t get pretentious with your writing if you aren’t pretentious with your speaking.  Use the same words you use when talking to someone. It should flow like a conversation.
• Find your blog’s voice
• Be honest.  Have an opinion
• Leverage Facebook & Twitter to drive traffic to your blog
• Offer to write articles for other blogs

Ways to Help Stick With It

Those bullets are the main notes that I took from the class, so let’s give credit to Scott and the other folks on the panel for this class. Something to keep in mind is that they presented this from the perspective of using the blog for your business.  I’m not in business, though. The following items are my own observations from my experience as an amateur photographer who likes to blog:

• Don’t regurgitate a press release and call it blogging. Cross-promotion is a good thing, but write your own content. Be original, even if you’re sharing someone else’s message. Tell us why you’re promoting this person, product or event. When I read the same press release on 12 blogs a day, I tend to wonder if I need to subscribe to all of those blogs on my Google Reader.
• Use WordPress.  It’s the best platform out there.  Almost every server host knows how to support it (they likely have an automatic installation), it’s free. There’s a huge development community that creates themes, plugins and other tools to customize your site.
• Be fair and consistent with comments people leave on your site. It’s your site and you make the rules, but apply them consistently so your users know what to expect.
• Schedule your posts. WordPress lets you create posts and schedule them to display at a future date and time. Just remember, it’s based upon the server’s clock, not your computer. Here’s an example from my schedule for this post:

Scott and the others stressed consistency. If you stop posting on the schedule you initially setup, your readers may stop coming back to your site. When they’re gone, they’re gone.  As I sat in the class and listened to those words, I couldn’t help reflect on the irony that I wasn’t updating my blog because I was at the conference learning that I should have updated my blog.

Sometimes you need to have a thick skin because the comments can get ugly. I haven’t really had problems like that here, but I’ve seen it happen on a number of other sites. People will say things in comments that they may never say to a person face to face. That’s why they gave the advice “don’t feed the trolls.”  You can’t win. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

I’ll close with one last thought. Have fun.  Enjoy your blog. It’s a good way to share with others and build a community, even if it turns out to be a small community. Sometimes it’s cathartic to open up and tell your story. Maybe you have some news that you just have to pass along. Whatever the case, be yourself and have fun with it.